Dueling Justice League Teams? Or Dueling Batmen?

DC has seemed to pride themselves on consistency of editorial message with their relaunch. There's supposed to be great continuity.

Of course, that's questionable, as Justice League's opening arc, set five years ago, appears to conflict with other titles running at the same point in the timeline. But that's the sort of thing that can get overlooked.

Titles that are in the same line try to keep a pretty tight relationship. We've had Frankenstein and OMAC crossover, while Swamp Thing and Animal Man have been swapping background info in prep for their crossover. The Bat family is crossing over shortly. For some reason, Stormwatch, Grifter and Superman are all going to throw their lot in together on a Daemonite arc.

But the one place we don't seem to have continuity is in the Justice League franchise.

In the top right, you'll see a page from Justice League International, where Batman is clearly shown to be a member of the team. He's been in the whole time and rather publicly, too.

So why did Geoff Johns write the following exchange into Justice League?


He's a member of the team he calls a joke. It has only ever existed with him as a member in the current continuity. In fact, he's had chances where he could have let it crumble on its own, but he fought to keep them together. There's no one else as Batman in the current continuity and, even if there were, it'd seem silly for him to have one of his incorporated bunch on the team, but still deride the whole function.

So what's the deal? Johns and his editor can't really be that ignorant of the character's membership on the team he's actually shitting on, can they? I mean, he's on covers, for fuck's sake.

BleedingCool.com's JLA Scoop

Rich Johnston is reporting on DC planning to make Vixen the focus of one of the JLA titles, once they get to launch the Johns/Lee Justice League of America run (which will be the book boasting Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman).

 

My take, as posted in his comments section:

 

1. The previous times they had multiple JLA series, they were all filled with B Teams of heroes, for the most part. JL/JLI had Batman for a short time. They were successful despite having characters that generally couldn't keep their own series afloat (Booster, Beetle, Capt Atom, etc).

 

2. Other times when they have followed the "start with Big Seven, then begin diluting and replacing with minor characters", there was only one series and it became known to fans as JLDetroit. They had to add Batman back to the fold in a desperate move to boost sales, but it was too little too late.

 

3. This seems like, potentially, one of the best ways to try to popularize minor characters through the JLA brand. If Robinson stays on a JLA title after Johns gets his (or another writer that Johns has an excellent working relationship with), I can really see enough interweaving of stories and characters to help keep the B Team version from scraping the bottom of the sales barrel, much the same way that Johns/Robinson/Rucka/Gates have managed to have their tide raise all boats in the Superman titles.

 

I think this could work out really well, as I imagine even the title with the "Big Three" will have some "minor" characters peppered in. This bodes well for some underused characters that never really met their potential getting a chance to showcase in BOTH of the JLA titles. If Johns' run on JSA shows us anything, it is that he loves to reach back for old characters/legacies and reach forward for some, as well (Magog, Starman, etc). Robinson has shown a flair for the eclectic selection as well, given his Cry For Justice line up. Congorilla? C'mon...who can't get jazzed to see what off-the-wall pick either writer is going to strike gold with?

SCHWAPP!!!: J'Onn J'Onzz: Failure Of Conventional Wisdom

Part One: Reflecting on the squandering of the sales potential for Martian Manhunter solo projects during the JL/JLI/JLE era of the character:



Part Two: Reflecting on the squandering of the sales potential for Martian Manhunter during the Grant Morrison JLA era of the character (with a bonus from Mr. Morrison at the end):