Justice League 3000 Volume 1 - Yesterday Lives

Justice League 3000 started near the end of the New 52 era, and the follow-up series, Justice League 3001 actually carried over into that DCYou thing they did in 2015. It seems like DC was thinking two things: One, that they wanted to do a book in the future, but they couldn't get the Legion of Superheroes to sell, so slap "Justice League" on there instead. And two, that they'd try to serve that
portion of the fanbase that loved the Giffen/DeMatteis JLI.

So you get this, a "resurrected" Justice League trying to free the galaxy from the control of a group called "The Five", who have one member called "Persuader", but otherwise no real resemblance to the Fatal Five I can see. The process was imperfect, and so are the heroes, so they bicker and squabble, and behave stupidly, and die, and get brought back again. One of them does, at least.

There are a few jokes or gags that get run into the ground. Superman forgetting he can't fly, characters acting incredulously when someone refers to Ariel Masters as the team's "mother". That second one is made especially annoying because whenever it happens, no ever bothers to just explain it then, because that would possibly stop them from using it again 10 pages later.

There was potential to the idea. An inexperienced, wobbly Justice League trying to overthrow a powerful, entrenched dictatorship in a time they don't really understand. By the end of issue 7, which is the last one in this trade, you can see the team making halting steps in the direction of their old selves. They aren't their original selves - they still lack pieces, notably when it comes to strategy - but there's a hint they could form into an effective group.

But they still aren't a group you care much about. Beyond the fact it's established they can just be brought back if they die, and the question of whether they should even exist at all, they're an annoying group. A Superman who won't stop announcing it, no matter how many times nobody is impressed, his skull apparently only invulnerable to insight. Flash keeps dying, but pointlessly - such a poor copy he can't even get the only thing Barry Allen does well right. On and on. It might be funny if they didn't belabor the point.

One thing that's influencing my outlook is I found two-thirds of JL 3001 in some dollar bins right before this tpb showed up in the mail. I know the rushed, inconclusive ending this book ultimately gets. I was looking forward to seeing Blue & Gold running amok in this dystopia, but, knowing they're going to vanish early in the next series, without enough time for them to make a dramatic last-minute (possibly accidental) rescue takes a lot of wind from those sails. 

Howard Porter's art doesn't help. It has more energy to it than his work on those Superman Beyond stories that ran in Batman Beyond Unlimited did - or maybe just more effects to show movement or action. And the Batman costume isn't bad, and I quite like the Green Lantern one (pity he mostly stops wearing the cloak three issues in). But his work is still overly busy, lots of lines trying to create depth or detail, but often just muddling or confusing things. That guy in the panels above, possessed by one of the Five, in a couple of the panels you might think he had some sort of rectangular facial markings, but no, they aren't there in other panels. Porter just felt he needed those lines there for some reason.

Keith Giffen handles the breakdowns and manages to avoid reverting to 9-panel grids all the time. Porter's work needs more space than that. A lot of 5-panel pages, usually with one panel stretching across the page at the top or bottom, and then two pairs. That part works fairly well.

That's the book overall. Some good pieces, but it doesn't come together into much of anything.