DCU Comic Book Reviews

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #24

The Second Coming, Part Three:  The Blood-Dimmed Tide

October 2008

Written by Dwayne McDuffie

Pencils by Allan Goldman

Inks by Prentis Rollins w/ Rodney Ramos

Cover by Ed Benes

Synopsis

Amazo has attacked the Justice League and is about to kill Vixen.  Zatanna, despite her mouth magically disappearing thanks to a spell from Amazo, attacks Amazo to stop him.  She is able to slow him down long enough for Red Arrow to attack and then Black Canary to get close enough to use her scream to blow apart Amazo’s head.  However, the head grows back.  In the Slideways Control Bay, Batman and Steel realize what is happening.  Steel wants to go help.  Batman says they can help right where they are.  Elsewhere, the fight against Amazo continues with the Justice League having little success.  Batman tells the team to push Amazo into the Slideways.  Meanwhile, Zatanna is able to heal her mouth.  She then creates a whirlwind and uses that to push Amazo into the Slideways, which puts Amazo 600 light years away.  Later, Vixen goes to visit Buddy Baker (aka Animal Man) for help to determine what happened to her powers.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Hey, look, the cover has nothing to do with the issue!

Okay, follow me on this one.  This entire plotline with the return of Amazo has been fairly underwhelming.  Not only was it recently done when the series first started, less than two years ago, but there really is nothing new to the plot:  Amazo attacks the Justice League while Red Tornado wants a new body.  Regardless how well the action is done, it still remains the same as before.  Yet, underneath that dull plot, McDuffie still manages to piece together flashes of moments that really showcase the team and the characters.  From Black Canary’s scream to pop Amazo’s head like a pimple, to Zatanna healing herself, to Batman coming up with the plan, to Wonder Woman coming up with the rescue, McDuffie shows he can handle these characters.  What he needs is a story that is not derivative of something else, an original plot and story that will showcase the characters, not bury them.  Maybe the Vixen storyline will provide that (although given the track record of this title, I would be willing to bet that whatever happens will occur in the new Vixen mini-series and not in the main Justice League title). 

This is the second time (the first was Detective Comics, issue #834) I can recall in which Zatanna used her own blood to heal her herself after she lost the ability to speak.  So I suppose anyone who carps about it can blame Dini, not McDuffie.  At the very least the scene either shows the two writers think alike or the editor and/or McDuffie stole, er, kept Dini’s idea consistent within the DC universe.

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