Review - Justice League #1

Okay, so with the dawn of the DC Comics relaunch, I have decided to do something that I have thus far avoided. Comic reviews. I shan't be doing them for all of the 52 simply because I won't be reading them all. I will however review those that I do read.

My rating system is simple. 0-10 out of 10. Zero being awful, 5 being average, 10 being outstanding. Any book that gets 5 is still worth reading, but doesn't do anything special and anything above 5 is considered good (or at least average with moments of good). A perfect 10 is so rare that I doubt anything will be scored 10.

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JUSTICE LEAGUE #1
Written by GEOFF JOHNS; Art and cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

Justice League opens with the GCPD chasing Batman, who in turn is chasing down a Parademon (letting long time fans know who the first big bad will be). We're very quickly shown that Batman is very resourceful, able and has little patience for the police getting in his way. As Green Lantern is introduced we see references to both of their histories. Batman as an urban legend and GL as part of the Corps. Even if their methods don't align, an instant respect is struck up between the two.

Without spoiling the issue we see some early bonding moments as both Bruce and Hal demonstrate why they are allowed to be so self-assured in their own abilites (bordering on arrogance). We see a pre-Cyborg Vic Stone playing football for the Ford Titans Highschool team. We see Superman (also displaying some arrogance) in a LexCorp building site (for the City of Tomorrow).

All-in-all, this was a solid first issue featuring my two favourite characters from the League. The writing displays what we need to know about the characters and their personalities and the art is both pretty to look at and adds depth to the storytelling.

Justice League #1 was very clearly a first issue. Not a continuation of what has gone before, but the start of something new. Although we haven't seen Aquaman, Flash or Wonder Woman yet, the characters that we have seen haven't been changed as much as people may have feared, but just enough to make things fresh.

Johns' and Lee's Justice League is easily the best League book since Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes launched Justice League of America back in 2008. I just hope that, unlike that book, they can keep it up for more than one year.

My rating:
A good, solid issue that lays the foundation for something that could be very special.