Justice League Unlimited vol. 1: Into the Inferno

After surviving Amanda Waller’s absolute effort to bring them to heel, the superheroes of the DCU realized one thing:  The Justice League needed to return, and do it bigger than ever.  Rather than just keep it to the Big Seven and whoever else was handy, the net has been cast far and wide to allow for anyone with a notable superpower to join.  From venerable heavy-hitters like Superman and Wonder Woman, to specialists like Doctor Occult and Mister Terriffic, to individuals with unique powers like Tefe Holland and Air Wave, this incarnation of the League is ready to take on anything.  From an army of War Wheels attacking South Africa, to an infestation of Parademons in Costa Rica, to the entire Amazon rain forest ON FIRE, there’s nothing they can’t handle.  Except maybe the new super-terrorist group known as Inferno and their man on the inside.

After doing consistently great work on “World’s Finest” and a better job than you’d expect cramming an event series into four issues with “Absolute Power,” DC turned writer Mark Waid and artist Dan Mora loose on their premiere team title.  The results are as fast-paced and energetic as you’d expect from their previous collaborations and you can really feel both creators striving to deliver work that tops what they’ve done before.  From the varied and diverse situations that Mora has to render to Waid’s tightly scripted crises with actually fun bits of characterization strewn throughout, the five issues collected here are some very well-done superhero comics.

So it’s really a shame when this volume doesn’t so much end as it just stops.  In addition to being one of those rare situations where so many variant covers are collected at the end to make me think there was another issue left, the story leads right into a crossover with “World’s Finest” in “We Are Yesterday.”  It’s not quite as bad as the time Scott Snyder deep-sixed the end of his “League” run to lead straight into “Death Metal,” but the disappointment is along the same lines.  I’m still going to pick up that crossover – I’m now reading both titles – yet I can only hope that vol. 2 gives us a proper ending, or at least something resembling a feeling of closure.