Justice League 3000 #1

See, Aquaman lovers? That jerk didn't have any staying power!

Does this story take place in the year 3000 or is this the 3000th incarnation of the Justice League? Perhaps this takes place on Earth 3000? It's by Giffen and Dematteis but I have a feeling it's going to have far less Oreos than their old version of the Justice League.

The year is 3013 or something. The world is Bradbury Seven. The solar system is the Hanuman System. That sounds a lot like Human System! And the destroyed moon looks a lot like Earth's moon. And Earth is the seventh planet inward in our system if Pluto or one of its twins regains planetary status at some point. Or maybe on the way into our Solar System, it's quite obvious that Planet X exists out past Pluto and its brothers and sisters. The language is practically English except backwards as you can see from the beggar's board:

"Please feed me. Starving Artist."

Apparently ten years ago, everything was wonderful. But then, the narrator goes on to explain, The Five came. Right on everybody's faces. BLOOOORT! Party. Over.

When I say the party was over, I mean the power went out and the cake was left in the fucking rain. And it wasn't just on Bradbury 7. This happened across a thousand worlds! That's a lot of worlds. Although, on a universal scale, it's practically nothing. So I guess this is just a small time story about a scant few billion people affected by five big jerko cosmic terrorists.

It's also about one lone woman on the run: Ariel Masters! She has access to something called a Holo-Suit but she's been tracked down by agents of Cadmus who run something called The Project which, it sounds like, Ariel started but now refuses to be a part of. It's all very first issue and mysterious! Hopefully it remains this way as the story builds instead of dropping a "five years earlier" box on us.

Her ex-partners, The Twins, lay some more history out for the reader. Someone called The Convert seems to be the big fascist whatsit that had all the trains running on time and everybody living a life of peace. But not happiness which seems to be why Ariel and The Project and Cadmus came along. Maybe. To create heroes to liberate everyone. But those heroes seem to have caused more trouble than Ariel expected by destroying important infrastructure in The Convert's Commenwealth, causing lots and lots of collateral damage which means dead innocents but sounds better. So Ariel ran while the Twins, Teri and Terry, still believed in the cause.

Unless I got most of that wrong! I'm only five pages in and trying to put together all of the clues from the dialogue! Keith Giffen never makes anything super easy to understand. He's not getting paid to hold your stupid, cute hand.

This is Teri and she's trying her best to make me forget about Tig.

Meanwhile JL3K (which almost looks like "jerko" if you poke yourself in the eye and read it through your salty, salty tears) are busy beating the crap out of a bunch of people that are supposedly possessed by The Convert. I think "possessed" might be too strong a word. I think "were shown a better way of living and decided to side with The Convert" is probably more accurate. But then I'm only like eight pages into this comic book, so what the fuck do I know? Plus I keep thinking about Teri kissing me softly and handing me a big basket of tater tots. Man, Tig would never have done that for me! And after I let her suck my blood and eat my soul every time she needed a little something something!

Oh, I forgive you, Tig! I can never stay pretend mad at her!

Here are Superman and Batman picking up their rivalry right where they left off one thousand years ago.

JL3K have been programmed to be copies of the old Justice League that existed before "The Great Disaster." That was probably when Tim Drake as Vampire Harvest time traveled one too many times and blew one of the universe's chronological fuses, thus destroying nearly all sentient life in the universe. But Terry (not the Teri I love with all of my heart! Except the part that belongs to Tig!) believes they're not just programmed but somehow are the originals. Let's see...Wonder Woman full of passionate intensity. Batman calling Superman a jackass. Superman smug and full of himself. The Flash doubting his own thoughts. Green Lantern being called Hal. Yeah, they seem exactly like the originals to me! I bet after they're done with this mission, they'll go out for hotdogs and have a good laugh about their old friend, Arthur Curry.

Okay, so these guys aren't the five that fucked everything up. They're the five that were created to save the Commonwealth from the five but Ariel seems to think they're worse than the other five which is why she wants no part of them anymore. Maybe?

So Cadmus had samples of the Justice League's DNA on hand for a thousand years. And Ariel Masters came up with the idea to bring back the Justice League using the genetic samples. So now Cadmus has five super heroes that sort of vaguely remember who they were and act somewhat like the people they were but in exaggerated ways. JL3K were brought back to defeat The Five, one of which is The Convert. Were The Five also Cadmus experiments in bringing back heroes (or villains) from the past using genetic samples? Yeah, probably. So who would The Convert be? Who can control people using only their minds? Oh! Aquaman! Maybe that's where he is!

Teri and Terry's assessment of JL3K.

Justice League 3000 Rating: Oh, I liked this so I'll start it at Rank 20. It's got just enough tie to The New 52 to use that continuity to keep the characters interesting by playing off the dynamic of who they were but it's also got a heaping helping of Elseworlds to it so that Giffen and Dematteis can really do anything they want. And I like that aspect of it. I hope they go crazy with the possibilities.