DC Book Club Vol. I - JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE TOTALITY (2018)

AND (I’m so sorry I should gather my thoughts and just post once but I’m just noticing so many little things!) Hawkgirl’s seat doesn’t have a back so her wings are more comfortable!

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You’d be really great at spot the difference puzzles :joy: I never noticed any of this!

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Tbf they were pretty iconic voices

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I’ve always been too good at Where’s Waldo :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Professional Where’s Waldo player right here ^

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I’ve been summoned!

OK, @Bar-El, I’ve got a list of reading for you. Justice League (2018) is a continuation of a macro-story that Scott Snyder has been telling since he began writing DC Comics, all of which culminates ultimately in Dark Nights: Death Metal and Batman: Last Knight on Earth. You will have more appreciation for this Justice League series if you are more familiar with Snyder’s work leading up to this point.

In particular, I would recommend reading the following (most important reads in bold):

Detective Comics (1937) #871-881
Batman: Gates of Gotham
Batman (2011)
Detective Comics (2011) #27
Batman Eternal
Batman & Robin Eternal
Batman: Rebirth (2016) #1
All-Star Batman (2016)
Batman Annual (2016) #1
Swamp Thing (2011) #1-18
Superman Unchained
Dark Nights: Metal
Justice League: No Justice

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Thank you HCQ! :pray: :pray:

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Thank you! Looks like I’ve got some reading to do in order to get current!
image

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Yes, thank you, cause I was a bit lost reading this and wondered where to go back to as well.

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Some further clarification.

For this run in particular, NO JUSTICE is the most important thing to read, setting up this series’ events.

DARK NIGHTS: METAL sets up the inciting incident of NO JUSTICE, and introduces certain characters who will be important to this run later on.

BATMAN (2011) is a very long read, and introduces certain concepts used later in Scott Snyder’s work (particularly METAL), but you can mostly get along without it.

The other books I’ve listed add context, but aren’t necessarily essential.

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@Grimmbrother to your point regarding Lex vs the League… I caught this as well. The Justice League stands for truth. Early in this series Lex talks about fate and doom being related. These ideas are clearly at odds.
May I also point out their icons seems to be in opposition as well. The JL symbol points up; the Legion symbol points down.

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Late to the book club party, but it was a good point to start back up, not my favorite JL starting point, but I did enjoy it still.

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  • Do you hear any celebrity voices when you read the characters?
    Infrequently do I read comics and ‘hear’ a particular voice. If I do, I recognize it more with villains than heroes. Joker for sure I hear Mark Hamill. I thought I might hear Gene Hackman since I’ve considered him my definite Luther for the longest time, but for this depiction of Lex I think Clancy Brown fits better.
    More so than voice actors influencing my reading is the word balloons themselves. Let me mention a few examples; I’ll start with villains again. Black Manta’s word balloons are black with white letters. Since he wears a helmet, I hear/read this as a metallic perhaps robotic voice. Grodd’s lettering is larger, I read this as more like a growl. J’onn is subtle but you notice a slight ripple in the arrow of his word balloons; to me this comes across as echoing (best way I can describe it). Or maybe J’onn can be heard with your ears and your mind simultaneously since he’s telepathic.
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When the Legion of Doom arrives at the their undersea base in issue 2, it’s described as being located at a Veracity Point. “Locations where the laws of physics reveal themselves to be mutable, fallible.” This is notable to me for a couple reasons. First, the word veracity takes its origin from the Latin for truth. If physical laws are fallible, then they’re NOT to be trusted!
This leads to my second point. The story contrasts heroes and villains of course, but also the ideas of truth/justice and fate/doom. The JL idealizes truth while Lex emphasizes fate with his LoD. The LoD has its base on the ocean floor — below. The JL has bases above — either in a major metropolis (D.C.) or the moon. These contrasts provide multiple distinctions of good and evil in this story.

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The Seven Hidden Forces is something I’m definitely interested in reading more about! So far it’s seems we’ve encountered two: Still Force which opposes Flash, and Invisible or Ultraviolet Spectrum which opposes GL. I guess we’ll discover a Hidden Force in opposition to many of our JL heroes?
It reminds me of other 7s in DC stories. Most recently the 7 Magical Lands in Shazam! But also the expansion of the emotional spectrum in Green Lantern. Great stuff!

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I do. And maybe that’s because I’m a trained vocalist with years of studio and radio experience. I’ve done character voicing and read so many lines, it’s just something I naturally do at this point. But my Joker is always Nicholson. Batman is always Christian Bales Batman, because the deep, scratchy, goofy sounding voice over they gave him always makes me laugh. Superman will always be Chris Reeves, and Lex is Hackman for me. Those are just a few. I see you mentioned Hamil as Joker, I certainly can understand that, but he’ll always be Luke to me.

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Just re-read the first seven issues for the first time in a while. Upon revisiting these early issues, it’s pretty impressive how much of Scott’s storyline was clearly figured out from the get go. On to my answers…
Feel free to answer any of the questions below you wish- no need to answer all of them!

  • Did reading this story make you want to learn more about a certain member of the Justice League?
    I feel like I know them all pretty well, so not really. I do enjoy their character interactions quite a bit.
  • When did Batman plant bombs inside the moon?
    So ridiculous. This is one part of the story that I wasn’t crazy about. But I do enjoy it’s resolution in issue #9.
  • Did you find any moments particularly funny?
    I enjoyed the running joke of the Batman voices, especially Wonder Woman’s. It is kind of funny how they poke fun at his image a bit.
  • Do you think the comedy takes away or adds to the series?
    Adds for sure.
  • Do you hear any celebrity voices when you read the characters?
    I think Scott was heavily influenced by the Animated Series, so that’s what I hear.
  • How would you describe Jorge Jimenez’s art style?
    It is incredibly dynamic, and the colors of Alejandro Sanchez add so much life to it. There are many, many gorgeous moments in these books!
  • Did you have a favorite moment or panel of artwork? Why did that stand out to you?
    The image of them fighting the giant Killer Croc is pretty incredible. That’s how you open a comic!
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YES! That is a much better way of describing how I “hear” the dialog in comics than how I was describing. Not necessarily hearing a particular actor, but how the voice would sound under the circumstances. The lettering plays SUCH an important role that I don’t think enough people pay attention to.

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@Bar-El

If @HubCityQuestion’s list hasn’t scared you away, you might also take a look at some of the books that was coming out around the same time.

When this Justice League book launched, it was part of a “New Justice” line of books that is all based on what happened after the events of Dark Nights: Metal and No Justice.

First was Justice League Dark, which has Wonder Woman leading a magic-based team consisting of Zatanna, Detective Chip, Swamp Thing and Man-Bat. This has them dealing with the fallout of how magic has changed after the events of Metal and the arrival of crazy magical forces from beyond the Source Wall, specifically the freaky as hell Upside Down Man. Also, the book did briefly have an event crossover with the Wonder Woman title called “The Witching Hour” that was really good, and is currently being covered by the House of Horror book club:

And then there’s Justice League Odyssey, which features Cyborg, Starfire, Azrael, Jessica Cruz and Darkseid…sorta. In this book this team gets embroiled in a new sector of space that came after the events of No Justice called the “Ghost Sector.”

And finally, there was Titans, which got a new mission team and mission statement after a one-shot special and continuing with issue #23, where Nightwing leads a team consisting of Donna Troy, Raven, Beast Boy, Natasha Irons/Steel, and Miss Martian. That story is probably the least connected, it plays with more of a metagene activation fallout that came from No Justice.

There’s more I could probably mention (like the “New Age of Heroes” books that came after Metal or the Aquaman/Suicide Squad crossover that came after a specific event in Metal).

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Thank you! I’m looking to find a good starting point far enough back and read as much as possible surrounding the justice league members so this is all fantastic! I’ve been reading story arc’s the app has collected but I’d like to “go back in time” and read everything as if it was just coming out. Since I don’t have to break the bank on TPBs I figured this is probably the only way I would ever be able to try something like that. As I was reading this I found lots of little references to things I didn’t know about and it’s not like I’ve got much else going on right now besides comics!

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