Justice League of America: Retroactive 1980s

DC Comics

Writer: Gerry Conway; Artist: Ron Randall

Aug 30, 2011 Web Exclusive By Jeremy Nisen

As one of maybe 10 people who loved Gerry Conway’s Justice League Detroit back in the ‘80s, I am this book’s target audience. And it did not deliver, unfortunately.

DC’s Retroactive project brings back creators/writers/artists from different decades to do a new issue of their title in the original style/tone. It’s hard to argue that anyone would know this version of the Justice League better than Conway, who created the team and some of its characters. And some of the characterization stuff is just what I remembered/expected. Self-pitying and angry Steel, mixing it up with Aquaman, was a step in the right direction. But the plot is totally overblown. Part of the charm of the Detroit Justice League was watching Vibe be a total poser…or breakdance. Or watching Zatanna and Vixen have an old-fashioned cat-fight over the headquarters’ caretaker/smooth ladies man Dale Gunn. This Felix Faust/end-of-the-world junk stretches this charmingly silly version of the league into exactly what the characters don’t want it to be: a knock-off of the classic Superman/Batman league.

Oh, and spare me the meta-casting of one of the children the League is protecting as the kid version of Geoff Johns. Just silly, and not in the way I like or expected.

(The backup reprint story of Vixen fighting a guy who wants her mystical totem is a better representative example of what this could have been). (www.dccomics.com)

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