Justice League Red #1 // Review
Red Tornado has run quite a few different simulations. They’ve all more or less resulted in the same thing: global tragedy. He wanted to tell the people responsible for the foreseen tragedies, but before he could do so, he ran simulations on possible outcomes of THAT and things didn’t end too well. You can’t just tell the founders of the Justice League that they’re going to bring about the end of the world. So he’s going to tell other people and start a whole new team in Justice League Red #1. Writer Saladin Ahmed starts an interesting new team with artist Clayton Henry. Color come to the page courtesy of Arif Prianto.
Green Lantern is helping out a few firefighters in Detroit when his Justice League card starts going crazy. Power Girl is confronting a gang outside of Metropolis when she gets HER summons. They’re both a little uneasy about heading-out to confront some mystery person who specifically tells them not to tell anyone else about what they’re doing or where they’re going. It’s a bit of a shock when Red Tornado is there to greet them. Naturally, they’re going to be a bit uneasy about going along with what he’s asking...
Ahmed is doing more than just starting a new team that combines a couple of cool characters. He’s also putting together a really interesting mystery that plays around the edges of the cosmic end of the DC Universe. It’s a fun exploration into some of the implications of advanced AI in a superhero world while delivering particularly strong versions of Green Lantern and Power Girl. It’s not often that Power Girl’s intelligence comes across with as much strength as it does in the first issue of this appealing new series. Combining her with a valiant and selfless Green Lantern creates a fun dynamic.
Henry casts a wide range across the page as Power Girl and Green Lantern perform a secret mission for Red Tornado. The higher-powered end of superhuman action hits the page with considerable power. An entire battle between the two heroes and a giant robot feels totally satisfying even though it takes-up very little space in the issue. Henry gets to the punch brilliantly. The distinct match-up between Power Girl and Green Lantern looks particularly good on the page in an issue that is given vivid light and luminosity by colorist Arif Prianto. The whole things seems to be more or less perfectly balanced on the page.
This sort of thing had been done before. Heroes occasionally have to assemble to go on secret missions. It happens. What Ahmed and company bring to the premise is a somewhat cunning sense of execution that includes an intriguing mystery. The whole...dangers of artificial intelligence end of things has been explored to death in comic books over the years, but things have been developing with AI so quickly on THIS side of the comics page that it’s a good idea to periodically check back with the topic in the DC Universe.
