On sale 11 October, UK. 76 pages, £2.60Playing catch-up once more: this latest issue of
Justice League Legends barrelled onto the shelves last week (roughly the same time it thudded onto subscribers' doormats, thanks to the postal strike). It marked the most editorial-heavy issue yet, which caused a few little problems, as well as the first issue of
JLL from our new printers, which meant that it all looks a heckuva lot nicer than the first four issues. The colours in the
Justice League and
Green Lantern segments practically pop off the page... which is what you want when you're dealing in four-colour superheroics.
Story-wise, what goes down in this issue? Well, I kick things off with
Justice, which peels back a few more layers of the global criminal conspiracy that's been taking out the heroes one by one, we get a bit more of an insight into Black Canary and Green Arrow's sex life than perhaps we might have liked, Wonder Woman feels the brunt of Cheetah's cosmetic surgery, and Superman lets Batman have it with a sickly left hook. It's all fairly epic-feeling, with Alex Ross's typically painted artwork laying a big budget sheen over the whole shebang. Penciller Doug Braithwaite manages to rein in the worst of Ross's excesses, although his heroic titans still suffer from 'portly aging neighbour' syndrome in a number of panels.
Justice League of America on the other hand, begins with a jolly visit from Basil Exposition, as reborn-again-and-again-with-a-different-personality villain Solomon Grundy explains why he's all smart this time around, and wants to squash himself into Red Tornado's android body, so he can live forever. Or something. Needless to say, this all ends in fisticuffs. And first-person narration panels. Endless first-person narration panels.
Green Lantern gets all explode-y, as the villain(s) of the piece are revealed (old Manhunter robot and shiny new Manhunter robot, respectively), and Hal Jordan gets a bit of an ass-whupping. Still in the old 'eleven pages is all you get' format, but this episode does feature Hal crushing a robot with a ring-formed fighter jet, and then swinging an energy sword, so you still get your money's worth.
As for the extra bits this issue, well, we had a nice double-page spread advert from the lovely peeps at HeroClix, and then I got to play around with various editorial elements, including another DPS featuring the winners of the graphic novels competition we launched in #1: we didn't get that many entrants, as you had to write a short paragraph on your favourite member of the League, but we got a nice batch of winners, and I managed to dig up some good pics to illustrate them. It marks a nice change of pace... and also probably the last selection of extra features for a goodly few issues.
I also launched a new competition this issue, and was a bit concerned about the lack of entries, until I checked my email this morning and they started flooding in. I learned my lesson from the first issue, and as such, all the readers have to do is email in their details to be in with a chance of winning. Fingers crossed it's a successful comp!
Lastly, the letters page was crammed with extra post this issue, which I like: we've cut down on the illustrations and upped the actual content. More things to read! Always a fan.