Justice League: Generation Lost

Cover Description: There are two covers to this issue: the standard cover by Cliff Chiang depicts Fire, Ice, and Rocket Red and the 1:10 variant cover by Kevin Maguire features only Ice. Neither cover includes Booster Gold.

Brief Synopsis: Fire is faced with an unexpected foe: Ice.

Costume Worn: MARK I.v2 power-suit

Story Notes: Tie-in to Brightest Day.

This story has been reprinted in the following issue:
Justice League: Generation Lost Volume 1 (2011)

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ISSUE ANNOTATIONS

Page 2, panel 5
One page ago, Ice's mother was a brunette. Here she is a blonde. Someone needs to make up her mind. If the issue is full of internal inconsistencies, how is the reader ever supposed to get over the continuity inconsistencies filling this issue? For example: since when does Tora have a sister, Nikolina? In the past, we have only seen her brother, Ewald. (Booster Gold and the Justice League previously met Tora's mother, Queen Olaf, and her brother in their ice giant Norwegian lair in Justice League America #84 in 1994. Her home then was portrayed nothing like what is seen in this issue.)

Page 21, panel 1
Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and Captain Atom are in the OMAC-filled Chicago lair of a recently active Checkmate cell as they receive word from Rocket Red about the battle between Fire and Ice. Skeets is mentioned but not seen. Booster appears in this issue only on this, its next to last page.

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ISSUE REVIEW

Boosterrific Review: My problem with this issue is entirely in its ~~poor treatment of~~ utter disregard for continuity. I have long disdained writer Judd Winick's tendency to re-characterize existing characters to meet his story-telling desires. And that is exactly what he appears to be doing in this issue. It is possible that the previously told origins of Ice can still be reconciled with this story, but it will be difficult. Certainly we knew that Ice was very powerful. But to say that she isn't a goddess is to quibble about semantics when the Justice League has already met the woman that Ice identified as her mother, Queen Olaf, and visited her royal ice-giant home multiple times.

This retcon to Ice's history might not be such a big deal if only the changes to Ice's background weren't so contrary to the core concept of this issue. However, the central focus of the primary story is the sudden tension in the relationship between Fire and Ice. By re-writing the back-story of Ice, the continuity of the character becomes suspect, and that in turn casts doubt on everything that the reader thought that he knew about the characters, including the strength of the key relationship between Fire and Ice. How should we react if, for example, it turned out that Blue Beetle had been secretly using the power of his "magical" scarab to create flying machines, but had for years been lying to his told his best friend Booster Gold by explaining his magical abilities as "scientific" genius? Or if Mera told her husband Aquaman that for years she had been hiding the fact that she was supposed to kill him?

Otherwise, my continuity obsessions aside, this issue continues as several past issues have: with a protracted slug-fest that does little, if anything to advance the main storyline of a series that seems to be losing its way. The cold truth of it is that this issue is that no matter how I look at it, this issue is a disappointment.

Boosterrific Rating:

Currently 2.0/5 Stars.

Tarnished.

Average Fan Rating:

Currently 2.8/5 Stars.

(4 votes)

Currently 2.0/5 Stars.

Harry (Nov. 12, 2010, 15:34:07)
I didn't mind reading this story. The retcon didn't really bug me. It is just that this story seems seriously sidetracked at this point in time. I would have rated it higher if I could bring myself to care about Ice's new status quo. She just isn't that interesting.

Currently 1.0/5 Stars.

KMD (Oct. 29, 2010, 16:40:07)
Easily the worst issue in the series so far. Besides blowing the continuity for no apparent reason (Ice has always been a secondary character at best and that's not changing anytime soon), the issue had a dull battle and wandered far away from the plot. For better or for worse, this is Max Lord's comic. When he is offscreen for a while, the comic loses focus and bogs down.

Currently 5.0/5 Stars.

David (Oct. 28, 2010, 21:54:28)

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.

Superman (Oct. 28, 2010, 09:45:10)
The tension between Fire and Ice fee is forced, and precious little plot development happened here, but Ice's story according to Winick is okay, even mildly interesting to me. As to continuity issues, I'm not as bothered as Boosterrific, as I'm not at all very familiar with Ice's history, even though I am a stickler for what continuity I do know. All in all it's a decent enough issue for me.

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