Green Lantern Hal Jordan proposes a major change for Earth, but first he needs to get a very fractured Justice League to come together and agree.
Justice League: Last Ride 1
Written by Chip Zdarsky
Pencils and Inks by Miguel Mendonça
Colors by Enrica Eren Angiolini
I kind of miss the days when the Justice League – friends and comrades all – would identify a threat and work together as a team to defeat it. Maybe I grew up watching too much Super Friends as a kid, but I much prefer a League united. I haven’t had much of that in recent years.
Even now, in the main JUSTICE LEAGUE book, written by Brian Michael Bendis, there are arguments over whether the League should accept Black Adam into its ranks. The ruler of Khandaq has Superman’s support, which goes a long way, but there is still some friction over the proposal. That friction, though, is world’s more respectful than the completely fractured Justice League we get in the first issue of Chip Zdarsky’s Last Ride.
In fact, it seems that the League has completely fallen apart as the series opens.
Superman and Batman are arguing like children, though the cause of the collapse of their friendship is a major issue: a decision Batman made – when Superman was indecisive – led to the death of the Martian Manhunter. J’onn J’onnz is generally considered to be the glue that holds the Justice League together, so it’s no surprise that his death in this corner of the multiverse would have severe ramifications. But a League that’s unable to find peace amongst themselves after a tragedy like this is a much weaker League than we’re used to.
The story in Last Ride gives no real indication of which continuity we’re in or which Earth we’re on. While there are similarities to the world of INFINITE FRONTIER – the United Planets is established and taking over policing the universe after the Green Lantern Corps’ home base of OA was destroyed, much like in the recent issue of GREEN LANTERN – we’re clearly not in the main continuity. I’m not sure how it makes sense to have a major release like Last Ride that might confuse the main continuity, but if the main idea of Infinite Frontier is that every story counts somewhere and somehow, I’m probably overthinking the story’s placement within the larger DC Universe.
I really should just probably take each story for what it is as I’m reading it and not worry about how it fits. It’s generally a good policy when it comes to reading DC Comics over the last few years.
But even with a fractured Justice League, it IS a Justice League book, so we need to bring them together somehow. That task is left to Hal Jordan, who calls the heroes back to the Watchtower on the moon to discuss a proposal: he wants the League to protect a captured Lobo before he gets put on trial to prove to the United Planets that the moon should be allowed to be a new OA.
There’s a lot of moving pieces to Jordan’s proposal, especially since the Main Man has some enemies that are gunning for him before he makes it to a trial. To keep Lobo alive, the League plans to use the trappings of Apokalips, and considering how terrible everything else in the universe is, I can only imagine how bad Darkseid’s realm is.
Given the new world that Chip Zdarsky is building with Last Ride, I’m not sure how much I like where it feels like things are going, but I’m willing to give it one more issue to sell me. Hopefully, it eventually leads to a League that remembers why they come together.