Justice League Unlimited/World’s Finest: We Are Yesterday

Since the new Justice League was formed, they’ve been battling against the shadowy threat represented by the superterror organization known as Inferno.  Though they initially appeared to be a new force for evil, the truth is that they’re actually the latest incarnation of the Legion of Doom!  Only the twist this time is that they’re being led by Gorilla Grodd who has picked versions of these villains from different points in their timelines all with the intent of taking over his current era.  Meanwhile, the League – still reeling from Air Wave’s betrayal – is hot on their heels, except for their heaviest of hitters.  That’s because Superman and Batman have their own time-traveling issues to deal with.

What do you do when you want to use the Legion of Doom for a Justice League story, but can’t because the characters involved are either tied up in their own storylines, or in pre-event setup?  Writer Mark Waid comes up with a clever solution to this conundrum, with the help of Christopher Cantwell, who’s listed as a co-plotter on a few of these issues.  Even if it doesn’t have Dan Mora drawing the whole thing (he just does the final issue), we do get plenty of solid art from the likes of Clayton Henry, Dan McDaid, and Travis Moore as they illustrate multiple eras and epic beatdowns.

Unfortunately it never quite came together for me.  “Into the Inferno” was a great start, but the problem isn’t that Waid and company go bigger here, it’s that the story feels like it’s more about the time-travel shenanigans more than anything else.  There’s lots of jumping around between characters and eras and the cast of heroes and villains definitely winds up feeling too large to properly engage with at times.  There are bits of fun that poke through over the course of this volume, but I hope this isn’t a sign of what to expect as the series shifts into “DC K.O.” setup for its next couple of volumes.