Justice League Sets The Worst Kind of Record in DC Comics
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Justice League #74
In the latest issue of Justice League, Batman has just confirmed that DC's greatest team of heroes has just set the worst kind of record. While Brian Michael Bendis has been writing Justice League since its 59th issue, the Dark Knight has confirmed that 10 of the 15 issues have all taken place within one week. As such, it's undoubtedly one of the busiest and most intense weeks the League has ever experienced in the DC Universe.
Beginning with Justice League #59, Bendis' first five issues saw the League bringing fresh faces to their roster. Wonder Woman's mother Queen Hippolyta was brought in to replace her daughter while Superman recruited Black Adam, wanting to give the ruler of Kahndaq a chance to prove himself and do some good. The League also initiated the new hero Naomi who's been classified as a Mega-Powered metahuman. However, once this arc finished where the League and its new members fought the supervillain known as Brutus, one of their most intense weeks of all time began.
According to Batman in a conversation with Naomi at the end of Justice League #74 from Bendis, Szymon Kudranski, Emanuela Lupacchino, and Wade von Grawbadger, the Justice League has just completed an insane week. Apparently, the week in question began 10 issues ago with the United Planets and the alien attack of the Synmar Utopica. This was immediately followed by the League's uneasy team-up with Checkmate and their conflict with the Royal Flush Gang, culminating with Black Adam becoming a vessel for the ultimate Lord of Chaos known as Xanadoth. However, the Justice League and Justice League Dark were able to win the day with Black Adam being freed and Naomi more than earning her place among the team after a week of pure insanity, seeing the League setting a record for what must be their busiest week of all time.
While the rare praise and compliment from Batman is definitely a win for Naomi, the fact that Bendis only wrote about a week and a half of the DC continuity for the Justice League is pretty strange. Cramming the bulk of their adventures into one week is certainly an odd route, guaranteeing that the heroes of the League had no time for their own lives during this particular 7-day period as individual heroes. Given the full slate of threats the League had to deal with in succession, it's good that they had allies to join them in battle such as the forces of the United Planets, Checkmate, and the Justice League Dark.
While one would imagine the Justice League would benefit from a break after such a busy week, they're probably not expecting to rest in peace. Unfortunately, the next issue from DC Comics will be the teased Death of the Justice League storyline from Joshua Williamson, taking place ahead of the major Dark Crisis event. At any rate, it's certainly interesting that Brian Michael Bendis' run on Justice League was rather short by real-world standards and definitely within the DC timeline overall.