In the late 80's, shortly after Crisis on Infinite Earths played 52-pick-up with the characters of the DC Universe, a couple of young mavericks named Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire teamed up with seasoned professional JM Dematteis to relaunch the Justice League. Building a team of second-stringers around the dual pillars of Batman and the Martian Manhunter, Giffen and Dematteis proceeded to turn the ongoing tale of Earth's mightiest heroes into a comedy routine. There would be brief (and well-crafted) explosions of superhuman violence in the book for the next five years or so, but for the most part the Justice League had become, primarily, a funny book.
Now it's the first decade of the 21st century, and 80s nostalgia is rampant all over the place – but especially in comics. The fans who called for an end to the goofy fun of the original Giffen/Dematteis era fifteen years ago are now asking for its return. The result is FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE.
Maxwell Lord, amoral businessman and midwife to Giffen and Dematteis's League, is back with a new scheme: recruit a bunch of familiar faces from his glory days with the team and build a non-profit community service organization around them, complete with a 1-800 number and, presumably, many, many tax breaks. Rounding out the team with newbie Mary Marvel, the "Superbuddies" proceed to battle a quartet of superpowered Yale-dropouts-turned-street-thugs, an evil mind control/gladiator ring, and cosmic despot Manga Khan.
The team's characterizations are over the top – particularly in the cases of Mary Marvel and Booster Gold – but that's fine for the type of book this is. These aren't characters so much as they are caricatures, and if you can get past the idea that the Mary Marvel waxing poetic about the genius of Walt Disney in FKAJL is the same Mary Marvel that almost killed a pedophile in an issue of Supergirl a few years ago, you'll probably thoroughly enjoy this book. Giffen and Dematteis don't ignore continuity (they even manage to work in some jokes about the alleged heart condition Blue Beetle was revealed to have in Birds of Prey), but they don't allow their story to be hamstrung by it either.
For somebody who read and enjoyed this team's original JL run, it was nice to see the evolution of what was arguably the cornerstone of the 80s run – that is, the Blue Beetle/Booster Gold relationship. Every writer who’s written these two together since then has stuck to the joker dynamic, turning them into a kind of money-grubbing Beavis and Butthead for the superhero set. The only time they’ve ever been taken seriously is when they’ve been separated, and Giffen and Dematteis use this to their advantage, enhancing the comedy by turning Beetle into the straight man of this two-man show. Fortunately, FKAJL doesn’t insist that you be familiar with the 80s League to enjoy the book, but little touches like that make the payoff all the better for those of us who are. It hits all the major notes of the 80's Justice League – from goofy space invaders and dogs with power rings all the way down to "Bwa-hah-ha!" – without relying on any of it.
As much as I enjoyed the story, though, the real star of this book is Kevin Maguire, the undisputed master of facial expressions in comics – check out the scene near the middle of the book where Max Lord shows the team the TV ad he and robot assistant L-Ron have worked up. Seven characters in one panel, and all of them are wearing their own individual expressions of horror and disbelief. Classic stuff. This is important in a book where most of the humor comes from the dialogue. A Maguire page full of superheroes standing around talking is as interesting and lively as most artists’ fight scenes.
(Also, Maguire’s women are nearly as beautiful as Adam Hughes’s; from the sultry sexpot Fire to the bright-eyed innocent Mary Marvel, he’s got all bases covered.)
This book is beautifully rendered, kooky fun and not much else… which is exactly what it should be. If I had one complaint, it’s that the story seemed to lack cohesion. When I read a six-issue miniseries, I expect to read a single six-part story, but FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE contains three distinct story arcs, without much linking issue #1 to issue #6. It read, in fact, like the first six issues of an ongoing series rather than a single miniseries. It’s obvious that Giffen and Dematteis fully intended to continue the story of the Superbuddies, but the proposed sequel to this story, I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League has been canceled – almost certainly due to the violent death of the Elongated Man’s wife, Sue Dibny in Identity Crisis. Which is a shame, no matter how you cut it.
Whether you prefer your Justice League funny or not, this one’s worth a read. Even though it apparently won’t be the Superbuddies this creative team works on next, let’s hope they don’t go another 10+ years before hooking up again.
