Paragraph Movie Reviews: Epic

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

From far away, Epic is pretty, but once you get up close, you notice the cracks; this can double both as an assessment of the animation and of the movie overall. The widescreen aspects of work done by Blue Sky Studios' animators is gorgeous, as they create a well thought-out, meticulously constructed, inventive world that shimmers and shines from the outside. The action scenes, particularly the chase sequences, are packed with frenetic energy and the animation really nails the details. It's when the characters are standing still or conversing, when the action slows, that you notice the little things like facial expressions and figure movement don't hold up as well. Similarly, the grand premise of a hidden nature world where there's an ongoing war between the denizens of life and the avatars of "the rot"--seriously, it's Rotworld!--is cool, but it feels at times like the folks writing the script figured that skeleton was enough to hang the plot on and didn't really need to flesh their mythology out. The second half of the film is a lot stronger than the first, which really drags, but by then it's coasting on the forward momentum provided by action in lieu of a strong story or character development. The voice acting is of varying levels, as Amanda Seyfried and Josh Hutcherson are fine if a little flat in the leads, Colin Farrell puts an effort in as the aging hero of the piece, Christoph Waltz gets about half way there as the villain, and the trio of Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd and Steven Tyler get to stand out because they're the comic relief and this is a PG-animated movie (the less said about Beyonce's performance as the queen of the forest, the better). I wouldn't trash Epic, as it's a perfectly fun piece with some really strong craftsmanship times, but in an era when animated films have hit a much higher level, it feels incomplete.

Art Attack Flashback: X-Men - The Tempting

Got an e-mail from my mother earlier today with this pic attached...

It's a drawing I did when I was younger that she found when going through stuff at our house. I'd like to say based on the quality of art and spelling that I was like 7, but fortunately I included issue numbers of when my proposed crossover event was going to happen and can see that I was 14. Fantastic.

I have no idea what the story I was planning was here, but let's do a little detective work and draw conclusions...

-It's called "X-Men: The Tempting" (because I had to save the word "Temptation" for the tag line, obviously) so I'd assume the shadowy villain character I gave eyes and giant shoulders to was offering various members of the X-Teams stuff. This was a good year before Underworld Unleashed, so Mark Waid obviously stole that plot from me.

-You can tell this is something I created because Iceman is the most prominent member of the X-Men featured.

-Despite X-Force being my favorite X-title and my having listed it as a tie-in, I didn't draw anybody from the team among the full figures, most likely because I was still pissed Fabian Nicieza had left the book. I also didn't draw anybody from X-Factor, but that may have been because I stopped reading it when Peter David left and had no idea who was on the team.

-X-Man was definitely an ongoing series at this point, but for some reason I decided not to include it.

-That drawing of Rogue begs the question of whether I was worse at drawing women or leather jackets (and why I would choose to try and draw a woman in a leather jacket based on those shortcomings).

-As evidenced by both Banshee and Cyclops, my means of conveying motion is to only draw one and a half legs on figures to make it seems like they're running/flying (or getting around it altogether by making Nightcrawler's teleportation effect really big).

-I'm really proud of myself for including Colossus' short-lived shoulder ridges from when he was on Excalibur.

-The second head shot down is Psylocke; I know this because I distinctly remember that was my way of showing she had her hair in a ponytail.

-I was terrible at drawing Beast.

-I must have really liked Havok's old school costume.

-I know I really liked Cable's glowing eye.

-I do not know what "Touchdowns in March" means and could apparently not spell the word "special" despite being a freshman in high school. I blame the Massachusetts public school system.

So anyway, I'll be pitching this story to Nick Lowe on Tuesday; expect to see it on stands by 2014.

Paragraph Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

I found this to be a decent movie; not great, not awful, just decent. I didn't regret seeing it, probably won't see it again. It had its good parts and its bad parts, as I'll discuss. I feel like that's about as neutral a first impression as I can give, but that's how I felt. I was a bit let down if only because I don't think it came close to measuring up against the 2009 Star Trek reboot; of course with rare exceptions sequels demonstrate diminishing returns, but I had hoped the four-year gap between films meant they really found a way to nail it. The greatest attribute of this franchise to my mind remains the brilliant casting, as there are no duds to be found in the ensemble, with Chris Pine and Zach Quinto as the standouts, plus Zoe Saldana getting a nice chance to step up more here than in the previous installment. Benedict Cumberbatch brought a great sense of command and menace to the antagonist of the piece, channeling Alan Rickman but with more physicality. Alice Eve slotted in nicely as well, holding her own against the aforementioned talents plus Karl Urban, etc. I found Peter Weller a bit over the top in his role, but that feels more down to the plotting than his work (and tough to discuss without hitting spoiler territory). I also think the script was tremendously strong when it came to dialogue; my favorite parts of the movie were the funny moments or emotional exchanges, and that has as much to do with the writing as the acting. It's also a visually stunning piece of work, no question, and the action sequences are top notch, so kudos to J.J. Abrams on that. There were two major negatives dragging in particular the second half down in my opinion, first and foremost being the handling of the story's villain. I feel like Abrams and company got a little too bogged down in trying to create mysteries and twists regarding the bad guy, and in the process muddied the motivations; by three quarters in, I was a bit lost on why certain characters were doing what and whether or not I should be rooting for or against them. My other issue would be what felt like diminishing stakes as the plot rolled out. In the beginning of the movie, I felt like major players were in very real danger, which was exciting, but there were so many close calls early on that by the mid-point I didn't get the sense of any true peril; I know it's tough to really ask for that in an action movie, but for whatever reason, it felt more glaring than usual here, whether it was what felt like a too deliberate "and this is how we'll save whoever needs to be saved later" smoking gun or the "it doesn't matter if people are dying as long as they're not the ones whose names we now" syndrome I've been noticing more and more in this type of film lately. I'd recommend you try this one for yourself, as I think it's very much a case of mileage varying by taste.

Art Attack: July 2013's Coolest Covers

-It's crazy to me sometimes to remember how long Stuart Immonen has been doing comic book art at the high level he has, how many times he has evolved his style and how drastically. This is a guy who already had a unique take on super heroes back in the 90's when he drew Final Night, went way outside the box for Nextwave, had the chops to follow Mark Bagley on Ultimate Spider-Man and handled a book no less high profile than New Avengers. With All-New X-Men, he's morphed yet again, perhaps in more subtle ways, but he's a talent who definitely takes care to make teenagers look like teenagers. This cover is even another side, very fine art in the background and very striking at the fore.

-That's a clever Avengers Arena cover by Dave Johnson that can work multiple ways. The brackets make sense given the book's premise, but he does cool work making them shadows or roots or whatever you want to see them

-Man, I love the way Patrick Gleason visualized the whole environment for that Batman & Catwoman cover, not just the figures or the setting but how they interact. Love the angle of the characters and the use of the Bat Signal.

-I love the way Salvador Larroca draw super heroes; classic, colorful, powerful super heroes. That is all.

-That's some especially pretty Chris Samnee Daredevil art. All that black looks awesome and perfectly conveys a predicament that would crush Matt Murdock. This cover works from both a storytelling perspective and in creating an enticing snapshot.

-Double shot of Juan Doe radness this month. Fun Blood Brothers cover and then graphic brilliance on Earth 2, taking smart cues from propaganda posters and using the figures perfectly. Juan's art always grabs you.

-Mark Brooks, you did it again.

-I want that Francis Manapul Flash cover as a poster.

-Nice callback on this month's Indestructible Hulk cover by Paolo Rivera to his own Daredevil #1 work, using DD's billy clubs to blind Hulk and Banner this go around.

-Speaking of callbacks, Nova #6 is a nice shot from Ed McGuinness after a fashion to one of my all-time favorites, the original Nova #25.

-Ryan Stegman doing some Bill Sienkiewicz jazz with the ninjas battling Scarlet Spider--very cool!

-Thor: God of Thunder. Esad Ribic. Guh.

100 BULLETS: BROTHER LONO #2 by Dave Johnson

ALL-NEW X-MEN #14 by Stuart Immonen

AVENGERS ARENA #12 by Dave Johnson

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #17 by Joe Quinones

BATMAN & CATWOMAN #22 by Patrick Gleason

BATMAN INCORPORATED #13 by Chris Burnham

BATWOMAN #22 by J.H. Williams III

BLOOD BROTHERS #1 by Juan Doe

CABLE & X-FORCE #10 by Salvador Larroca

CAPTAIN MARVEL #14 by Joe Quinones

DAREDEVIL #29 by Chris Samnee

DAREDEVIL: DARK NIGHTS #2 by Lee Weeks

DEADPOOL #13 by Kris Anka

DIAL H #14 by Brian Bolland

EARTH 2 #14 by Juan Doe

FATALE #16 by Sean Phillips

FEARLESS DEFENDERS #6 by Mark Brooks

FLASH #22 by Francis Manapul

GREEN ARROW #22 by Andrea Sorrentino

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #22 by Bernard Chang

GREEN TEAM: TEEN TRILLIONAIRES #3 by Amanda Conner

HOUSE OF GOLD AND BONES #4 by Frank Quitely

INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #10 by Paolo Rivera

IRON MAN #12 by Greg Land

KATANA #6 by Pasqual Ferry

LAZARUS #2 by Michael Lark

NOVA #6 by Ed McGuinness

RED SHE-HULK #67 by Francesco Francavilla

SCARLET SPIDER #19 by Ryan Stegman

SECRET AVENGERS #7 by Nic Klein

SUPERGIRL #22 by Mahmud Asrar

SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN #1 by Marcos Martin

THOR: GOD OF THUNDER #10 by Esad Ribic

THUNDERBOLTS #12 by Julian Totino Tedesco

X-FACTOR #259 by David Yardin

Paragraph Movie Reviews: Pain & Gain

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

Coming out Pain & Gain, myself and the other guys I saw it with more or less agreed on two things: we liked it and we'd have a lot of trouble describing it to anybody who hadn't seen it. The short version would be to say it's a movie about fitness trainer Daniel Lugo getting a crew together to hold hostage and extort a rich client and what happens when the plan goes right and then wrong, but to do so would be a disservice to everything going on in this film. At various times it's a screwball comedy, a heist movie, a very dark comedy, and a thriller, with all four of those and several more genres frequently crashing or bleeding into one another pretty seamlessly. I'd say it has a very similar chaotic energy to To Die For (the Nicole Kidman one) or even Fight Club. Mark Wahlberg plays Lugo in a way that immediately called up for me Christian Bale's turn as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho; they're very different characters, but both characters call upon an ultra intensity and rapid fire delivery to bring earnestness to the ridiculous. Wahlberg is par for the course brilliant from his crazy voice overs to some really funny physical comedy. Great as Wahlberg is, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson matches and perhaps surpasses him as Paul Doyle, a born again ex-con and former cocaine addict who gets drawn into Lugo's plan. Johnson basically plays an array of characters over the course of the story: the repentant man of peace, the strung out crackhead, the intense criminal and various combinations therein and he's fantastic as all of them with his commanding presence, unmatched charisma, and brilliant comic timing. This should be the movie that propels Johnson past being a kids movie headliner or part of an action ensemble into a full-on leading man. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote the screenplay, based on a book by Pete Collins--oh, and this is all based on a true story, by the way--and their script is top notch; this movie is eminently quotable both from a "that was really funny" stance and a "that was really deep" one. Michael Bay directs, and even though there is at least one major explosion--and a lot of uncomfortably violent moments that pop up when you least expect them but do feel earned--he does a great job, using slo-mo cuts for great comedy, employing voice overs to really convey the story, and being smart with his effects. Beyond Wahlberg and Johnson, Tony Shalhoub is perfect as the sleazy jerk they kidnap and Anthony Mackie holds his own as best he can as the third member of the team (it's hard not to get a little lost in the shuffle considering his co-stars). The movie is somewhat bloated at 129 minutes; it could lose 40 of those and not suffer. There's also a distinct cut-off point where it feels like one act ends and another incongruous one churns up when Ed Harris' detective character--fine performance, but the character himself feels imported from another movie--enters and the pace slows down. There are certainly things Pain & Gain could have done better, but it already did enough right that I'm still thinking about it a day later and writing more than I usually would and still feeling like I barely scratched the surface.

The History of the X-Men in April

UNCANNY X-MEN #495 (2008)

The first post-Messiah CompleX issue with the Xavier Institute once again destroyed, Professor X presumed dead (though not for long) and the X-Men having disbanded, though they’re all still in contact so it seems more like a quick hiatus than anything else, backed up by the plots that unfold here. I was a few months into my tenure at Marvel when this came out, and X-Men editor Nick Lowe was one of the folks from editorial I quickly got along with (especially after he made me host a company-wide “mustache pageant” in front of four dozen people like my second day on the job), so both through talking with him and his office as well as being privy to upcoming plans, I had a pretty good idea of where the X-Men were headed, which altered my reading of issues like these a bit just as starting at Wizard a little over three years earlier had. I really dug Cyclops and Emma Frost’s Savage Land vacation, with Ed Brubaker taking the lead on making Scott Summers a more likable relatable but simultaneously take charge character with a mix of humor and focus; it was a baton passed to him by Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon that he’d in turn hand off to Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen and today Brian Michael Bendis. In the other two subplots, Wolverine takes Colossus and Nightcrawler on a Russian road trip that felt like a throwback a bit to the Claremont days while Angel investigates a freaky time portal to the 60’s in San Francisco that would lead to big, cool changes. Mike Choi and Sonia Oback did the art on this arc, and it’s gorgeous.

 

UNCANNY X-MEN #439-440 (2003)

By this point, Chuck Austen’s tenure on Uncanny X-Men had gone full-on soap opera tilt, with these two installments of the “She Lies with Angels” arc being a pretty prime example. The story had Husk—Cannonball’s younger sister Paige—bringing Angel home to Kentucky where one of her other siblings, Josh, has gained wings and other similar-to-Warren powers and anti-mutant unrest has cropped up. It ends up being a country version of Rome & Juliet with Josh and the daughter of the mutant-hating sheriff being in love, some of the bigoted good ol’ boys getting high tech weaponry they plan to use to kill all the Guthries, and the X-Men getting caught in the middle. Parallel to this, Paige and the far older Warren have feelings for each other and are trying to find the courage to admit as much. As a dyed in the wool fan of Melrose Place and other such adult melodrama, I didn’t mind this period of X-Men history, though I know others got annoyed that there was a lot of angst and kissing without as much punching and kicking (I’m actually surprised the aforementioned Nick Lowe, who loves angst and kissing, wasn’t editing at this point). Regardless, you had beautiful Salvador Larroca art—with Danny Miki and UDON knocking it out on inks and colors respectively—and he’s a guy who can draw proclamations of love as well as he does big battles.

UNCANNY X-MEN #354 (1998)

I…don’t think I have this issue. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever even read this issue. It was during the Steve Seagle/Joe Kelly period, which Kiel raves about but was one of my bigger blind spots. I’ve tracked down some stuff from this era, but not all, and not this; too bad, looks like a fun one.

UNCANNY X-MEN #299 (1993)

I remember this issue well, coming as it did a couple months post-X-Cutioner’s Song, right before the big issue #300, and just prior to Fatal Attractions. These quiet months between big events are some of my favorites from when I was a kid as it allowed Scott Lobdell to slow down and focus on some of the emotional connections he was making between characters while also ramping up the drama to come. The story kicks off with Forge being called in on an excavation of a crashed Asteroid M and making the discovery that Magneto’s body was not among the wreckage. I basically had started reading X-Men comics regularly only a couple of months earlier, so I had never actually encountered Magneto, what with him being “dead” at the time, so my only knowledge came from trading cards and the like; this seemed like a much bigger deal for me than it likely did to the more seasoned fan trained to expect such resurrections. We also learn more about the Upstarts and the Gamesmaster—more folks I only knew because I had their trading cards—including the introduction of Sabretooth’s son, anti-mutant rabble rouser Graydon Creed. My most vivid memories of this issue, though, are of two characters that appear out of nowhere and then were never even mentioned again for as long as I was collecting regularly through high school: a waitress whom Bishop thinks “seems familiar” and a campaign aide working for Senator Kelley who tips to Jean Grey that he’s a telepath. Only very recently via Marvel Handbooks and the Internet did I learn that the waitress was revealed as Fatale—who?—during around Onslaught when I stopped reading and the aide returned years later during Joe Kelly’s Deadpool run as Noah Dubois.

UNCANNY X-MEN #228 (1988)

Bridging the gap between the end of Fall of the Mutants and the X-Men’s rebirth into the Australian Outback, this is a one issue flashback tale—probably an inventory story—featuring Wolverine and Dazzler helping a bounty hunter character from the Dazzler solo series clear his name. Not much of note aside from Rick Leonardi on fill-in art, always a delight.

UNCANNY X-MEN #168 (1983)

A memorable issue for multiple reasons, first and foremost that it opens with the famous “Professor Xavier is a jerk!” splash page with Kitty Pryde whirling around and pointing her finger at us, as perfectly rendered by Paul Smith. Following the lengthy Brood epic, the X-Men have returned to Earth and met the New Mutants, and since there’s now a team specifically for mutants her age, Professor X wants to bump Kitty down off the adult roster. A pissed off Kitty spend the first half of the issue pouting like any teenager, than discovers and defeats—with Lockheed’s help—a nest of alien Sidrian Hunters, proving her worth and earning a spot back on the X-Men. Wolverine heads off to Japan for his first limited series while the rest of the cast check in with their loved ones; just good, classic Claremont stuff. The last big moment, however, comes on the final page, with the introduction of Madelyne Pryor, an Alaska-bound pilot who looks exactly like the deceased Jean Grey.

UNCANNY X-MEN #110 (1978)

Another seeming inventory issue—or close to it—with another legendary guest artist: Tony DeZuniga. Iron Fist villain Warhawk, a Claremont co-creation, storms the mansion, trapping most of the X-Men in the Danger Room while he goes one-on-one with Wolverine until the others bust free (Warhawk would return years later in a Maverick back-up story drawn by Mark Texeira that I didn’t understand at all when I was 10). There’s some relationship advancement with Wolvie and Jean Grey as well as Banshee and Moira MacTaggert, but mostly a downtime story coming off the original Phoenix Saga. There is one big moment here though: what I believe is the first X-Men baseball game, which would become a tradition in the franchise—and one I daresay we’ve gone too long without. Where’s that Nick Lowe character?

My Justice League of America

The basic premise of the new Justice League of America series from Geoff Johns and David Finch is that the U.S. government wanted their own super hero team that they could control and that could also be used to potentially take out the original group if they get out of hand. The aspect I most love is that Geoff, being the type of nerd after my own heart who likes arranging his toys to match one up against the other, constructed the JLA with members specifically meant to counter their opposite numbers in specific one-on-one showdowns in the inevitable conflict (Amanda Waller shows a chart with arrows and everything in the first issue).

This is building block comics as you loved them when you were a kid stuff that tickles me whenever it showed up. There’s a reason every good super hero has an opposite number enemy (Bizarro, Venom, Sinestro, Sabretooth, etc.) and every super hero team has a villain group made up of one bad guy to counter each member (Injustice League, Dark Avengers and so forth). It’s good old-fashioned comic book-y fun, and as the guy who realized there was gold in taking the color green and splitting it across the rainbow, Geoff as much as anybody realizes that can be the jumping off point for a great story.

In the past on this very blog, I’ve ridden the coattails of various writers—usually Geoff, actually—and stories—usually Geoff’s again—and come up with my own takes on who would fill what slots in the fantasy draft that is comic book brainstorming. Since I enjoyed writing those—and if I recall correctly they all got a lot of hits…and that’s why we really do this—here’s my crack at a Justice League of America roster to call my own, with the caveats that I didn’t re-use any of Geoff’s picks and am still getting to know the New 52 mythos (but I also have the benefit of not having to coordinate with other writers or, y’know, actually write any stories, so there you go).

FRANKENSTEIN

When casting an anti-Superman, I always go straight for his weakness to magic, since it’s the one thing he seems to have never developed a true defense for (there’s always a way around Kryptonite) and practitioners of the mystic arts tend to be powerful besides. Whereas I’d usually opt for Captain Marvel, the New 52 version is still an untested kid; on the flipside, Frankenstein is a battle-hardened warrior with centuries of experience who may be mostly a product of science, but I wager has enough magic fused in that patchwork body—or at least that he can gain access to—to give Supes fits. He’s a powerhouse who can serve as the team’s tank, but also a strategist and proven leader. Oddly enough, he seems to have a level head in the heat of battle, which would come in handy here.

MIDNIGHTER

Since his creation, Midnight has generally been played as a more ruthless Batman, and that’s something you’d need badly to counteract the Justice League. What he may lack in the Dark Knight’s cerebral capacity for game plans—and not by much—he makes up for in sheer brutality as well as a degree of fighting ability that can be considered superhuman (depending on who’s writing him). Additionally, as a member even briefly of the New 52 Stormwatch—for the sake of this, let’s ignore the Jim Starlin reboot of last week for now—he’s been privy to the workings of another organization tasked with potentially taking down the League that has access to centuries of data. Other members of this team can try to match up with Batman in the game of human chess, but if he gets a crack at him straight up, Midnighter can potentially take him off the board.

POWER GIRL

To the best of my knowledge, not many warriors on Wonder Woman’s level have popped up yet in the New 52—I know Big Barda made a cameo in the last issue of Earth 2, but she hasn’t really shown her stuff yet—but in terms of sheer power, Karen Starr can match and perhaps exceed her. Added advantages PG possesses are that she’s still a relative unknown in the Justice League’s dimension who they wouldn’t have time to adequately prepare for—and who could probably be fairly easily talked into this role by the government—and that she boasts training from a more experienced incarnation of Superman, making her a threat to multiple targets here. If Power Girl comes in like a house of fire, she can bowl over Wonder Woman quick then look to do more damage.

KYLE RAYNER

I’m sure if they had their druthers, Amanda Waller and Steve Trevor would much rather go after a more experienced Green Lantern than neophyte Simon Baz to counteract Hal Jordan, but they probably correctly assumed none of the more tenured ring slingers would go against their brother. However, if any is going to turn at this stage, it would likely be Kyle, not because he’s dumb or evil, but because he’s trusting enough to be talked into thinking Hal—a guy he met as a villain…presumably still—is making another bad call (John wouldn’t listen, Guy is too much of a wild card). Again, it’s a long shot, and it probably wouldn’t work, but if it did, you get not only a powerful Green Lantern, but the only one who’s proven able to wield every emotion on the spectrum, making him potentially far more powerful and versatile than Hal Jordan; then again, worst case scenario, you get a pissed off uber-Lantern on your case…

TURBINE

A recent debut in the pages of The Flash, Turbine is a military man who spent 70 years in the Speed Force, mastering most aspects of the dimension and going nuts along the way. He’s a tentative ally of Barry Allen at this point, but a proven unstable commodity who’s used to following orders from Uncle Sam. His reckless nature means he may not have quite the finesses over his abilities that the Flash possesses, but he also has more raw power and knows tricks that no other speedsters have tapped into yet. Besides his ability to rankle and take out a major Justice League player, it’s just never a bad idea to have somebody with super speed on your side from every tactical angle.

ANIMAL MAN

You’re going to be hard up to find many people who can hold their own against Aquaman if he can get them to his native environment, but Buddy Baker may be one of them. With his ability to mimic any animal’s abilities, Animal Man can at least keep pace with the king of Atlantis under the sea until an opportunity arises to hit him with a power set snagged from other creature. Back on land or in the air, Buddy remains a tricky opponent for any member of the Justice League; he’s among the more versatile fighters in all of the New 52. As far as his attitude, following the events of Rotworld and the death of his son, Buddy’s more hardened than ever, but also in a terrible emotional place where he’d potentially welcome the direction of belong to a team; if he’s stable enough, he’s got the people skills to be a decent leader.

THE ENGINEER

Take everything I said about Batman and Midnighter, and then transfer it over to Cyborg and the Engineer. However, besides that edge in ruthlessness and access to Stormwatch, she’s also got a nod in experience and may have dealt with an even greater variety of threats and adversaries than most of the Justice Leaguers (hard to say with much of the history of the New 52 DCU still unaccounted for). She’s more likely to override Vic Stone’s toolbox than vice versa, depriving the League of their go-to support staff. Also, again depending on stability, like Animal Man or Frankenstein she does have the potential to lead with a great mind for organization and strategy.

You might not buy this book, but would these guys stand a chance against the Justice League?