JLI in Hardcover: Bwah-ha-ha…oh, wait, you're SERIOUS?!
JLI in Hardcover: Bwah-ha-ha…oh, wait, you're SERIOUS?!
Oct 16Big news in the latest DC solicits: Justice League International is finally returning to print…sorta. Or something.
First, there were the comics, and a generation of fanboys grew up on them; the series hit its stride just as a flood of tweenagers were flocking to comic shops on a high from the Michael Keaton Batman film. For someone of that age, like me, it was an ideal book–unexpected laffs, superhero action, a fairly tight grip on the era’s continuity. Great stuff, and for my money, it still is.
There were trades, two of them, but they went out of print, except the first one, which I think returned to print. Then there were two “sequel” miniseries, both of which made it to trade as well.
Now we get this:
JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL HC
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Cover by Maguire & Austin
Art by Kevin Maguire, Terry Austin and Al Gordon
A new hardcover collecting the classic JUSTICE LEAGUE #1-6 and JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #7 from the late 1980s! Can an unlikely new Justice League line-up work as a unit to stop terrorists at the U.N., a brigade of Rocket Reds, the Royal Flush Gang, and other threats — or will they succumb to in-fighting and bad jokes?
Advance-solicited; in stores March 12 • FC, 192 pg, $24.99 US
First of all, they’re NOT BAD JOKES, ASSHOLES. They were, and some still ARE, quite funny. Corny? Sure. But still funny. And eons beyond any of the “clever” crap you churn out on a weekly basis, where corpses have to pile up to amp the “drama” and it ain’t a good cover unless it’s got tits hanging out all over it.
But more importantly, there’s the issue of format. I simply do not understand the JLI hardcover. There’s no indication in the solicits that there’s gonna be more hardcovers, or softcovers, or anything; it’s just like, “Here, fanboys, chew on this while we focus on more important things, like getting TIME MASTERS into trade.”
Of all the formats available for publishing the material, this one honestly makes the least sense. The material doesn’t even deserve it; it’s great and funny and holds up, to me at least, but a slender hardcover almost seems too…swank? High-falutin’?
This feels like some kind of Giffen contractual obligation or something. I hope it leads to more–I may buy it, just to support the reprints–but it don’t seem right somehow.
