WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Future State: Justice League #1 by Joshua Williamson, Robson Rocha and Daniel Henriques, on sale now.
The Justice League includes some of the strongest friendships in all of comics. From the World’s Finest duo of Superman and Batman to the Brave and the Bold dynamic between multiple generations of Green Lanterns and Flashes, the personal dynamics between the team have always been one of their strongest assets—and one of the fans’ favorites concepts.
The League is as much a social club as it is a superhero team. But in Future State: Justice League, that camaraderie may have been their downfall, and now the next generation of the World’s Greatest Heroes are doing everything they can to avoid that same fate.
Future State: Justice League #1 introduces readers to a new iteration of the team that’s very familiar but very different from the ones most fans know and love. But while all the recognizable names are there—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and more—there is one key difference: these heroes aren’t friends.
As the League is called to the ruins of the original Hall of Justice to investigate the murders of the newest Legion of Doom, their Flash, a multiversal immigrant from another Earth, wonders what could have possibly left the original League’s base in ruins. Their teammates explain that the old League was taken down from within after an unnamed member turned on the group, using all of their personal secrets against them.
This betrayal led to the creation of a new League charter—one that prohibited fraternization between members and mandatory secret identities. While the charter has been effective up until this point, it still doesn’t sit well with certain members of the team, particularly the new Superman, Jon Kent.
Leaving behind the Green Lantern to continue her investigation of the crime scene, the team heads their separate ways, with Superman and Wonder Woman bending League protocol to discuss the state of the team on their own. Having known each other for years, Yara can tell that something is bothering Jon and reminds him that this new way of doing things gets things works, once he expresses his desires for more transparency between their teammates, as well as the induction of new members.
Jon isn’t the only Leaguer taking issue with their no-fraternization policy. With Aquawoman—the daughter of Aquaman and Mera—and the Flash spending time together in Andy’s home in Amnesty Bay, pursuing a potentially romantic relationship outside of the confines of the team, it’s the children of the original Leaguers that most miss the way things used to be.
But it’s no wonder that Jon is having the hardest time with the new League’s isolating charter. Having grown up with his father a member of the original League, he always saw his father’s teammates as family friends, even mentioning to the newest Wonder Woman that Batman and her predecessor, Diana, used to visit the Kent farm for family dinner.
Even ignoring his father’s friendships, Jon is no stranger to crime-fighting partnerships. After so many adventures with his best friend Damian Wayne/Robin as the Super Sons, he is more than used to getting to know his fellow heroes on a personal level, explaining why it bothers him so much that he doesn’t even know the name of this newest Batman or the Flash.
As the son of the original Superman, he knows how taxing saving the world can be, and as a former Superboy, he knows exactly how much it can mean to a hero to always have someone in their corner who can back them up, personally and professionally. Whether or not this new League can pull together just like the old one to face enemies that nearly killed their predecessors remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: none of them will be able to do it alone.