DCU Comic Book Reviews

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #29

Star Struck!

March 2009

Written by Len Wein

Pencils by Chris Cross

Inks by Rob Stull and Chris Cross

Cover by Ed Benes

Synopsis

Somewhere unknown, Starbreaker retells the tale of the time when fought the thrice-curse Justice League of America.  In began on Rann, when the league arrived from Earth and defeated Starbreaker’s Robo-Bugs.  When he realized what happened, Starbreaker create duplicates of himself and went after the league, but they were able to defeat the duplicates.  Later, Starbreaker traveled to Earth.  There he easily beat the League, but did not kill them.  He allowed them to live so he could feed off the energy of their misery.  Meanwhile, Starbreaker pulled the Earth out of orbit.  While Green Lantern and Superman attempt to bring it back, the rest of the league attacked Starbreaker.  He easily beat them down.  However, the league got back up to fight again.  Nearby onlookers began to encourage the league.  The positive energy provided by the people was enough to help the league defeat Starbreaker and return Earth to its orbit.  Afterwards, Starbreaker was turned over to the Guardians and sent into a shadow dimension as punishment.  But it was there Starbreaker met Carl Sands (aka Shadow Thief).     

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

This issue felt a lot like Final Crisis Secret Files, partly because it is by the same writer, but also partly because it attempts to do the same thing:  tell the story of a minor character by adding new material to older published stories to flesh out necessary details for the current story.  Overall, it is not a bad issue and it certainly accomplishes what it set out to do, but coming in the midst of the Milestone launch, it feels weirdly out of place.  In fact, until I got to the end I really thought it was just filler material, a way for DC to make sense of the “Faces of Evil” gimmick when the current story technically features two groups of heroes.  The ending changes things.  Not much, mind you, as the issue still is filler; I am not sure we really needed all the information we get in the issue for the Milestone story.  But at the very least it does connect and it will be interesting to see the Milestone characters go up against Starbreaker and the Shadow Thief. 

As for the issue itself, I am not quite sure to make of it.  The problem is that the style of the issue, with the thought balloons, weird narrative boxes, exposition dialogue (such as Aquaman’s need to explain why he can punch out Starbreaker), and campy plotting (a harness to move the Earth?) perfectly matches the time period from which the original story takes place.  Is this a good thing or not?  I mean, we get the vibe and feel for when the story takes place and there is a certain nostalgia feel to the issue, but I wonder why the story couldn’t have been crafted in a more modern style.  After all, we can always go back and read the original.  When this issue is collected with the rest of the Milestone material, it will look out of place.  Perhaps, due to its flashback nature, it won’t stick out too much, but I doubt it. 

Comic Connection

Starbreaker first appeared in Justice League of America (Vol. 1), issue #96 (February 1972) and would later appear in Justice League America, issue #62 (May 1992).  In the Adam Strange mini-series Planet Heist (2005), Sh'ri Valkyr rescues Starbreaker from his imprisonment. 

Carl Sands (aka Shadow Thief) first appeared in The Brave And The Bold, issue #36 (July 1961). 

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