JLA 80-Page Giant
“Mousebusters”
Volume 1, Issue 1, July 1998
Released May 13, 1998
Cover Price: $4.95
Guide Price: $6.00 (as of 2003)
Estimated Issue Sales: 54,804
Writer: Keith Giffen
Penciller: Kevin Maguire
Inker: Karl Story
Colorist: Gene D'Angelo
Letterer: Bob Lappan
Assistant Editor: Tony Bedard
Editor: Dan Raspler
Heroes: Black Canary II, Blue Beetle II, Booster Gold, Green Lantern IV, Martian Manhunter
Setting: Happy Harbor, DCU, USA, 20th-century
Cover Description: Martian Manhunter poses. Batman, Wonder Woman, and Red Tornado are shown in inset images. (No Booster Gold.)
Brief Synopsis: Blue Beetle and Booster Gold scheme to build a better mousetrap.
Booster Gold's role in this story:
Featured (Booster Gold plays a prominent role)
Costume Worn: MARK I power-suit
Story Notes: The first page of this story is practically identical to the first page of Justice League International, Vol. 1, #7. This story was published a decade after that issue, but unlike so many retcons, it is not chronologically incongruous with previously published stories.
Page 22, panel 1
As Blue Beetle II solves a Rubik's Cube, Booster Gold investigates the Justice League's Computer inside Justice Mountain for signs of a rodent infestation.
Page 24, panel 7
Martian Manhunter accidentally encourages Booster's growing fear of wharf rats. Wharf rats, also known as brown rats, are large, omnivorous rats. Though they don't eat steel wool, as Booster fears, they are persistent and have been known to chew through steel wool to get to food supplies.
Page 26, panel 2
PRODUCT PLACEMENT: While having morning coffee with Black Canary II, Booster is drinking from a coffee mug with a star on it. Beetle's cup has an image of a bug, and Canary's mug has the black stylized bird image of her costume.
Page 27, panel 5
Beetle, Gold, and Canary react to Guy Gardner's personality change. Though Guy's personality change to "Nice Guy" was seen in Justice League International, Vol. 1, #7, none of these three characters reacted to Guy in that issue.
Boosterrific Review: As enjoyable as it is to revisit the Justice League International with orignal plotter Keith Giffen and artist Dan McGuire, this one-note vaudeville comedy act of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold as mousecatchers clearly suffers for the absence of dialogue-writer J.M. DeMatteis. Without any action, this joke is stretched too thin to fill ten pages (nearly half a 22-page JLI issue!). It doesn't run long enough to wear out its welcome, but at the end the reader is not left wanting more, and is little more than a pale memory of the glory days of the JLI.
Boosterrific Rating: Gold Standard.
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