Justice League 1: Origin Paperback – February 5, 2013

As an introduction into the new Justice league of the new 52, this collection stands well on its own, bringing you into a realistic world in which meta humans and superheroes are not the saviors of the day like in the old gold and silver age comics, but instead are regarded with fear. The early stages of the book are well paced, slowly bringing together the team, and providing a well fleshed out and emotional origin for Cyborg. All in all the feel of the store is reminiscent of the secret origins from the JLA cartoon of the early 2000's. Which is not a bad thing...The story is fast paced, and quick witted, pitting hero against hero before they must band together to fight a much greater threat, and ultimately leading to the formation of the JLA in the post Flashpoint universe. The book perfectly ends setting up for the follow up of VOL 2, and hits at further characters, and the inclusion of some might be villains. The art is fantastic, like much of the new 52, and the story is developed, with well rounded characters, and each of the major players having their own part to play. the one thing i would have liked to see more of was the new Aquaman, who unlike the rest seems to show up in the middle of the climax, with no backstory beyond one line of why he is there in the first place.All in all this is a book i would recommend to both newcomers, and fans of the JLA like myself, who have been reading since the time of Infinite Crisis, and the original Secret Origins. i for one will stay tuned for what is to come in this possible flagship series of DC's new 52 universe.

I have been a fan of DC Comics since I was a kid. When I heard that they were rebooting the universe in favor of a more contemporary universe with an edge I was concerned. I had stuck with them through years of muddled and unclear continuity. Every crisis and crisis tie in, every retcon and unretcon, and some things that just did not flat out work. I was concerned when I heard that everything was going to change. I read Flashpoint which I recommned you read before you pick this up. You dont have to but its the catalyst to how the New 52 began. Flashpoint After reading Justice League Vol. 1: Origin, I am no longer concerned. This is an awesome book and I highly recommend it. This is not your grandfathers Superfriends. This team is going to be a sledgehammer. Superman is very comfortable in his skin. He was always written before as being somewhat conflicted about pleasing humans but not anymore. He is a warrior here and he embraces his power. Wonder Woman is a brawler. Batman is cool. He is the skilled tactician who may be the most powerful member of the group. (Sounds crazy, but think about it Read this story from the old continuity and you will see what I am talking about JLA (Book 7): Tower of Babel) I love Aquaman and Green Lantern is cool but he is kind of obnoxius and relies way too much on the ring. I like this alot. It has been and will be very controversial to purists of the original continuity. It reads like a movie and the visuals from Jim Lee are awesome. If you have ever read Justice League you know that we have been bombarded with various origins of the team. If they ever do a film this is the origin they need to pay attention to. I highly recommend that you pick this up. Its a good story.

The New 52 is well known (or I hope so at this point) as a reboot and a renumbering of the DC universe. It was intended to draw in new readers and invite old readers back. I for one absolutely love the new universe. It is accessible to everyone regardless which issue or volume you pick up (though it is advised that you follow some of the early issues). Justice League was among the first to introduce this new universe. Written by Geoff Johns with art by Jim Lee, Justice League is a entertaining journey chronicling the conception of the team of superheroes. I haven't really read anything by Geoff Johns before this (I know I've probably sinned) but he is a very good writer, I have heard nothing but praise from his Green Lantern run. His story is masterfully brought to life by Jim Lee, I've always loved his art since Batman: Hush which is still one of my favorite Batman stories ever. The interaction among these characters is written beautifully with some characters taking sides with others in the midst of arguments or confrontations. Johns really shows that these people really shouldn't be together (in a fashion similar to the Avengers) but they ultimately have to put their petty differences aside and join together to face this overwhelming foe. We are all familiar with Batman and the heavy hitters of the Justice League but Johns introduces a character that for the most part is affiliated with sidekicks such as (Teen Titans) I am of course referring to Cyborg. Victor Stone is a great character surprisingly, but he doesn't have enough time to really grow on you as he should. One second he is having problems with his father, surprisingly good scenes but they are short-lived as the next second he is making his transformation into Cyborg. But he is definitely one of the defining moments of the story, he escalated quickly in my eyes as (to me) he is always a B or C list superhero. He can definitely run with the big dogs now. Now the book does have it's problems as many will point out as well. The overwhelming problem to me is the villain Darkseid...this character is the epitome of evil in the DC universe. He is hands down my favorite villain in the entire DC universe and I absolutely love the Joker, so that says something about Darkseid! He is presented her as a brute...he has less than ten lines of dialogue in the entire book. His motive is extremely questionable as to why he would even invade the earth in the first place. It seems out of character when it is hinted at. I felt horrible just seeing as how my favorite villain was just a cheap knock off. I hope and pray that DC doesn't try to replicate this as their film interpretation of the Justice League because I will literally not watch as Darkseid is just thrown out there as an undeveloped character and just serves to bring the Justice League together and then he goes away. His action scenes are beautiful but his characterization is sloppy at best. Though I spoke highly of the interaction between characters the moments that really annoyed me real fast was the Green Lantern/Batman moments. I know Geoff Johns wrote a fantastic run on Green Lantern, so granted he knows this character but Lantern seemed to take the place of the wisecracking Flash. He relentlessly teases Batman for not having any superpowers, I being a Batman fan laughed maybe the first time, but then it continued to happen and it really lost it's charm. Though it leads to a very interesting payoff of somewhat mutual respect between Lantern and Batman I just grew bored of it. Of course as I mentioned before I am an immense Batman fan so there may be some bias here. Overall I enjoyed the book, the problems I noted could have been solved (in my opinion) in a larger graphic novel similar to the Ultimates, something that gives the writer time to flesh out these characters even more, establish relationships and create an interesting and complex villains. But it still wasn't a bad start to the New 52.