JLA #33 Review + thoughts on MacDuffie’s firing

JLA #33 Cover

Justice League of America #33

Role Call: Dr. Light II, Firestorm V, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Vixen, Zatanna (Superman and Black Canary II are shown on the cover, but don’t appear in the issue)

Guest Star Hardware (Icon and various members of the Shadow Cabinet are here, but only at the end and mostly defeated, unconscious, etc)

Villain Starbreaker (at the end only)

This is titled “Welcome to Sundown Town,” which sounds nice at first, then rather ominous as we see what’s happening. It opens with Dr. Light trapped in the dark between worlds where she ended up in pursuit of Shadow Thief last issue. She overcomes her fear of the dark to focus on her task, and goes after a point of light she sees in the distance. Then we cut to Zee, Firestorm, GL, and Vixen, trying to use magic to trace Dr. Light and failing. John Stewart gets an idea on who else to contact, which leads us to….

Dakota. Hardware has gotten word that a local drug lord has managed to acquire an F-22 Raptor, and knows no good can come of this. He moves along through the guards fairly well, briefly stops for a firefight with a larger number of them, and is helped out when GL and company show up. GL rather confrontationally demands information from Hardware about the Shadow Cabinet’s Shadow Slide. Meanwhile, Dr. Light traces the portal to a trashed looking
base in the Himalayas, finding some odd looking fluid on the floor that “seems almost alive.” She goes charging around the corner, and finds… that we need to cut back to GL and Hardware and the team.

John and Hardware bicker about who’s helping who and why. The best line of the issue occurs during this exchange: John Stewart says “Yes, you’re smarter than us. We get it.” To which Hardware retorts “Maybe the general principle, but the magnitude of the gap…” Anyway, Vixen and Firestorm reign in the raging testosterone and Hardware agrees to help. He reveals he has been tracking Dr. Light via the new costume he made for her, and he traces her to the mountain strong hold mentioned before. Firestorm splits into his two parts, Jason and Gehenna. Gehenna, a supporting character from the last issues of Firestorm’s title, teleports them to the base, Shadowspire (yes, they over use the Shadow theme to name things). Hardware asks her how her power works, and she casually says “No idea.”

Firestorm re-merges, Zatanna joins them, and then Vixen gets pulled into one of those conversations that happen in comics, all in her head. Anansi the tale spinner, who was after Vixen a few stories ago, proclaims that Dharma is too important to fall to Starbreaker. He says “Dharma is under attack. You must aid him, for if he is lost, all is lost.” Rather enigmatic, as powerful beings tend to be, but as a sign of how worried he is, he re creates Paladin, an alternate reality version of Batman, now more an old west gunslinger type. With more ominous foreshadowing, Anansi says “If necessary, he will do what must be done.” There’s a rather touching scene where Zatanna mistakes Paladin for the “real” Bruce, showing her delight at seeing him again, her shock when he says “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I don’t know you,” and her grief as the loss hits her again.

The team moves out down the same passage Dr. Light went down before, finding more of the strange fluid, which Hardware remarks is “energy density off the scale.” They turn a corner and find the defeated remnants of the Shadow Cabinet strewn all over the floor, clearly out cold. Firestorm goes tearing around the corner after seeing a glimpse of Dr. Light ahead, and is unceremoniously thrown back in a heap. The rest of the team discovers Dr. Light fighting several shadow creatures, but she tells them to ignore her and go help Icon.

We see a much the worse for wear looking Icon pounding on Starbreaker, who says Icon is weakening. Icon thanks them for their help as GL hits Starbreaker with a power blast, and says they may be too late, as “Starbreaker just killed the man who was holding the universe together.” We see Dharma on the floor, bleeding heavily. And its not normal blood, its the strange blu fluid everyone was walking in earlier. Ewwwwww. Above him floats the image of two Earths, partially merged, and the issue ends with the promise of “To Be Concluded.”

I guess the Earths mean somehow Dharma is keeping two worlds together, perhaps providing the explination for why the Milestone heroes are now on the “mainstream” Earth? Its interesting to see Starbreaker going after Dharma- Dharma was always hinted at being vastly powerful in his time at Milestone, but we rarely saw him do anything but direct the Shadow Cabinet. His bleeding powerful blue liquid and being a big enough target for Starbreaker revises my opinion of his power level upwards.

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As to what’s going to happen in the near future, well, its anyone guess. The comic forums are abuzz with new of Dwayne MacDuffie being removed as the writer for JLA.  Speculation, and even a few hints from Mr. MacDuffie himself, hint that it has something to do with his habit of actually, honestly answering questions on the DC Message Boards. I’d offer a link, but the DC Board mods seem to have taken down the threads in question. Going from memory, Mr. MacDuffie commented among other things that he was forced to use certain characters he didn’t want to, had others made unavailable to him, and had multiple story changes mandated as various crossovers occurred in DC Comics.

In fact, in Mr. Macduffie’s own words from his website.

“I was fired when “Lying in the Gutters” ran a compilation of two years or so of my answers to fans’ questions on the DC Comics discussion boards. I’m told my removal had nothing to with either the quality of my work or the level of sales, rather with my revelation of behind-the-scenes creative discussions.

I have to say I’m a bit disappointed, because next summer was planned to feature a JLA-driven crossover, where my book’s story line would have been the driving force. I’m distressed by where I left Black Canary, as my intention was to use the current subplot to strengthen her character and relationships with the new membership, and instead I’m leaving her at the bottom of a hole I’d intended to rebuild her from. I was also just about to get a regular artist for the first time since I’ve been on the book, which would have been nice. That said, I’m sure DC’s going to put
together a creative team that will generate major excitement around JLA, which is as it should be.”

So… let me see if I understand this correctly. Dwayne is one of the few writers to interact with the fans on the DC Boards, he answers our questions honestly, writes very well, has created a host of characters DC thought good enough to recently acquire (as Milestone and DC now share worlds)… and you fire him? So Dan Dido and company force artistic changes, mandate roughly what the writers are allowed to write and which characters they can use, and then fire writers for sharing “behind-the-scenes creative discussions..”? Its been my experience in general that people who don’t think they’re doing something wrong don’t feel a compulsion to hide their activities.

I don’t know what this latest development will do to the JLA’s future line up, as Hardware and Icon were slated to join the team soon. All this, coupled with some the changes on the other League book, leave a very uncertain future for the JLA. For those that don’t know, a second book has been planned for some time, called “A Cry for Justice.” It was originally to be an ongoing series, and now is billed as six issue mini. One of the things that generated the most fan excitement was that it was going to be written by James Robinson, the man behind the amazing Starman series a few years ago. News is that Mr. Robinson has been removed from the book, for similar reasons to Mr. MacDuffie. Again, I’d supply the relevant DC Message Board threads, but the mods have erased this as well. With all this going on, I can’t help but wonder what will happen to the Justice League: Earth’s Greatest Heroes….. if they are allowed to be?