An Excellent Jumping On Point: Justice League of America #0

Any time you put a group of people together, there are bound to be conflicts. Whether you are talking about a family, a band, or a team, it is simply inevitable that there will be trouble. Sometimes the tough spots make your group stronger, and sometimes they make it fall apart. So if your brother's band or your little league team have problems, imagine how much worse it would be for a group of super-powered heroes, aliens, and Amazons!

That's exactly what Brad Meltzer and an all-star artist jam are thinking about in Justice League of America #0. (Doesn't the zero issue concept mean that this book doesn't actually exist in our reality? Is it made from anti-matter? Should I read this with lead-lined gloves?) This issue doesn't really have a linear storyline. Instead, it jumps around in time and shows us many of the highs and lows in the League's history. In particular, how those highs and lows are mirrored in the relationship of DC's Big Three: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

This issue is a good jumping on point for someone like me, not really a big DC reader, because I learned everything I needed to know about the League to be interested in what happens next. I imagine that long-time DC fans will appreciate some of the details that slipped past me, but I didn't feel left out of the story. Meltzer's character vignettes have something for every reader, new and old alike.

There is a huge roster of artists on this book, and each one is given an era to illustrate that best matches their style. This gives a distinctly different feel to each era of the League's history represented in this issue. Whatever your artistic preferences, you will find something you like here. Sometimes, the art changes from panel to panel as the time-shifts occur more frequently, which is a really neat way of handling the whole flashback thing without using the wavy lines trick from '80s sitcoms.

Justice League of America #0 gives readers a nifty, self-contained history, while looking forward to the future. If you are interested in where the League has been and, especially, where it is going, you really should pick up this (non-existant) issue now, while it is Four Color Fantasies' guaranteed Book of the Week. Just don't forget to share it with your family and friends, you wouldn't want to start a fight!