DC bigwig Dan DiDio told Newsarama in his 20 Questions feature today that \u201cThe \u201980s JLA group is going to be back, and be back with a vengeance, in 2010,\u201d and it got me thinking that maybe a handful of recent comments and announcements add up to something\u2013that something being the reformation of the Justice League International, a development I\u2019ve been expecting since DC announced that there would be two Titans titles and two JSA titles but that the JLA, their tentpole franchise, wouldn\u2019t have the same treatment.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s happened lately that might play into this? Characters like Blue Beetle, Superboy and Kid Flash\/Impulse, who have been written with a humorous aspect in the past, have been freed up lately. Also free of obligations right now is Wally West, who served on the Justice League Europe for a while. You\u2019ve also got DiDio trumpeting a \u201cnew direction\u201d for Booster Gold in 2010, both as a character and as a title (complete with creative changes). When he announced the jettisoning of Jaime Reyes\u2019 second feature in Booster Gold, DiDio told CBR that the character would be seen as a regular in another title soon, but that he wouldn\u2019t be featured as either the headliner, or the second feature. Of the existing DC Universe teams, the only one that would really make sense for Blue Beetle III to be on is the Teen Titans\u2013of which he\u2019s already a member. Recent comments by Geoff Johns suggest that Martian Manhunter\u2019s life as a character may not end as a Black Lantern\u2013and when I think of his being back I wonder about Aquaman\u2013another character who seems, based on February\u2019s Brave and the Bold solicitation, to be back among the living after Blackest Night.<\/p>\n
There was, a couple of years ago, a panel in Booster Gold that depicted a reformed JLI as having played a role in Final Crisis. The story hasn\u2019t yet come to fruition, but it did depict Aquaman on the team and wearing his blue-camo suit. Although it was very short-lived when he wore it in the early \u201990s (I think), he does appear dressed that way in a new toy available at KMart. Do the marketing folks know something we don\u2019t?<\/p>\n
Not conclusive, I grant you, but all of that tends to suggest that some or all of these characters could be headed in the same direction. Add to that famed JLI artist Kevin Maguire\u2019s recent departure from Doom Patrol\u2019s Metal Men backup\u2013the co-feature was ended when, DiDio said, Maguire had to leave for \u201canother project\u201d and they decided it would be best not to try and go on without him. What project could he be working on? UPDATE: Not this one, apparently. When questioned via e-mail, Maguire responded that he had no idea whether or not a project like this was in the works. \u201cThis is the first I\u2019m hearing of Dan\u2019s comment,\u201d the veteran penciller told us. \u201cWhatever\u2019s going on doesn\u2019t involve me.\u201d<\/p>\n
To me, if even half of these announcements are connected, they suggest a JLI mini-, maxi- or ongoing series starting in late spring 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DC bigwig Dan DiDio told Newsarama in his 20 Questions feature today that \u201cThe \u201980s JLA group is going to be back, and be back with a vengeance, in 2010,\u201d and it got me thinking that maybe a handful of … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegreenlanterncorps.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}