Dwanye McDuffie jumps onto the book with unlucky #13. Unlucky for the Justice League, that is, because their most fearsome antagonists are slowly taking them down. The key to the villains’ success is their teamwork. They call themselves the Injustice League Unlimited. That’s a cute name for plenty of reasons; among them the fact that McDuffie was a producer on the Justice League Unlimited animated series (that was a fan favorite). The Joker, Lex Luthor (in full green and purple robo-suit), and Cheetah went through and picked different villains to join their team, much like in Meltzer’s revamped Justice League of America. That was in the Justice League Wedding Special, another great book. So here McDuffie begins his run officially with a captivating story.

Front and center is a personal favorite of McDuffie, John Stewart a.k.a. Green Lantern. One could say that McDuffie himself was a deciding force in getting John Stewart to animated prominence in the various Justice League shows. For some JLA readers, his appearance and assertion of leadership may feel a bit jolting at first. Mainly this is because he switched places with Hal Jordan in the Wedding Special, and some may have missed that (if you did miss it, try to grab it now). But I liked it. John Stewart is arrogant in a fun sort of way, and his leadership feels right on the team. Simply put, he’s assertive. And I can relate to his attitude. His conversation with Black Lightning was also a plus.

But beyond the presence of Stewart, McDuffie does plenty of things right. He writes a Batman scene that is probably my favorite Dark Knight vignette in quite some time. Not only that, he actually got me excited about having Superman around. McDuffie did a fill-in on Action Comics recently, which was good. But seeing his Clark Kent in this title is like a revelation. The way the Man of Steel plays off of Vixen is extremely enlightening, as is most of his dialogue. I feel like McDuffie has an extremely strong grasp of the Superman’s strengths and weaknesses, and uses them expertly.

Joining the writer is Joe Benitez on pencils. The artist has an exaggerated sense of character that gives him great flexibility moving between action and talking heads. I feel like his work captures the more readable aspects of Duncan Rouleau and Humberto Ramos. Don’t let me mislead you – Benitez is not nearly as stylized as those artists. He has more consistent forms and less extreme line work. To capture his wild yet conservative style is inker Victor Llamas. Bright and bold colors are provided by Pete Pantazis. Rob Leigh dashes his previously unreadable technique for something simple and effective, lettering with clarity. All in all, a great art team for a great new direction.

I’m a little mixed up right now because this is the first time in my memory that I’ve enjoyed an issue of the Justice League of America series proper. I don’t just mean of this run of the JLA. I mean ever. Granted, I’m not a well-read JLA fan. I’ve never read a full issue of the Justice League International, which I’ve heard amazing things about. But I’ve read plenty of JLA issues in my 20 years of comic book perusing. I once attempted to do a full story arc of JLA a few years back, and I couldn’t even get myself to buy more than three issues in a row. It’s not the characters, or at least I don’t think it is. I like plenty of them. But for whatever it’s worth, the tone of the book has never grabbed me. Until now.