Justice League United #9 - The Infinitus Saga Part 5 of 6!

Released February 11, 2015

DC Comics, Color
30 Pages

The Infinitus Saga Part 5 of 6

Jeff Lemire - Writer
Neil Edwards - Penciler
Jay Leisten & Keith Champagne - Inkers
Jeromy Cox - Colorist
Travis Lanham - Letterer
Amedo Turturro - Assistant Editor
Brian Cunningham - Group Editor

Synopsis

In space near Thanagar, in the present, the combined Justice League United and the Legion of Super Heroes faces an immense Infinitus emerging out of a space anomaly. Dream Girl communicates with Brainiac 5, who is on Rann, to come up with a strategy. He is creating a big bomb to collapse Infinitus in on himself.

Inside the anomaly, Supergirl confronts Byth to let Ultra go.  Byth tries to snare Kara in tentacles so that she may join him as ruler of the new order. She rejects him with her fist. Thinking that Kara may be uncomfortable with his humanoid face, he reveals his true one - a gaping maw of a creature surrounded by tentacles that whip out at Supergirl. 

Back in real space, the JLU and Legion face off against the Infinity Wraiths. Martian Manhunter sends a squad of JLU and Legionnaires to help defend Thanagar. Wildfire, White Witch, Bouncing Boy, Lightning Lass, Element Lad, Green Arrow, Alanna Strange and Animal Man suddenly transport to the planet and immediately jump into action. They begin by Mysa casting a transforming spell, which inspires Jan to turn the wraiths into crystal.  Bouncing Boy steps up and smashes those to bits by careening off each of them, much to Animal Man's pleasant surprise.  A wraith shears through Wildfire, causing his atoms to scatter and his suit empty. Polar Boy and Sun Boy team up to destroy the wraith and mention that these creatures aren't as powerful as they are 1000 years hence. 

Hawkman attacks Mon-El, and Martian Manhunter comes to his defense. They mind meld and we get a nicely designed one pager that sums up the end of the first JLU story arc, which culminated in Hawkman's death. Hawkman snaps out of his mind control. 

Brainy zaps in with a ship containing the bomb and he and Sardath urge all the allies to move away from Infinitus to detonate the bomb.  Martian Manhunter pushes back, as Supergirl is still inside the anomaly. Hawkman and Dawnstar team up with J'Onn to go rescue Supergirl. Mon-el also has a plan.  He tells Brainy that if the team doesn't return soon to launch the bomb. 

Inside the anomaly, Supergirl attacks Byth with her heat vision, but he just tightens his tentacle grip. The rescue team arrives and Hawkman beats the crap out of Byth, but Byth easily wraps up Dawny and Hawkman. But it's been a ruse. Dawnstar sent her coordinates to Gates, who pops up with a portal.  Colossal Boy/Lad's hand comes through and grabs Byth, yanking everyone back to real space. Phantom Girl puts her hand inside Byth's head as a threat to kill him if she becomes tangible. 

Meanwhile, Martian Manhunter is also in the anomaly and tries to reach Ultra. Byth has really messed with his head and Ultra sees himself above all, and rejects going back to a normal child. J'Onn tries to mentally break Infinitus/Ultra, and it appears to work, as Manhunter emerges from the anomaly with Ultra. But Brainiac 5 has already launched the bomb. Without Infinitus to absorb the impact, a black hole forms.

TO BE CONCLUDED

Commentary

I'm just going to cut to the chase here.  This was a fun comic to read.  A ton of action on every page, and a lot of my favorite characters to boot.  Edwards, Leisten, Champagne and Cox (sounds like a law firm) are getting better with each issue in this story.  The art was incredibly dynamic, and the splash page where we get Manhunter freeing Hawkman's mind was pretty fantastic. 

Lemire does a really good job in concert with the art team. There're a LOT of characters in this story (Sardath even has a good meta-humor joke here when he says there are "so many to keep track of" when transporting multiple characters to Thanagar), and Lemire aces the assignment of showing versus telling around the powers of individual characters like Phantom Girl or Element Lad, or even Equinox on the JLU side.  This kind of economic storytelling is crucial when writing this many characters with this much going on doesn't give you the luxury of stopping and giving a brief of who has what power.  Even the "roll call," if you want to call it that on this issue is just a list of almost 30 characters faces, without caption, many of whom aren't even used in the story.  And that's not even ALL the Legionnaires. But what is there is done well. Consider - Dawnstar is a finder, so it makes sense that she's leading the way to Ultra. White Witch, Element Lad, and especially Bouncing Boy were done extremely well, with Animal Man confused/amused as to what Chuck's power is, then being impressed. 

The Dream Girl/Brainy dynamic was another fun bit here.  Nura's comment of "comparing microscopes" was on target, and Brainy's aloofness, yet not being a jerk like he is in so many other versions, was refreshing. 

It's just a shame that we don't have this Legion today.  Even with one issue of this storyline left, I feel like Lemire would have been a fantastic person to give the Legion - this Legion specifically - a go as an ongoing assignment.  As Reddit reader u/RageSpaceMan aptly put it, this storyline "gave us more story and dialogue than [the last writer of the Legion] in twelve."  In fact, I'd add on to that that we got more in this issue than we did in the JL vs LSH storyline as a whole.

Grade: A+ for Action!