“Oh wait, I thought this was the Justice LORDS world. Boy am I embarrassed. Still friends?”
Justice League Adventures #3
DC Comics (March, 2002)
“The Star Lost”
WRITER: Fabian Nicieza
PENCILER: John Delaney
INKER: Randy Elliot
COLORIST: John Kalisz
SEPARATIONS: Heroic Age
LETTERER: Kurt Hathaway
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Steve Wacker
EDITOR: Dan Raspler
The League stumbles upon a damaged space ship, with only four survivors. They’re from the planet Daxam and say they are freedom fighters sent into exile by a corrupt regime. They also gain powers under a yellow sun like Superman, and one of them, Cla’Dek, might have a crush on the Kryptonian. However, while they mean well they have trouble understanding why you don’t just drop into a corrupt government and wipe out the leaders, forcing the League to fight against the Daxam while Batman sorts out the translation issues, proving his suspicions wrong in that they are freedom fighters but right in that they’re risking becoming like the very regime that sent them away. Superman reaches Cla’Dek, who convinces her countrymen to return home to fight the good fight there.
What they got right: Writers who say writing for Superman is hard could be shown this as an example of why they’re wrong. In this continuity he’s met only one person like him, namely Supergirl (unless you count that Superman Adventures two-parter where he ended up on an alternate Earth, which only lengthens the evil count and adds one to the hero count), who wasn’t evil and since he already tries to see the good in everyone it would be so easy to have him fall for the Daxam rebel lies. On the other hand Batman is always very suspicious and it would be just as easy to have him be in the wrong and offend them somehow. Instead we get something in-between. They are opposing a totalitarian regime but they aren’t all bad themselves. They just need to learn to be better, which they hope to do on the way back home. It’s a good balance and I like that it turned out that way.
What they got wrong: I know John Stewart was a bit gruffer with a stick up his butt in the early episodes; that was part of his character development. However, he’s a bit “stiff” even for DCAU John at this point.
Recommendation: This was a really good issue and might have worked on the show. Plus we get a DCAU idea of Daxam that didn’t interfere with anything later in the show. It’s worth taking a look at.
BW Media Spotlight 