Justice League Unlimited #19

February 27, 2006

Quick Rating: Great
Title: The Justice Rangers Ride Again!

When a time-travel mishap sends three Leaguers back in time, they have to race to fix the timestream!

Writer: Adam Beechen
Pencils: Gordon Purcell
Inks: Bob Petrecca
Colors: Heroic Age
Letters: Travis Lanham
Editor: Michael Wright
Cover Art: Ty Templeton
Publisher: DC Comics/Johnny DC

As Wonder Woman, Elongated Man and Vigilante go through trophies of the Justice League’s past adventures, Vigilante accidentally activates a time-travel device that sends them back to the old west where they encounter three of DC’s classic western heroes – Jonah Hex, El Diablo and Bat Lash. To get home, the heroes will have to protect an important young man from an attempt on his life by a villain from the future.

Justice League Unlimited, even in its final season (stupid Cartoon Network) continues to be one of the single greatest superhero television shows ever made, and Adam Beechen has done a really great job capturing the feel of that show in this comic. Each issue is stand-alone, but features a story that would fit in quite nicely with the chronology of the TV series, and the way he goes beyond the League itself to drawn in other parts of the DC Universe makes it even more fun. This version of the old west, of course, is a great deal more sanitized than that you would find in Jonah Hex, but in a comic aimed at kids, that’s an acceptable change. The sheer cool factor of seeing Elongated Man and Hex fighting bad guys in robot suits more than makes up for that.

Gordon Purcell’s artwork, as always, is spot-on. Each panel looks like it could have been clipped directly from the TV show, but he doesn’t sacrifice any of the storytelling language unique to the comic book form.

I really, really love this comic book, it’s the only Johnny DC title I buy every month, and even though the television series is coming to an end, I hope DC keeps this title alive for a very long time.

Rating: 9/10