Comic Review – Justice League: Origin

Happy New Year everyone. This week I’m taking a look at another part of the New 52, with the first look at one of the new form of comic book’s most famous super-teams.

Title: Justice League – Origin
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Jim Lee & Scott Williams
Published by DC Comics
Published in March 2012

Available from Amazon.com

The Premise

Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and Wonder Woman encounter a group of mysterious aliens planting bombs in their various cities. These attacks are masterminded by an alien warlord out to rule the world. Only together can these heroes and two new allies save the world.

High Points

Cyborg’s origin feels much more tragic and poignant than his older version. Also, the reveal of Darkseid is spectacular.

Low Points

I do prefer the reveal of Darkseid when it’s a slow burn to the big reveal, setting up not only Darkseid, but the New Gods as well.

Also, Aquaman’s arrival is very abrupt and out of the blue.

Scores

Originality: Well, to my knowledge , this is the first version of the League’s formation to involve Darkseid. 4/6

Story: I like the investigation of Darksaid & his plans until the big reveal. 4/6

Artwork: Jim Lee is in my top 5 superhero comic artists. 5/6

Characterization: So, while taking a small group communication class in college, I learned the stages that groups go through as they form. The Justice League hits all of those beats – though I really think that Superman probably should have been written as a better team player – as he’s generally considered the archetypal superhero, the ideal all other heroes aspire to, especially in the DCU. 4/6

Emotional Response: Cyborg’s origin, as mentioned in the High Point, is great. The rest is good, but not great. 4/6

Flow: 6/6

Overall: This is a good start, though I’ll have to see where the series goes from here. 4/6

In total, Justice League: Origins gets 32/42.

7 replies on “Comic Review – Justice League: Origin”

  1. Supposedly, the same origin may figure in the hypothetical Justice League movie. Of course, I wouldn’t want to call the odds on that movie making it to production.

    • The movie will make it into production. The amount of money The Avengers took in guarantees that. Most people didn’t give a hoot about Iron Man, Captain America, Thor or Black Widow before the movie franchise hit, and they were lukewarm on the Hulk. Any bets about the quality, take, or time frames involved are premature, but we’ll see the movie. The advantage DC has over Marvel in this case is that WB owns every character and has been keeping many of them in the public eye for a while. You could make the movie assuming everybody knows everything they need to know about Superman and Batman and be right. (Some people don’t, but if they’ve distanced themselves that far from these properties these days, odds are good they wouldn’t be buying a ticket to a Justice League movie anyway.) They can skip ahead to the movie itself. You could build a five character core around Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Flash today with no more background than calling the Flash the “fastest man alive” and be good to go. Even that may not be necessary these days, in fact. The only characters I’d feel the need to explain with more than a single line of dialogue in a Justice League movie would be those outside the core five.

      • I’m not so sure of that.

        How many times has a Wonder Woman movie been greenlit only to be shelved? How many attempts did it take before Superman Returns got made? Just how long have we been talking about a Justice League movie? What was the last DC Comics movie that had a success level near the Marvel Studios movies, apart from Batman?

        I think it will get greenlit, but actually making it to production depends on the response to Man of Steel. If it goes the way of Superman Returns, I think Justice League will get shelved again.

        • Though Wonder Woman was shelved last time due to executive incompetence: I’m sure someone was in serious trouble for driving away the guy who made Avengers. It makes it worse that, if they made his version now, it would appear to be derivative of Captain America.

          I wonder if the success of Arrow might also encourage a JL film.

          • I have a feeling that anything they try to do now will be seen as a poor mans “Avengers”. The main problem with the movie franchises is that they dont acknowlege the existance of the other. Its just Batman in his universe or Superman in his universe. While Smallville included some of the other names no one in their right mind would try to use that as a launching plate for a JL base.

            I wonder if a better route to a JL movie would be a Superman vs Batman movie where Superman has been manuipulated, by say someone like Brainiac, into going after Batman say for going to far. Have Bats and Sups, circle then fight it out with an interruption by Wonder Woman. Movie two origin of WW and her encounters with Bats. Movie three WW, Bats and Sups loose to *Ultimate Villan”, and recruit Flash, GL and Random-DC-Char-X that-we-want-to-promote and take out ultimate villan. Fade to black with Brainiac, Soloman Grundy, Circe and “Rose and Thorn” meeting discussing the final solution. Movie Four – JL.

  2. I’m not terribly familiar with Cyborg’s original origin. My favorite part of this story arc was the interaction between Batman and Green Lantern/Hal Jordan in the first issue. Great, great stuff.

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