Justice League #9 Preview and Discussion

[Desaad]

When i'm wrong, i'm the first to admit it. This was good! I liked it!!!

- Action with actual character moments.
- Nice sense of humor
- Everything about Trevor
- The bad guy seems to know how to get to them and hurt them.
- Nice camaraderie between the leaguers.


I do have some complaints though:

- Graves is mad that the JL didnt cure him from cancer? Is this like the Grounded story where that lady dissed Superman for not saving her husband from cancer? I'll hold my judgement till i'm sure, but if that's the case then this would be f***ing stupid.

For what it is worth, I don't think that is the case. From what I saw, he didn't even ask the league to help him with cancer. From the looks of things, the League didnt' save his family from something, and that is what makes him bitter. He's using that as a platform to say that he felt they would be far more transformative than they have been, but Johns always grounds these things in very personal, petty motives, and that is the main one here.

That said, if he does go on to expound upon how the league should have been better, made a change, etc it could very well be a meta commentary on comics in general, maybe on the Flashpoint relaunch, etc.

- Pages wasted on crap. I wanted more of the good stuff, not 3 pages on Hal and Barry playing good cop - bad cop, not a whole page of Grave's living room with the dead doctor! Come on, give me more story!

Good cop bad cop was the best of the issue!

[Jason456701]

This issue was so much better than I hoped it could be thanks to my low expectations. I really enjoyed this we had character moments and action. I'm really enjoying the backup story of S.H.A.Z.A.M. and really liked how Billy was a tiny bit badass, but im still not really liking Sivana's new new look its starting to grow on me a bit but still preferred his old look.

[Shinomune]

Was the first Batman scene a reference to Rolling Stones Paint it Black?

Paint it Black? AWESOME!

[DarkKnghtJared]

I really enjoyed this--moved at a good pace, had some fun/interesting character moments for all the main players, and I'm curious to see what Graves' deal is.

[crossbones]

best issue so far and i've liked them all... but after the first arc it just keeps getting better and better. Shazam was also very enjoyable.

best book i read all day and i picked up quite a few.

[shingi70]

So spoilers?

[batmanjones]

best issue so far

Ditto.

This was the Geoff Johns Justice League I've been waiting for.

[Godisnowhere]

One of the better issues to date. I felt I got to know the Leaguers character a bit more and how they work as a team. Superman actually got to speak! Liked Cyborg linking into Batmans computer. Also Hal and Barry's banter.

Nice set up for Graves. Part of me wonders if it isn't Steve Trevor on the villains journey or if he'll just serve as the counterpoint to Graves?

Bad part. No Aquaman.

DC's subscription cancellations have me worried about their Aquaman plans

[Sacred Knight]

I doubt they're transforming Steve into a villain. However I do believe these events will serve adequately in driving the wedge between him and the group and at least helps to lead toward the warring JL factions that is coming up down the road.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Good cop bad cop was the best of the issue!

I disagree, For me, it was the only bit of the JL I didn`t like, mainly because of Barry - which is ironic really, because until this issue Barry was the only character I thought Johns was writing nicely. Nevertheless, this issue was much, much better than every one before it. It makes me think that the book should have started at this point and left the origins to told later.

The new characterization for Billy, I still hate, sadly. Better, but still don`t like it.

[Retro315]

How did he do that? The line about Gotham having a really high murder rate? Well, yeah. I thought that was pretty obvious and has been the case for years. Have you seen how many criminals are in that place?

Gotham's always been a bit of a two-faced town, and while the pun isn't intended to imply Two-Face, I am sort of now envisioning a storyline where Two-Face could be used to explore both halves. Morrison gets into this a lot though, in interviews, where he imagines that the reason people keep coming to Gotham and keep it thriving (as opposed to say, Hub City, which was basically abandoned by all but the ultra-corrupt and ultra-low). Anyway he usually mentions a lot of things that relate to the themes built into Batman's world; that Gotham's got to have the best art and theater scene in the world, because just look at how creative and theatrical even its criminals are.

Those high murder rates are probably mostly localized in very specific neighborhoods, and like in most modern cities, a huge majority of them are probably drug-related, as opposed to there being 50 serial killers running around and constant innocent victims. That said, Gotham's still probably a leading contender in those types of murders, too.

I really liked this issue and its peek into the Leaguers' lives as they relate to their super-adventure team-ups. The Clark bit really rang true to me (I've always thought Johns does a pretty basic and down-to-earth depiction of Clark at work). Factoring in the newer levels of nerdiness in Clark made it all the better when he got overlooked by his contemporaries ... but then a freaking super-cool billionaire, probably the coolest man on Earth, texts him to hang out.

The other guys were great too; no Aquaman this issue was certainly conspicuous but also indicates he might be the key player or wildcard later on in the arc as Graves' plot threatens things.

What else did I love? That Graves was basically forcing the information out of two of the JLA's "very first ever super-villains". Johns loves making continuity work with his own narrative, from the hints that the Starro battle that was originally the "First Team-Up" happens right after the first arc, to using these two old-school JLA villains, Key and Weapons Master (Key even sporting his Morrison-era looks indicates that the collective history still exists, even if it's condensed and not "holistic".). And having the team split up was a great way to explore them as well. It was a tight narrative, far more promising than the kind of decompression of the first arc.

Man I feel bad for Steve. Graves has got to get his comeuppance - hopefully Steve does it. Or Diana. I'm really curious to see if any other OG villains show up; I feel like Kanjar Ro and Despero are a little too power-house for Graves to walk all over ... not guys he can just go grind information out of. Despero would probably wipe him out. And I was half-expecting an original villain team-up, working as flunkies for Graves so I was pleased to see him just using them and tossing them, leaving them afraid.

Naturally I wonder how he went about transitioning from dying-from-whatever to craggly ancient armor-skin.

Back-up was great, the way Johns is subverting some of the cliches. Sivana's still weird. Still, it feels like it's moving along - like this show of humanity or bravery or whatever is the only one "required" before things can really speed into magic coolness. The sooner Tawny shows up, the better, and I don't just mean in a cameo at the zoo in a cage.

[Retro315]

It was two people on the news debating. The other person then countered that by saying Batman is proving that there's something worth fighting for by staying in Gotham. Also, and even so, the idea of "Bruce's mission is doomed from the start as he can't ever stop all the crime in Gotham" isn't anything new being put forward by Johns to express that Batman sucks, it's basically always been used to show how committed Bruce is.

There's also the implication that, even if the mission is doomed ... Bruce you know, "enjoys" dressing up in a costume and going out and kicking ass, helping people, and having wild adventures. Which is appropriate to explore in the Justice League book where he teams up with other adventurers and compares notes at club meetings in their space tree-fort.

Two things gave Bruce his childhood back. Dick Grayson coming into his life, and hanging out with the League. He's still going to be the grim, slightly morose guy a lot of the time because he's a stoic kind of guy ... but when your best friend is Apollo Jesus Space Messiah and the rest of the gang, you know ... fun is allowed.

[HXHAlex]

I think this is the best example I've seen of how beautiful Superman's new suit can look

[Retro315]

Oh last thing; Bruce musing on the Thomas Wayne note from Flashpoint - that piqued my interest a little. It's an artifact from a different timeline, prior to Pandora's little gambit. I don't know that Johns would actually just show it because he's all stoked on his super-cool little "Thomas Wayne Letter". I'm pretty sure showing it indicates it'll be important somehow beyond being important to Bruce.

[Retro315]

I think this is the best example I've seen of how beautiful Superman's new suit can look

Good example of the heat vision, too - since Morrison started doing the clarification of the eye-spectrum-visions in Action, I just don't like seeing the red laser beams anymore. I just want to see the eyes go red and things wig out, or stuff like this where you're inside the beam. It's one of comics most epic, original special effects and artists need to go wild with it.