Justice League of America #25

The Second Coming Chapter Four: The Best Lack All Conviction

Special 25th Issue brought to you by
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Pencils: Ed Benes, Doug Mahnke, Darick Robertson, Shane Davis, Ian Churchill, Ivan Reis
Inks: Ed Benes, Christian Alamy, Darick Robertson, Rob Stull, Ian Churchill, Joe Prado
Color: Pete Pantazis
Letters: Rob Leigh
Cover: Ed Benes w/Hi-Fi
Assistant Editor: Adam Schlagman
Editor: Eddie Berganza

Our cover is a perfect example of Benes' weaknesses. Bland, emotionless faces, combined with an obsession for boobs and butts. Vixen, Zatanna, and Wonder Woman are the worst offenders here. I mean, how are you supposed to fight super villains with that much exposed cleavage? How are you supposed to run, jump and kick with two heavy beach balls strapped to your chest? I have nothing against beautiful superheroes, but this over sexualized garbage feels like a cheap copout. Benes can't draw a beautiful woman, or give her a realistic human expression on her face, but he can make her breasts as big as her head, and make sure to show off her nipples when she stands to the side. And he even does this with normal women. In a scene inside this issue, he gives a random closeup to the enormous and perfectly shaped buttocks of Kathy Sutton, the girlfriend of Red Tornado. OK, rant over.

This issue is a special double-sized celebration, meaning there are a lot of side stories we'll be skipping. I will comment on one, though. Red Tornado formally proposed to Kathy, which I thought was odd, because I had always believed they were married. I mean, they did adopt a daughter together. Perhaps things changed during Infinite Crisis.

Anyway, the only story we care about is Vixen's story. She gets sucked into her Tantu Totem by the West African god of mischief, Anansi. He traps her in red spiderwebs and prevents the rest of the JLA from rescuing her when they also enter the totem. Anansi says all stories belong to him, and he changes the stories of the heroes trying to save her. When young Bruce Wayne went out to the movies with his parents, the swashbuckler film they wanted to see was sold out. So they instead watched a Western about a vigilante who shot and killed every evildoer he met. When Bruce's parents were murdered in the alley, Bruce became so angry, he actually frightened the killer, who dropped his gun and tried to run away. But young Bruce picked up the gun and shot the man who murdered his parents. He then grew up to become Paladin, a gun-wielding vigilante who killed every criminal he encountered.

But in Anansi's new reality, there still is a Justice League, although it's significantly weaker. There's a new Green Lantern and Aquaman. Wonder Woman married Superman, but quit the League after Doomsday killed Superman. And for reasons not fully explained, Bart Allen is the Flash, even though he's wearing a slight modification of his old Impulse uniform.

As Anansi talks, windows appear in his spiderwebs, showing Vixen images of this new reality. Vixen finally manages to break free of the webs and leaps into one of the windows, arriving in this new world. She now seeks to gather as many of these altered heroes as she can to take them back to defeat Anansi and restore reality to what it was before.




This was a rather bland comic. I do like the idea of alternate realities, and seeing how one little change can have larger consequences down the road. McDuffie spent more than two pages going over the alternate Batman's story — and that was quite interesting — but he only spent one or two panels on each of the other alternate heroes. I'm sorry, but I feel ripped off when I'm given an alternate reality where Bart is the Flash, but I'm not told why.

Next time, we'll wrap up this story and the year 2008 with Justice League of America #26.