I’ve loved team books ever since getting into comics with the early nineties X-Men. There’s something predictably fun and comforting about a good team that a solo title can’t give you. JLI #1 was fantastic; I’m not going to bury the lead on this one.

While the issue started off slowly with lots of talking, the team comes together very quickly. As a long-time Marvel fan, I don’t know a lot of these characters in either their personality traits or their actual powers. One thing that stood out to me was that Booster Gold (who I love as a result of the 52 maxiseries from a few years ago) assumes the mantle of leader of the JLI and knows about just as much about his teammates as I do. Of course he knows about Batman and Guy Gardner (the Green Lantern on the cover there to the right), but everyone else makes about as much sense to him as they do to me (a.k.a. a new reader to most of them). For instance, Rocket Red, the Russian member of this U.N. based version of the Justice League, looks like an Iron Man knock-off. He’s a guy in a metal, robotic suit. Booster asks him to scan an area, which he does, but doesn’t realize the limits of Red’s sensors. Hilarity ensues, and I thought it was an incredibly real moment.

In a single issue, Jurgens builds the foundations of several interesting group dynamics. The aforementioned Russian hero Rocket Red and the badass Chinese hero August General in Iron but heads in an entertaining, if not stereotypical way. The character I know the least about, Godiva (who may or may not be actually completely new with the relaunch) plays against superhero typecasting and looks to possibly have just an inkling of a romantic will-they or won’t-they relationship with Booster Gold. And then there’s Batman’s relationship with the team. I love that he’s in this group as it really feels like the professional playing on an amateur team. I thought the little interaction between Bats and Booster while flying away to their first mission was much better written with better comedic timing than the Green Lantern – Batman interaction from Justice League #1. Great stuff, and definitely feels like a breath of fresh air with fresh takes on old characters.