Justice League of America # 27

If you just want to read my review of JLA #27, your best bet is to skip to the bold word "Overall". If not, get ready for me to gripe about some other stuff... Still here? Well, I warned you! You know, Christmas is a nice time of year for spending time with family and all that jazz, but the holiday season has been playing havoc with my sleeping patterns. I used to do the whole "get up at 4:30 in the morning, ride the bus and be at work for 6:00" thing, but saved up enough money to quit that horrible job to attend college. College is cool, because(so far)I've been able to choose later classes, which means more sleep! However, the past few days, I've been awake much earlier than I would like to be, thanks to family holiday stuff. Why am I saying this? What does any of this have to do with JLA #27 you ask? Well, less sleep means less time to read/post reviews. So, until the Christmas family stuff ends, probably early next week, I'll be posting less reviews. On the bright side though, I'll probably just post some pictures instead(just to stay connected to my blog and my other favorite blogs). Now with my ramblings out of the way, onto the review!

Overall- As anyone who has followed my blog with any regularity would know, I've only just begun to read DC comic books. Just this year. The rest of my life I had been a Marvel Zombie. So to say that I was thoroughly confused after I read this comic book was an understatement. Hell, I had to hit up Wikipedia just to know that there was once a Milestone Comics! Anyway, DC holds the rights to these Milestone characters, and since Dwayne McDuffie(current JLA writer)seemed to be a driving force behind Milestone Comics back in the day, it seems that Dwayne is going to bring some of his Milestone creations to the DC Universe. How's that for a quick history lesson!

First, I'm going to start with a recap of the stuff that I understood, in other words, the stuff that actually dealt with the JLA. We had a funny scene(well, not funny for Red Arrow)with Red Arrow in bed with Hawkgirl and Hawkgirl calling out for Hawkman while in the throes of passion. Needless to say, that killed the mood for Roy, who got up and got dressed, while Kendra laid there and said, "Let's talk about it.". Umm, why would Roy want to talk about Kendra calling out for another man while they were having sex?!? How would THAT conversation have gone down???

Black Canary welcomes Vixen back to the team since her powers have stabilized following the events of the last few issues. Don't ask me how, because I read those comics and STILL can't make sense of Vixen or her powers! Anyway, later on, Black Canary catches Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman in their secret folding dimensional clubhouse(remember that from the earlier issues?)and verbally lays into the three of them for trying to run the team behind her back. Dinah tells them that if they want her out of the way, she'll quit and they can go back to running things however they want. Dinah informs them that the team can only have one chairperson, and she's it, so cut the s###! Well, Dinah sure laid down the law. Good for her! I think Green Arrow is starting to rub off on Dinah here! The only thing missing was for her to call them "fatcats" and quit in a huff!

As Black Canary was scolding the Big Three, a distress call comes in from Dr. Light(the female one)and Dinah sends a team out to check on her. That ends the part of this comic that I understood. Now for the confusing Milestone characters. The Shadow Cabinet breaks into Dr. Light's home and wants to ask her some questions. Dr. Light is disturbed that some costumed weirdos are standing in her house, where her children are living and goes on the offensive, but is ultimately captured, but not before sending out the before mentioned distress signal. Before the JLA team arrives, two members of the Shadow Cabinet take off and head to the Hall of Justice and wind up gaining access to the JLA Watchtower. The two Shadow Cabinet members are apparently looking for the remains of the evil male Dr. Light, who was killed by the Spectre(I'll have more to say about that later...). As the 2 Cabinet members find Light's remains, the JLA members who stayed behind approach them, and the Cabinet members manage to transport some guy named Icon and other members of the Shadow Cabinet to their side to even things up. The issue ends with the two teams at a stand off in the Watchtower.

I guess this Icon guy is supposed to mean something to me, but I haven't the foggiest notion who he is or who the rest of the Shadow Cabinet are. I enjoyed the parts dealing solely with the JLA, and kind of wished Dwayne would have stuck with just them, but that was not to be. Like I said before, I'm still getting a grip on the DC characters, introducing characters from another "world" really isn't helping me learn more about the actual DC characters. I'd rather learn more about Zatanna, John Stewart, Hawkgirl or other members of the actual DC Universe, not these Milestone interlopers.

Besides that, there was one MAJOR problem with the plot to this story, and I really hope someone can clear it up for me. I was under the impression that everything that we are reading in the DC comic books right now occurred before the events of Final Crisis. That means this issue happened before Final Crisis #1, and it's subsequent crossovers/tie-ins. My problem is that Dr. Light(the male one)died in Final Crisis:Revelations #1... Do you see the problem here? As of this issue, by DC's own decree, Dr. Light can't be dead because Final Crisis:Revelations #1 hasn't occurred yet! If anyone can shed some light on this situation, I would greatly appreciate it.

Other than that, even though there were some good parts to this comic, I'm not really overly interested in watching the JLA battle it out with a bunch of super-heroes from a company that went belly up about a decade ago. I'll read the next issue because it's the JLA, but I am really longing for the days when Brad Meltzer was the writer on this series... I might just pull out the comics from his run to remind myself how good this comic used to be. For a score, I'll go with a middle of the pack 5 1/2 out of 10. I really enjoyed the JLA members parts of this book, but the Dr. Light death thing and trying to figure out who all of these Shadow Cabinet members were really hurt this comic. Maybe as I get used to the Milestone characters, things will begin to pick back up again in this comic book.