Whatever he's playing at, we can bet that he'll pretty much be lying to the UN and to the JLI while manipulating everyone and everything toward his own ends. Or maybe I'm just expecting another Maxwell Lord!
No, no. He's pretty much Maxwell Lord. Especially since I'm pretty sure the readership is supposed to hate him when he openly calls them all closed-minded, basement dwelling, internet trolls. Or is that just Jurgen pissing on his fanbase?
The JLI headquarters is going to be the Superfriend's Hall of Justice! Hooray! But this revelation comes with possibly the lamest bit of comic scripting I've ever been asked to swallow! A bunch of everymen (and women!) are protesting the UN's takeover of the Hall of Justice because it is a Public Building. What the public was doing with the building and why a bunch of average joes would care that the UN was taking it over, we aren't told. Perhaps they can't bear for the UN to use it because, as one protestor says, it's a symbol! But you know they're average guys because they drop a lot of consanants and say things like "doin'" and "cuz" and "followin'". And when they realize the UN is going to be installing a bunch of heroes in their unused symbolic public building, they get all threatening and terroristy! I'm hoping this glowing red guy in the crowd is the cause of all of this nonsense!
Nine pages in, we get our first glimpse at the collected group. And it warms my heart to see Guy Gardner flip out and throw his first tantrum just eight pages in! I'd scan the picture of him yelling "Are you out of your freaking minds?!" except I'm reading JLI #1 out of the 1000 page book of collected #1s and it'll probably break my scanner and/or the binding on the book trying to get this pic from an inside border.
Guy Gardner ends up bailing on the team but I see him on the cover of Issue #2 and Issue #3, so he'll be back! Batman sneaks onto the jet as the team heads for Peru on their first mission to save some UN people doing UN work of some sort or another. The members of the team:
Red Rocket. He seems very similar to the original Red Rocket which is to say he's a cliche of an ESL Russian immigrant. He's earnest and speaks funny. In this issue he does some scanning with his suit and blasts some little rock guys with some kind of wrist cannon. He can also fly.
Fire. An easy enough name to guess what she does. She shoots flames! She's also probably hot-headed because she's made of fire and because she's Brazilian. She snaps at Godiva during the mission which proves what I just said!
Ice. She freezes things and rides on ice blocks that can float in the sky. So either she makes lighter than air ice blocks or she also has some telekinetic ablility as well. She probably can't get emotionally close to others!
Vixen. She doesn't actually do much in this episode except state that it doesn't matter who is on the team as long as they have a Green Lantern (which they don't!). If I remember correctly, she uses the inherent abilities of animals. I don't know if animals need to be nearby or if she can just do whatever any animal can do. Unless that's Animal Man. Maybe it's just both. Vixen may only be able to use one power at a time. So if she's flying she can't have the strength of a gorilla. Maybe. Like I said, she didn't do much this issue.
August General in Iron. I vaguely remember this guy from somewhere. He was a hero of China who came into conflict with another group. It may have been The Authority or Stormwatch or Planetary or maybe the original JLI. I don't know what this guy can do besides argue with Rocket Red and love his country. He carries some stick like thing that looks like it has a current coming out of it.
Godiva. She can control her hair the same way one might control their legs or arms or hands or fingers. Batman accuses her of not pulling her weight at some point and she kind of responds with a less accurate, differently worded, "Duh! What use is my hair against Rock Creatures?!" She also wants to fuck Booster Gold.
Booster Gold. Booster Gold is the group leader because Andre Briggs probably figures he control and manipulate Booster fairly easily. He can fly and make jokes. He wears a skin tight suit that clings to everything except his penis and balls.
The comic ends with their mission apparently being harder than they thought it was going to be!
I really liked the rhythm and flow of the characters in Justice League International. I also like that before destroying the rock creatures they encounter, Fire asks if they're alive. Rocket Red's sensors confirm they are just animated rock. It's at that point the heroes completely open up and beginning destorying the creatures. That other Justice League is looking really bad now after the way they just began pulling heads and limbs off of the Parademons before finding out what they were killing! Especially since what they were killing were innocent creatures which Darkseid had enslaved and mutated to become Parademons. I'm sure that will be explained later as the innocents died in the process and what was left was some sort of mindless automaton that can only scream, "FOR DARKSEID!"
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