Justice League #3

JL #3 begins with Steve Trevor freaking out about Diana having escaped some government facility where he was keeping her out of trouble. Which makes me wonder: How much of our knowledge of the old DC Universe's history are we supposed to be relying on to understand what's going on in this new reboot? We've learned a tiny bit about what's happened in the time before this five years in the past moment. Flash and Green Lantern have apparently teamed up once to defeat Gorilla Grodd in Central City and have come to know each other fairly well. Batman has been active enough to become an Urban Legend that even people outside of Gotham City have heard about. Superman doesn't really seem to have any sort of past. He's squatting in an abandoned Daily Planet building and doesn't seem to have a secret identity. Wonder Woman, we find out in this issue, was brought back from Paradise Island by Steve Trevor after his test plane crash landed there. Oh, we also learn that Jim Lee is just another artist who draw children as if they're just tiny adults.




And is there going to be continuity between this title and all of the JL Members individual titles? At the end of the 52 maxiseries, the DC Universe had been broken up into 52 dimensions. So is each comic title supposed to be an individual dimension and thus have no relation to any other comic? Or should I believe that the comics grouped together in The New 52 #1 collection are supposed to be in the same universe? That would place Justice League, Justice League International, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Captain Atom, Firestorm, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Mr. Terrific and DC Universe Presents Deadman in the same Universe. If that isn't meant to mean anything, why are they grouped at all in The New 52 collected book?

I think I'll just take them all as individual universes for now. It seems the way DC wanted it by the end of 52. And it keeps continuity easy because continuity only exists within each title. But then how are they going to have Crossover events?!

I'm also now wondering where exactly is Metropolis and Gotham City located in this Universe's United States? Apparently the last couple of Universes never could quite pinpoint them in space. But here we already see that Gotham City and Metropolis are a plane's flight away from each other with Detroit lying somewhere along that path (since we see Green Lantern's plane fly over Victor Stone's football game). Gotham is probably still located on the Eastern Seaboard, probably in the New York City/New Jersey area. Metropolis is possibly in Kansas (most likely, historically) or possibly Iowa. Looking at a map of the United States, Green Lantern's flight pather over Detroit doesn't make any sense, so Green Lantern probably got lost along the way.

Where was I? Parademons have busted loose from all the Boom Cubes and are beginning to grab people and fly away. Victor Stone is burning to death. Wonder Woman is having a great time killing her modern day harpies. And the other guys are doing something somewhere as well. Probably seeing who can pee the furthest. Oh no, they're fighting Parademons as well!


So far, I'm really liking Flash! And Batman is a close second.


But Superman is really going to have to work on his witty banter if we're going to be friends. What does that even mean, Superman?! It would make sense if you were hitting them with a camera! But a truck?!

So the guys beat up on some Parademons some more and we see them flying over a big body of water. Maybe I need to rethink that thing about Metropolis being in Kansas. Especially since Wonder Woman suddenly shows up to join the fight and she had just been in Washington, D.C.! So either Gotham is in Minnesota or Green Lantern really got fucking lost.

Meanwhile, Vic Stone is in a lot of trouble.

He's going into cardiac arrest with his heart racing up his spinal cord? Or is it the cardiac arrest racing up his spinal cord? Oh, probably the energy that is devouring him! Of course, that's T.O. Morrow with the medical know how and we all know how crazy he's going to turn out to be! Don't we?! Just ask Dr. Magnus!

One thing I'm realizing now that I'm reading comics again is that I've retained a whole lot of useless comic book knowledge that had no outlet until now!

Back to saving Victor Stone. They apparently fill him with Nanites recovered from...well, Dr. Morrow never finishes his sentence so we don't really know yet what Cyborg is going to be made from. But he seems to have some kind of mind-link with Darkseid because of the Nanites. So they must be Apokolypsian!

Flip flop yet again back to the Parademon fight! Green Lantern actually says, "Out of the ocean," when they see some great monolith rise up. So Metropolis is definitely on the eastern seaboard. And Gotham, I believe, is always a port city. So it's definite now: Green Lantern sucks at navigation.


And then Aquaman arrives to save the day! He's looking pretty good here even in his lame orange and green outfit. Check out next issue (along with Aquaman #1) when we find out how Geoff Johns really feels about having to script Aquaman in a comic!