Darkseid is here, and he never looked better than he does now under the adept penciling of Jim Lee. Flash starts off the book confronting Darkseid while most of the team lies unconscious from the previous attack. Superman offers to help but gets burned by Darkseid’s Omega Beams. Flash outruns them, but Superman doesn’t. The minions take Superman away.

Green Lantern, the brash, headstrong member of the team, fights next. And he gets his arm snapped backwards. Batman, usually the fight-till-you-die member, slows down Green Lantern by revealing his secret identity of Bruce Wayne.

At Batman’s insistence, Green Lantern stops the individual attacks and looks to unionize the Justice League.

Batman goes off and intentionally gets captured. He works his way through a boom tube and ends up in Apokolips.

The humor doesn’t work all that well (Green Lantern refers to Aquaman as Aquafresh; the group debate over their battle cry). But the dialogue does have some effective points. Batman doesn’t use psychology to get through to Green Lantern; instead, he uses pure logic. Batman states that there’s an Amazon, alien, cyborg, and living lightning bolt on the team, so Green Lantern and he are the closest things to normal. That makes GL stop and reflect. A good point, and an interesting moment.

While the plot is nothing more than the team learning to bind together, the issue did have me hooked all the way through. Part of the reason came from Darkseid’s complete ass kicking of the heroes. I didn’t sit and expect this all to be neatly wrapped up by page twenty-two. And that uncertainty makes this a book worth reading.

For a flagship title, Justice League does its best to represent all the heroes. However, Aquaman and Wonder Woman do nothing in this issue. Cyborg’s only contribution is to analyze Green Lantern who has a lantern magic cast on his arm and suggest that Green Lantern’s arm is broken. Whoa, somebody got the ‘state the obvious chip’ upgraded into his rectal portal at the shop.

Really, why is Cyborg on the team? Is this one of those race card thingies?

Overall, I liked how Geoff Johns crafted a story that felt new, accommodating, and exciting. This kind of work gets me more acclimated to the ‘New 52’ (how long do I have to call it that?).

Score: 4/5

Writer: Geoff Johns Artist: Jim Lee Publisher: DC Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 1/25/12