Justice League Unlimited #20
“Escape from Powers Planet” Part One
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Dan Mora and Fico Ossio
Colorist: Tamra Bonvillain
Cover Artist: Dan Mora
When you’re the Justice League in a world without Superman, when it rains, it pours.
The League is even bigger than ever, thanks to the Villain Amnesty program, but that just means the threats are proportional. Boy, do they have their hands full this month…
Guess Who’s Back, Back Again
The Brainiac Queen appears aboard the Watchtower, having taken Air Raid as an unwilling host. She is demanding the location of her “mother,” Amanda Waller. The League members present are almost immediately outmatched, but fortunately, no one actually knows Waller’s location. Batman calls for every reinforcement possible, except Lex Luthor. Which of course Lex takes umbrage at, as he takes matters into his own hands…
Meanwhile, the team of Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho, and Mister Terrific finds themselves with a bit of a problem. Their spacecraft has crashed on a distant alien world, and their cargo—an orb carrying backups of many of the League’s powers—has detonated, giving every alien creature on the planet superpowers! And they were worried about sending Guy to Oa on his own…
The Superpower Shuffle
As you’d expect from a book like this, which is practically an “event” every month, there is a ton of powers being thrown around here. The League throws everything they have at the Brainiac Queen, while Guy Gardner’s team accidentally throws everything the League has onto an alien planet. Hard to tell which group has it worse right now.
I take that back. The group on the Watchtower has to deal with Lex Luthor, so they definitely got the short end of the stick. Lex has thrown himself into his parole, working with the League and doing good, but doing it in his own way. So flashy, arrogant, and always with an audience. Batman just loves working with him, let me tell you.
Even though this issue has the usual sprawling cast, the two biggest players are Batman and Luthor. The Caped Crusader assumes command on the Watchtower, directing strategy to the heroes present and calling for others. It’s a perfect use of his famed tactical mind, as is his decision to have Luthor kept away from the Watchtower—can’t have him getting his hands on the Queen, after all.
It’s just too bad that Lex’s ego won’t let him sit on the sidelines or think that anyone might have a better solution than him. So in this particular case, he actually makes things worse. Not that he’ll ever admit it, he wouldn’t be him if he did.
The B-plot of Guy Gardner and company is pretty crazy. A whole planet full of aliens with the powers of the League? Wild idea, but I have no idea where you go with that. I’m sure it’ll tie back into the A-plot somehow, since the Brainiac Queen was fond of stealing powers before, but at the same time, that might be a bit too big of a threat for a non-event book.
Butting Heads
If you’re going to have a huge event-style book with heroes and powers all over the place, there’s no better team for that than Mark Waid and Dan Mora (with an assist from Fico Ossio, because Dan is a very busy man these days).
What is there to say about Mark Waid that hasn’t been said a million times before? The man is a legend for a reason. He’s able to juggle a huge cast of characters and still keep the pacing under control, which is no small task itself. Then he’s able to perfectly nail the characterization of each and every one of those characters. Even Conner Kent, who I was excited to see play a sizable role here, sounds much better than he did in the Summer of Supergirl Special story by Waid. The friction between Batman and Luthor fits the two strong-willed men perfectly, and actually drives much of the issue’s conflict.
The art by Dan Mora and Fico Ossio is spectacular. It’s pretty obvious where the two switch off, their styles are similar overall, but it’s not one of those cases where the changeover is distracting or jarring. They keep an action-heavy issue looking interesting the whole time, with tons of characters and powers on the page, and dynamic staging and styling throughout. There are no moments where I couldn’t follow what was happening on the page, which is always a concern with a huge cast and tons of different powers.
The colors by Tamra Bonvillain play a huge part in keeping the art consistent between the two men. She’s able to handle the different and varied costumes and power effects with ease, even characters with similar color schemes don’t bleed together on the page thanks to her work. There’s so much going on at times, it would be easy for some characters or effects to get lost in the shuffle, but thanks to her that never happens here.
From Bad to Worse
Justice League Unlimited #20 is another fantastic issue from the dynamite team of Waid, Mora, and Ossio that gives us action, thrills, and a clash of egos between Batman and Lex Luthor at the center of it all. I’m unsure where the “aliens with powers” subplot is heading. Right now, it just feels like a distraction from the main threat of the Brainiac Queen, but I trust that this creative team has a plan, and it will all make sense in the end.