New Justice League Forms in Rebirth

There's a new Justice League in the DC Universe today. At least in part.

Spoilers ahead for Justice League: Rebirth #1, obviously.

During Geoff Johns's fifty-plus issues on Justice League, the team went through a number of permutations. Starting as the "big seven" of the Morrison days, but with Martian Manhunter swapped out for former Teen Titan Cyborg, the team always strove to retain that core -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and The Flash -- as much as was possible given the fact that each of them had major events happening in their own comics.

New characters, of course, were swapped in and out, most notably during and following the events of Forever Evil, when Lex Luthor and Captain Cold joined the team. Luthor, particularly, became a focus of Justice League during the latter part of Johns's run, and played a major role in Darkseid War, which ended with Justice League #50.

The series' final two issues, both by fill-in creative teams, dealt with the fallout of that event.

Over the course of the last year, meanwhile, writer/artist Bryan Hitch had launched JLA: Justice League America, which reverted to the model of the "big seven," and seemed to exist almost out of continuity, with the events of their solo titles not particularly impacting how the heroes operated in JLA.

Hitch's story, though, played a role in "The Final Days of Superman," in which the New 52 Superman died. With Superman: Rebirth and the renumbering of Action Comics, DC has replaced him with the pre-Flashpoint Superman -- and just as he did in the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths timeline, that Superman hesitated when he was invited to join the League.

No more, though; Superman, pressed on by his wife Lois, elected to join the Justice League alongside Earth's two newest Green Lanterns, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz, in today's Justice League: Rebirth by Hitch.

With Hal Jordan gone and the New 52 Superman dead, those three will play a key role in forming an iconic Justice League alongside stalwarts Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Batman.

So far, to everyone's surprise, Batman actually seems to trust the "new" Superman, too -- something of a shift in the way the Dark Knight have been portrayed in recent years.

The issue also does some universe-building, introducing The Reapers, an alien race that's reminiscent of the Justice League's very first foe. Starro the Conqueror, of course, is a giant purple starfish who hovered over cities and used thousands of tiny versions of himself to subject humanity to his psychic influence. The Reapers do more or less the same, except that instead of a Starfish, it's a giant roach-like alien with an array of tentacles coming out of the bottom. Smaller versions of itself attached to humanity and a nearly-impenetrable hide are among the creature's power set, but what's more is that it seems that this one isn't alone -- there are more coming.

The next issue, Justice League #1, will be on the stands in two weeks from Hitch and artist Tony Daniel. Daniel and Jesus Merino will be the artists on the twice-monthly series at least through Justice League #5, which will conclude the storyline begun today.