Extreme Justice

Cover Description: Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Captain Atom, Firestorm, and Maxima are captured by metallic tentacles in a swamp near the entrance to the headquarters of the Legion of Doom.

Brief Synopsis: The Justice League faces off against the Legion of Doom.

Issue Summary: A couple of criminals in a van are pulled over by a policemen. The officer is soon overcome by some sort of mind control, and the criminals continue on their mission to the Quorum military installation.

Amazing Man and Maxima treat Jayna and Zan to a meal in Reno, Nevada. They discuss life on Earth, cuisine, and secret identities. Elsewhere in the same mall, Blue Beetle and Captain Atom discuss Atom's identity crisis and plan to assume the name "Cameron Scott."

The next day at a team meeting, Blue Beetle mentions that Firestorm has left the team for rehabilitation for his drinking problem. Beetle follows that news with a report that Major Force's corpse has been stolen from the Quorum facility. The culprits have been tracked to south Florida.

No sooner does the team arrive in Florida than they are attacked by The Legion of Doom. Reveal Potential Spoilers

Booster Gold's role in this story:
Featured (Booster Gold plays a prominent role)

Costume Worn: MARK X armored power-suit

Story Notes: The title of the story in this issue is a palindrome, a phrase which reads the same if read from left-to-right or right-to-left.

Page 12, panel 1
Booster Gold joins Amazing Man II, Captain Atom, Maxima, and Zan and Jayna for a briefing by Blue Beetle II regarding recent odd events that may bear investigating. With their new direction, Captain Atom's Justice League West has agreed to vote on potential missions, making them a more democratic body than Booster is likely used to. During Booster's tenure with the United Nations' sanctioned Justice League, someone usually assigned the missions and he completed them. Firestorm V is not present, having taken a leave of absence from the team to deal with his drinking problem.

Page 13, panel 2
Booster recognizes Major Force and Killer Frost II on a television monitor as Beetle discusses recent events at the top-secret government shadow facility called the Quorum. Booster has previously met Major Force when Maxwell Lord was courting him for Justice League International membership in Justice League International, Vol. 1, #24. Though Booster has never met Killer Frost II, one of Firestorm's old nemeses, she sold her soul to Neron during the recent Underworld Unleashed mini-series and attacked Hawaii, no doubt making national headlines.

Page 15, panel 2
In back-to-back instances, Skeets speaks up, volunteering information to answer questions regarding the activities of Killer Frost. First Booster and then Beetle seem unsettled by Skeets' information, though it is not explained whether this is because they forget he is present within Booster's Mark X armor, are not used to his interjecting into their conversations, or some other reason altogether.

Page 17, panel 1
Traveling through the upper atmosphere in Blue Beetle's new "all-terrain, multilaunch, semi-ballistic craft," Booster becomes nauseated and vomits. Flight sickness is a recurring problem for Booster. It took some time before he was comfortable flying in Blue Beetle's Bug, and he has never quite grown accustomed to the Justice League's teleportation devices.

Page 18, panel 4
POWER UP: The right forearm of Booster's Mark X armor contains a telescoping boom microphone for communication with his fellow Justice Leaguers. Previous versions of his armor have included wrist mounted, two-way video screens.

Page 19, panel 1
The Justice League comes face-to-face against the Legion of Doom. Like Zan and Jayna, the Legion of Doom has its roots in the televised cartoon Challenge of the Super-Friends, where each week they fought against the Super-Friends from a skull-shaped headquarters. (The skull-shaped mountain housing the Legion of Doom in this issue is also in homage to the television show.) This is the first appearance of this version of the Legion of Doom, consisting of Gorilla Grodd, Houngan, Killer Frost II, the Madmen, and Major Force. To everyone's surprise, their leader is...

Page 20, panel 1
SPOILER WARNING!: ...Brainwave II, former founder of Infinity, Inc. Besides the aforementioned encounter with Major Force, Brainwave is the only other member of this Legion of Doom that Booster has previously met on-panel. Reveal

Page 21, panel 3
Brainwave commands Gorilla Grodd to attack Booster with the command, "Escape the battle for conquest beneath!" This is a reference to the four sequels to the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes. (Specifically, the sequels are 1970's Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1971's Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and 1973's Battle for the Planet of the Apes.)

Page 22, panel 1
SPOILER WARNING!: Though Booster has never met Gorilla Grodd face-to-face before, he recognized that something was wrong with Grodd before it was revealed that his opponent is actually a robot duplicate. Finally, Booster is able to back up his boast to Superman in Booster Gold, Vol. 1, #23 and recognize an android duplicate. Reveal