With Great Power

. . . comes the ability to click on the picture above to get the rest of this strip which brightened my day.

Jurgens League #2 - Starbreaker

And here we go again, casting our eyes back over an older incarnation of the Justice League, this time from the early 90's when Dan Jurgens was in charge. With that in mind, I had to call this the

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #63 - 65, written by Dan Jurgens with art by Jurgens and Rick Burchett.

Despite Superman's protests, Max Lord still has a hand in the League's business and after defeating the Weapons Master (see last week's entry) Lord does a deal with the UN which gets the team their own, brand new building right next to that of the UN.

Monday Memes #39

Wondering who to invite on to your new team or wondering if you've got the right people already on your team? Grab a bunch of photos and shuffle them round:

Oh, and if you're in the Justice Society, having them upside down from your point of view makes no sense at all!

And if you're advertising something, then a poster or graffiti's the way to go.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #147

Captain Atom gets some bad news

Where's What's Her Name? Week 3

DC have dropped cameos of this person:

from Flashpoint #5 into all the new #1's coming out this month.

Here's where she turned up in the issues I got this week:

Ray Of Light

Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray are to write a mini-series featuring a new Ray. I've really enjoyed the majority of the pair's writing over the years, particularly Power Girl and the various Freedom Fighter series so this will definitely be on my order list.

Green Arrow #4

From the solicit:

Written by KEITH GIFFEN and DAN JURGENS
Art by DAN JURGENS and GEORGE PEREZ
Cover by DAVE WILKINS
On sale DECEMBER 7 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
It’s a Tokyo showdown! At an international tech expo that caters to the likes of WayneTech and Queen Industries, party crasher Green Arrow finds himself in the sights of a mystery woman bent on taking down “evil” corporations – like the one Green Arrow owns!

Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens writing Green Arrow! JT Krul is off the title and while I've never flat out hated his stuff, I haven't been that impressed, either so I'm all for this change.

Terrific Dialogue

With Mister Terrific #1, Eric Wallace dives into the realm of British dialogue as Mr Terrific pops over to this side of the water to catch a bad guy and on the whole it's not bad.

"Wicked" is, perhaps, a little dated but still viable. The "space biker riding three snooker balls" kinda works even though the bloke speaking must have excellent eye-sight to make out the T-spheres but the "Nice bum" comment from the woman would have been better if it read "Nice arse" instead.

Thanks heavens for small mercies they weren't all shouting "Crikey! How terribly spiffing!"

Jurgens League #1 - A Spectacular Rebirth

And here we go again, casting our eyes back over an older incarnation of the Justice League, this time from the early 90's when Dan Jurgens was in charge. With that in mind, I had to call this the

JUSTICE LEAGUE SPECTACULAR #1 - written by Dan Jurgens and Gerard Jones with art by Dan Jurgens, Ron Randall, Rick Burchett and Randy Elliott.


JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #61 - #62 - written by Dan Jurgens with art by Dan Jurgens, Rick Burchett and Jackson 'Butch' Guice.

Before we delve into the issues, a quick bit of background as to how we got here. The Giffen / DeMatteis (and Jones) runs on Justice League America and Justice League Europe came to an end with the Breakdowns storyline which saw both branches of the League dissolve after facing various foes. The one-off Justice League Spectacular featured new writers Dan Jurgens, who would take over the American branch, and Gerard Jones who was now writing the European team without Giffen.

Monday Memes #38

As tomorrow sees the start of a new round of Justice League look backs, this time focusing on the Dan Jurgens League of the 90's, I thought I'd do a themed Monday Meme.

Here's the cover of Justice League of America #1 and Justice League America #61, Jurgens's first issue:

I love the character substitution between the covers - Maxima for Wonder Woman, Booster Gold for Martian Manhunter, but nice to see he kept the Green Lanterns in the same place.

And then, first page of his first issue, Jurgens offers up another homage:

On the left, the first page from Justice League #1 which inaugurated the Giffen / DeMatteis run and on the right Jurgens's own first page of Justice League America #61.

When will Guy ever learn, eh?

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #146

Madame Xanadu displays her grasp of British colloquialisms.

Where's What's Her Name Week 2

DC have dropped cameos of this person:

from Flashpoint #5 into all the new #1's coming out this month.

Here's where she turned up in the issues I got this week:

No More Time Travel

At least that's according to Dream Girl who's quoted on the DC Source blog as saying

"Flashpoint effect has definitely closed off time travel."

I guess that puts something of a block on Rip Hunter's activities for the foreseeable future (no pun intended) but it also closes off a big plot device. Time travel has long been a staple of science fiction and comics and to put a lock on it is either a very bold move which will force writers to come up with something different, or a very silly move which is effectively preventing writers from telling stories that can only happen due to time travel.

Wonder how long the ban will last?

Wednesday's World Wide Web #5

Courtesy of last week's Stormwatch we have another in my incredibly irregular look at websites in comics:

Want to find out which hero can kick the arse of another? Try heading to comparethepowers.com . . . though be prepared to be disappointed.

Karen Starr In Mr Terrific #1

This isn't exactly up to the minute news but while I'm working on the new JLA Tuesday posts, here's a place holder.

Mr Terrific #1 is out this week and it's this title where we get our first glimpse of Karen Starr, aka Power Girl - though I think she's due to appear in #2 or #3.

Anyway, writer Eric Wallace has released a picture of her:

Yep, that's all we get - a pair of eyes.

You tease, Wallace.

Monday Memes #37

There's nothing like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, is there? Or, in these cases, between one group of friends and another:

And you know things are coming to a head if you end up . . . er . . . going head to head:

Anyone want to guess at the chances of Green Arrow and Flash going up against each other in this new DCU?

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #145

Booster Gold shows he has limits.

Where's What's Her Name?

As anyone who reads comic news websites probably knows by now, DC have placed a little Easter egg in all their number 1 issues this month, encouraging us all to find the Strange Mystical Cryptic Lady who first made her appearance in Flashpoint #5, warning Barry that some mysterious THEM were coming:

Sure enough, she turned up in Justice League #1, watching Vic Stone in a football match:

She's off to the right of the picture - fairly subtle when seen on the page. This week's appearances, though? Not so much:

Coming Soon

A couple of days ago I finished my trip through the Justice League Detroit era and left a sort of open ended request for thoughts on where I should head to next. I had been thinking about looking back at Extreme Justice or the Justice League Task Force.

However, commenter Dougie said:

"I vote for the Dan Jurgens League, which was to the 90s what Detroit was to the 80s. Maxima, Bloodwynd, Fire and Ice...what were they thinking?"

which, quite simply, made up my mind for me.

With Jurgens taking on the new Justice League International, why not come with me to look at the last time he handled the League, all the way back in 1992.

That's right - in a couple of weeks I'll give you . . . the JURGENS League of America!

What Brings You Here?

Annnnnnd because I have little else to blog about today, I though I'd dip once more into what brings some people to my lowly corner of the blogosphere over the last week or so:

Hmmm, still getting a fair few people looking for eunuchs but for some reason there's a big influx of love for Giganta at the moment. Still, nice to see Johnny Alpha getting some appreciation, too.

In other news (blimey, it really is a slow day today) I've just checked the shopping list for this week and my first batch of New 52 titles is out: Green Arrow, Justice League International, Stormwatch and Swamp Thing.

Looking forward to the last three of those but JT Krul's going to have to improve on his run from the last series.

Justice League Detroit Redux - DC Retroactive

And here we are, the last of these articles featuring the Justice League Detroit and we've come full circle.

DC RETROACTIVE: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA - THE 80's, written by Gerry Conway with art by Ron Randall.

The Detroit League featured in this issue of DC's Retroactive series of one-shots written for the first time since 1987 by the man who brought them together, Gerry Conway. This was a chance for Conway to craft a story as good as the Despero arc, pitting the League against a worthy foe once more and laying to rest the enmity that the Detroit League has garnered over the intervening years.

Sadly, it wasn't to be.

Monday Memes #36

So with the new DCU under way I figured we'd say hello to some New Guys:

Looks like you're only getting in if you've got a big A on your chest, folks.

Looks like the League has its problems with membership as well.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #144

What? You think just because DC re-number all their titles
that I'm going to revert to Cocktail #1?

So That's Where They've Come From

As regular readers know, I've annotated a bunch of DC's past events - my sites are in the sidebar over on the left as well as in the Links page on the menu bar up top. I run Google Analytics on them just out of curiosity and, over the last couple of years, the numbers of visitors has ticked over nicely.

Checking my monthly stats a couple of hours ago, however, I noticed that all of them had a real big spike around the 31st August / 1st September - the Annotated DC Project (which I really should update soon) jumped by 60% over those two days.

So I did some digging and guess who linked to my sites?

The New York fricking Times! Specifically this article by Dave Itzkoff where he talks (no surprise) about the DC reboot and says:

"The process of restarting a long-running narrative at Page 1 — known in industry parlance, and with growing derision, as a reboot — is nothing new to comics: in the 1980s DC dismantled its narrative architecture in the venerated mini-series “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” and has sought to recapture its anything-could-happen spirit in story lines with titles like “Infinite Crisis” and “Final Crisis.”"

and each of those links go to my sites of annotations!

How cool is that?

Hiding From The Internets

With both Flashpoint coming to an end and Justice League starting Wednesday just gone, you'd think I'd be all over them, wouldn't you?

But no - I can't get to my comic shop until the weekend so I will be hiding away from the internets, not reading blogs or any of my news feeds, trying to avoid these things:

See you Sunday for a Cocktail, all being well.

In With The New

As the DCU is altering and as this place is far and away a principally DC oriented blog, I figured now was as good a time to revamp the template and give it a New 52 style make-over.

So will you please welcome the new look

Big thanks to my mate Spike for the logo.

Normal service will now resume.