Justice League International 2 Paperback – July 14, 2009

It’s a great book. Seriously. Pick it up. I own multiple copies and that’s the truth.

The second volume ups the amount of jokes to the perfect quantity, I'd argue. It's still not overwhelming the adventure narrative to its detriment, but makes you chuckle quite often. This is the one that features the infamous One Punch scene, too. Guy Gardner gets it from Batman and combined with later events, this transforms him into a pretty much Shazam clone. Golly, that's swell for multiple reasons. One is that it increases team cohesion drastically. New Lantern is much more controllable than the old one, so for the next ten issues or so the team is working together much better. The other is, of course, the running Guy gag that is introduced into the mix. Due to machinations of the still mysterious billionaire, Maxwell Lord, Justice League International has finally been established officially by the UN sanction with the full support of the USA and the USSR behind. As a result, the team gets a Russian member, called Rocket Red. Cue the vodka jokes... actually, no, I can only remember one, and it was probably from the next volume. The comedic duo of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle gets its share of good laughs, too. Previously, Kevin Maguire's art felt a bit rough, but now, with digital restoration applied, it shines, adding to the overall experience.Three of the issues are parts of the Millenium crossover event and this is the time where I have to really applaud DC. I've been reading the digital DC collections for a few years now and this is the only book that features brief one-page summaries of what the hell happened before in the event. It's incredibly helpful for the people that do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the dozens of the crossover events that happened over the years and sets up the scene for the story in the issues quite nicely. Now, what's baffling is that no other collections I've read have this feature. Anyway, the second volume seems to be the best so far out of the three I've read, so it's a big recommend.

If your a fan of the homer and the hero’s of the Justice league if your a fan of when they started brining in the international flavor and the start of the legend of Maxwell lord. This is we’re you want to start

I bought this to read some more of the Maguire run, and had to deal with a few fill-in issues by other artists. I stopped buying the series electronically, because there were less and less Maguire stories as the run went on.The stories were enjoyable. The Maguire stories are more sporadic starting Volume 3.

Justice League went through a time when the bigs (Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.) weren't allowed to be in the team. Instead, Keith Giffen and company took a different method, and made JL one of the funniest books ever written. In the middle of serious missions, the team was allowed to act like normal human teammates and fought accordingly. They just don't make them like this anymore!

This collection picks up right where the the previous volume left off with the great creative team of Giffen, Dematteis, Maguire, and a few special guests to put together a great superhero team. The team consists of Batman, Martian Manhunter, Mister Miracle, Black Canary, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Rocket Red, Captain Atom, a more sensitive GL Guy Gardner, Oberon, and of course their mysterious and amoral sponsor Maxwell Lord.This collection flows better than the first as the team is more comfortable with each other as are the creative team with characters. Confrontations between members are frequent, but properly placed and usually with humerus effect. The stories range from the team struggling with the pains of moving as they set up in their embassy's across the globe, saving Max's butt from his devious past, and a great look at why the Manhunter is and has been the soul of the league as he battles a world infected by a "zombie" virus including his teammates! There are a couple crossover events that are handled nicely by a simple explanation page before each issue. There was a Millennium event where the Guardians of the Universe and the Zamorans chose certain humans to be apart of the new age of evolution, but the evil android Manhunters do not wish this to pass. We get a make shift Justice League that has more of a 70's roster to it: Superman, GL Hal Jordan, Hawkman, Hawkwoamn, and Firestorm to name a few. There is also a crossover with the Suicide Squad! Really fun mash-up!For a collection of a series this great, and released in 2008, I find it disappointing of the type of paper used to print these classic adventures on. Newspaper stuff. Also, in the earlier part of the book, some of the dialogue is smudged a bit. I saw this was a problem from other reviews so that it wasn't just mine. I have to detract a star for having a low quality presentation.Aside from the production quality, which isn't horrible, this book is a great collection for fans of a quirky DC team from the 80's! Full of great adventures, great character development and interaction, and snappy dialogue.

Great book and awesome series. Get the others, youll like the tone and the fresh take.

The JLI begin to set up their embassies across the world, but some countries are still wary of the costumed superheroes. The Manhunters attempt to take over the world and Max Lord is shot inside his headquarters.Giffen and his team keep the adventures and humour front and centre. The artwork is consistently good and the colouring is bright. The intertitles keep readers up to date with the necessary threads from other books, but are a little short.

In this second JLI volume (collecting issues #8-13, the first annual and a crossover issue of Suicide Squad), Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire return for more mayhem. This portion of their justly-lauded and much-beloved run features the League menaced by Manhunters, meeting Metron and uncovering Max Lord's secrets.As with Volume 1, it's great fun to see this incarnation of the League (THE incarnation of the league, for my money) continuing its collected run. Admittedly, the ongoing antics of our bickering brotherhood are a little disrupted by a hefty dose of the line-wide Millenium crossover (the Suicide Squad two-parter is a bit more organic), but there are still some treats in store. As noted in regard to Volume 1, the popular misconception that this era of the league is all comedy and not to be taken seriously is unfair, but the comedy elements are certainly starting to ramp up in this collection. The addition to the team of the slightly excitable Captain Atom and new Rocket Red, Dmitri, are perfect examples: the latter's obsession with US tv leads to some enjoyable interplay with Batman, slightly strereotypical though Red's failed grasp at US culture is. And what's more, not only is Dmitri an 80s Soviet hero in an A-list team, he's also something far, far rarer: a superhero with a beard. (Well, how many can you think of, off the top of your head?)This volume's highpoints? Issue #8, "Moving Day", ramps up the slapstick (particularly in regard to Mr Miracle's casual comic-book assumption about landing vehicles on HQ roofs) and sees the Booster / Beetle dynamic hitting its stride. A particular highlight is J'onn's "ancient Martian meditation technique", which I am reliably informed can be quite therapeutic. Meanwhile, issue #10 introduces the infamous G'nort Esplanade Gneesmacher to our cast. However, issue #11 sees dramatic revelations about Max Lord, who is proved, as we had suspected, a man with a rather shady past. Indeed, the Max elements are probably the strongest part of the book, the times when the book goes for laughs once again counterpointed by Max's struggles to redeem himself for past and present sins. And artistically, Maguire's famed grasp on facial expressions remains worth a thousand words. (His Black Canary is particularly expressive.)Lower points? Well, to be fair, the creative team handles the enforced `Millenium' cross-over well enough, making it perfectly comprehensible outside of the context of its time, and using it to further some of their own ongoing sub-plots. But the idea of Guy as `nice guy' after a blow to the head in the previous volume is being stretched thin and becoming a little wearing. Still, it does lead to a great payoff in the next volume, and gives Ice an interesting perspective on him.Overall, not quite as strong and focused as volume 1, but still an indispensable part of the JLI legacy. And have you noticed how seldom the JLI solve their problems by beating them to a pulp? Not, I should point out, that they don't indulge in a fair few bouts of fisticuffs, but it is interesting how, even when their stories culminate in a big slam-bang superhero battle, this doesn't often prove the sole means of victory. Anyway, despite the slight dip in quality in this collection, rest assured, the next will see the team return to firmer, more Apokaliptic footing...