2005 Upper Deck Justice League of America VS System CCG Card DJL-068: Justice League Task Force - Team-Up

Illustration by Phil Noto.

As I mentioned yesterday, I started buying the "Breakdowns" arc of the Justice League books, but realized that I only had interest in JLI as a comedy ensemble, and dropped the books again. I came back for the two closing chapters, or really, epilogues that cleared the way for the next creative direction. The Europe one was dreadful, but America was a bittersweet re-teaming of Giffen, DeMatteis, & Maguire. I liked the part where J'Onn J'Onzz flew off to parts unknown, intent on a period of meditation and self-discovery, saying simply "Goodbye." I was in no way concerned about what happened to him after that. I'd given Martian Manhunter his shot as the only comic I bought at the only shop I visited while living outside Las Vegas, the first issue of a mini-series with an inflated cover price that I hated very much. With that, J'Onn was just a straight man for the JLI to me. The Justice League Spectacular that invited all those stick in the mud older fans to come back to a "serious" League that they'd been howling for, except the two teams were still staffed with badly mischaracterized and abused JLI members those veteran fans had no interest in. Also, the revised books were terrible and boring. It was no one's golden age of the team. Yes, I was aware that the Sleuth from Outer Space had placed in a fan poll for who deserved a mini-series, but if I was aggrieved about a $1.25 price point in the 75￠ days, a $4.95 prestige format book in the $1.25 was heretical.

Worse than not missing Martian Manhunter, but I didn't even really clock his absence. I'd dabbled with DC, picked up some new stuff here and there, but I was still primarily a Titans guy. I bought the first three issues of Justice League Task Force because Nightwing was on the first situational team. I didn't know why Gypsy was. If anything, I though the Alien Atlas looked like a dork as drawn by Sal Velluto. I wasn't much happier with his rendition of Dick, and I really disliked how he was written, so I left as soon as he did. But I only skipped one issue before picking up only the first half of a "Knightquest: The Search" tie-in before getting wise that DC was bleeding a stone there. But then I got really into Wonder Woman really fast, so I bought her two-part "all female" team story. Right after, there was a story with the New Bloods, and I'd just finished collecting all the "Bloodlines" annuals. I managed to skip an arc, but it was the '90s, and Wonder Woman was involved in a crossover, so I bought all the chapters of "Judgment Day." That had a coda in JLTF #15, I got a month off, and then I bought all the "Zero Month" offerings. That was finally it, though. I found the new permanent line-up in Justice League Task Force #0 laughable, they were set on an island of continuity where none of my interests made stunt appearances, and the book languished unto cancellation. Weirdly, there was another Justice League crossover at one point, but it was only the America team linking to Hawkman and Guy Gardner: Warrior, two of which I was already following. Sans the Task Force, Martian Manhunter appeared in that arc, but I was only buying Justice League America for Wonder Woman.

In the very late '90s, I did go back to read the Detroit era Justice League of America, as well as the Adam Hughes gap years of Justice League America with the return of Despero and Gypsy becoming J'Onn's surrogate daughter. Heck, I got the 1988 Martian Manhunter mini-series and made the acquaintance of his tragic biological daughter. But I did this only after I'd become enamored with the Martian Marvel, and that context made me much more receptive than I would have been otherwise. All of that reading helped me appreciate Justice League Task Force a lot more. Still not so much the Mission: Impossible version with rotating casts and creatives. Actually, the "laughable" final incarnation, and it truly was. After a brief stint by Mark Waid, the writing was taken over by Christopher Priest, one of the few people in mainstream comics who could write humor. A much different, more sardonic and irony-poisoned humor than JLI, but funny nonetheless. Priest's JLTF were losers, and they mostly knew it, so they played into being the worst JL team of the time with a Gen-X slacker ethos. "We didn't want you to allow us access to any good characters for super-hero spectacle anyway! We'll just have droll misadventures involving parodies of Coppala's Dracula while dunking on each other!" It turned out to be the best League book of its time, and probably the best run that everybody continues to sleep on. Even Velluto leveled-up on art with the help of new inker Bob Almond, and if you didn't like that, the still-unknown Ramon Bernado offered a fun John Buscema pastiche toward the end. I'd still rather read that material than all the corny Satellite era yarns the olds couldn't move past in the JLI days.