Justice League Unlimited #20 – Mark Waid, Writer; Dan Mora, Fico Ossio, Artists; Tamra Bonvillain, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Mark Waid continues to deliver a great Justice League run, balancing a massive cast and giving us huge-scale conflicts that pack a lot of thrills despite the lack of major status quo changing elements for the A-listers who lead the team. That’s why adding some B-listers to the team works so well – and this team basically has all of them. The crew of Mr. Terrific, Guy Gardner, and Hawkgirl is already in the middle of a huge-scale adventure, as they’ve lost the League’s power bank that they were transporting to a safe zone – and it crash-landed on a wild planet where the powers have been given to wild alien animals. This creates a pretty fun battle where the heroes are trying to retrieve the powers while also not hurting the monsters who don’t really have any ill intent – as well as trying to keep Hawkgirl and Guy Gardner from coming to blows over who’s to blame for this fiasco.
The bigger plot, though, has the Earth-based Leaguers trying their best to round up Brainiac Queen, who jailbroke and is on the search for Amanda Waller – who she views as her mother. The League was trying to go for a peaceful solution, but Luthor accidentally sabotaged that and now she’s in the wind, hacking one data center after another in a search for information. Red Tornado, the League’s resident AI who recently went rogue himself in Justice League Red, takes the lead in trying to break through to the villainess, but Luthor’s machinations continue to cause trouble. Luthor vs. Batman is a particularly fun character dynamic, and their rivalry this issue leads to some interesting reveals about exactly what Batman took out of the end of DC KO. One villain exits this issue, but another big one enters – bringing back an iconic JL foe in a completely new form.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
