Broken Frontier

Dwayne McDuffie begins his run on JLA with this Ollie/Dinah tie-in special, though the meat of its matter lies in the revivification of the Injustice League.

All the heroes gather at either Green Arrow’s bachelor party or Black Canary’s bachelorette; meanwhile Lex Luthor, Joker, and the Cheetah gather together the baddest of the bad guys and execute an unexpected attack on Jason Rusch, the boy otherwise known as Firestorm.  The pre-marital festivities are then cut short when news of the assault reaches the League, and the groundwork is quickly laid for the next major JLA storyline.

McDuffie picks up where he left off in the final issues of Firestorm; McDuffie, being one of the few prominent black comic authors around, naturally tweaks the League’s current Meltzzer-roster by adding both Rusch and John Stewart to the ranks, two of the more  prominent black heroes in the DCU that simply aren’t getting the face time they deserve.  The party scenes are entertaining, with honest characterization and dialogue, though nothing groundbreaking.  Indeed, little about this special is special in the least.  McDuffie is a strong scripter, but whatever gripping ideas he has in store for his JLA readership, he doesn’t display them here.

The idea of bringing together yet another Injustice League, an “Unlimited” version that seems no different from the concept of the exceedingly recent Secret Society of Super-Villains, and also taking into mind that most of this new Injustice League’s members are soon to be kidnapped to take part in a major event on another planet within the upcoming Countdown mini-series Salvation Run, it’s difficult to understand what the purpose of this storyarc is.  Will it have any major impact on either the villains or the heroes?  Can this iteration of the Injustice League last long beyond the next three issues of Justice League of America ?  Can forming yet another army of villains be something any DCU villain would actually get behind after the travesty that was the Society, which, in comic time, occurred only a little over a year ago?  Sadly, all the evidence points to “no,” for all these questions, and pre-supposes this storyline to being a meaningless one.

So conceptually a tired idea, if, yes, a classic one, though it’s also baffling and irritating in its timing.  Outside of the larger DCU perspective, however, this Wedding Special is actually a fun read, with well scripted banter, great action, and the most in-character Joker and Lex Luthor I’ve read in many a moon.  If nothing else, “Unlimited” should be a well written storyline, and definitely the most old-school JLA adventure since Meltzer took over and turned it into a daytime television drama.

Mike McKone handles the art chores for this one-shot, and his work is always a pleasure: indelibly clean linework, perfectly paced, with strong layouts.  Buttressed by inker Andy Lanning and regular JLA colorist Pete Pantazis, Justice League of America: Wedding Special is nothing less than an annual of old, an oversized story that ties into the regular series with a respectable art team all its own.

If you plan on sticking with the JLA ongoing (and come on, what DCU reader isn’t?), then the Wedding Special is well worthwhile, if not entirely integral (you could probably catch up with relative ease in issue #13, but unless you’re truly destitute, why would you?).  It’s just the beginning of a larger hero/villain throw-down, and one that won’t necessarily be much in the grander scheme of things, but it should nonetheless be a blast, and I suppose its lack of connection to everything else in the currently crossover-happy DCU will allow this story to stand on its own, one of the very few to do so for all you who despise having to buy all the tie-in/to-be-continued-in crap.  Now if only it could be stand-alone and make sense with the rest of it, then we’d be getting somewhere.