'JLA' features the world's 'most dangerous' superheroes

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY | USATODAY

Meet the world's most dangerous superheroes.

Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman? Nope. Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter and Hawkman? Yep.

While DC Comics' A-listers star in Geoff Johns' Justice League series, the writer has pieced together a team of disparate, diverse individuals for the debut of Justice League of America, arriving Wednesday.

The group is rounded up by government agent — and Wonder Woman's ex — Steve Trevor, and its whole raison d'etre is revealed in the 32-page first issue: "why the team exists, who each one of these characters are, and enough mystery and intrigue and action to show our hand," Johns says.

"Why does the world need another Justice League team? The answer is in those pages pretty clearly."

The Justice League is DC's equivalent to the Avengers, and like the Marvel Comics supergroup, there's a Justice League movie in development. It'll most likely have Batman and Superman, sure, but Johns wouldn't mind seeing some of his JLAers, too. "I would love nothing more than every single character in here to be in every single medium that's available to us," he says.

Both the original Justice League and the Avengers came together in the early 1960s when the world needed saving from a dire threat to mankind — for the League, it was the evil Starro the Conqueror; for the Avengers, it was trickster god Loki.

With his take on JLA, though, he took pages from two comics of the 1980s, using the high-stakes nature of Justice League International and borrowing the dark humor and character-driven story of Suicide Squad, a sort of Dirty Dozen with supervillains.

"It's about recruits who didn't necessarily want the job and were going on missions they weren't necessarily passionate about, but they did it for various reasons," Johns says.

Going edgy was fine with JLA artist David Finch, who prefers powerful folks on the angrier side.

"It's not Batman and Superman and the big, big characters," he says, "and we can do a lot of pretty crazy stuff with these guys. People are going to be pretty surprised. It gets a little bit more wild than what you'd see in Justice League proper."

Led by Trevor, whom Johns describes as "the most relatable and intriguing character of the bunch," the JLA crew includes Green Arrow (whom TV fans will recognize from CW's Arrow), Manhunter, Hawkman, Japanese assassin Katana, the Muslim Green Lantern known as Simon Baz, the teenage Vibe, Batman femme fatale Catwoman, and Stargirl, a perky superheroine who is "a face to that team for the public eye."

Some of them will be unfamiliar to casual comic fans, but Johns has a habit of building rich mythologies for lesser-known heroes, such as Green Lantern, The Flash and Aquaman, "who are a little bit off the main road and trying to show the world why they're worth their attention," he says. "I love Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman, but I do find myself gravitating toward the underdogs."

Martian Manhunter was one of the original Leaguers from 1960, and in JLA he carries a lot of emotional weight. "He is unbelievably compelling and interesting," Johns says. "There's an alienness to him that I don't quite remember seeing or feeling before. If the Justice League are the world's greatest heroes, these are the most dangerous, and Martian Manhunter exudes that danger."

Finch teases that, in addition to the main cast, he'll be drawing major characters who are "like an evil version of themselves," along with the highly detailed castle of a reintroduced Secret Society of Supervillains in the first JLA arc. "I love the villains the most. This is so up my alley."

The new series is all about "unlocking the potential in certain heroes," Johns says, "and doing it with villains as well."