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Mild Mannered Reviews - JLA Comics

Justice League of America #20

Justice League of America #20

Scheduled to arrive in stores: April 23, 2008

Cover date: June 2008

"Back Up To Speed"

Writter: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciller: Ethan Van Sciver
Inker: Ethan Van Sciver

Michael Bailey Reviewed by: Michael Bailey

Click to enlarge


After giving a helping hand with a wildfire Wonder Woman politely admonishes the Flash for his recent avoidance of the League and his duties. Their conversation is interrupted by a call from Black Lightning who has a lead on Queen Bee and her upcoming attack on an Oklahoma STAR Labs installation. Flash and Wonder Woman head to the scene and after some reconnaissance and planning they head in and take on the Queen Bee's mind-controlled minions. They manage to overcome the hypnotized scientists without hurting them and despite her seeming escape the Flash captures Queen Bee as well. One quick clean up and lecture later the Flash heads out to take care of a few things before reporting to the Hall of Justice for monitor duty.

4Story - 4: This is one of those rare times when a comic answers a question I never bothered to ask and makes me care about it anyway.

Where was the Flash? I mean I never really thought about it since he wasn't part of the "original" line-up of this book but if he accepted membership again then maybe he should have been popping up once or twice.

It just never occurred to me and I'm one of those guys that over thinks just about everything.

This was a nice breather issue in all respects. After the huge bust up with the Injustice League and then three issues worth of SALVATION RUN Dwayne gives us a "quiet" story that begins with a great Flash sequence that, to me, hearkens back to Mark Waid's run with the character. Then the plot moves along as Wonder Woman gives Flash a friendly hard time about the apparent shirking of his League duties. I enjoyed this scene. There was a bit of humor thrown in with Wonder Woman making some valid points about the Flash's recent absence from the JLA. This is where McDuffie made me care about something that I barely noticed and everything else in the story was just gravy.

McDuffie also made Queen Bee work, which I haven't seen since Giffen and DeMatteis wrote the League's adventures.

So a great issue all in all and for once I really have nothing to complain about.

Of course next month Libra is reintroduced, so we'll see how that goes.

4Art - 4: It was a pleasant surprise to see Ethan Van Sciver handling the art chores this month. I am a fan of his style and think that he has such a distinctive style. I may not be the biggest fan of his Superman, as I have mentioned in the past, but there are other characters that he does pretty much better than anyone like Green Lantern and the Flash.

The art in this issue was a welcome respite from Ed Benes, who is good but has some annoyingly suggestive artwork in his books.

Of course there is the cover of this issue to consider before I start lobbing the word "suggestive" around.

3Cover Art - 3: A friend of mine suggested that this cover looks an awful lot like the cover art for an...uh...adult film and frankly I have to agree with him. Sure you don't have the normal assets accentuating Ed Benes artwork as the female figures are somewhat proportionate but do we really need Queen Bee doing what she's doing?

I mean that's just gross.

Sure Winnie the Pooh may like honey right out of the comb but I prefer the more processed, store bought version. That could just be me though.

Mild Mannered Reviews

2008

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

January 2008

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