Justice League: No Justice Lets the Outcasts Be the Heroes

The following contains spoilers for Justice League: No Justice #2 & #3, written by Scott Snyder, Josh Williamso and James Tynion IV, drawn by Francis Manapul, Riley Rossmo, and Marcus To, and colored by Hi-Fi.

One of the more puzzling things about Justice League: No Justice is that for every three or four heroes or villains it makes sense for Brainiac to recruit, there's someone whose inclusion on their particular team that's baffling. Characters like Deathstroke, Harley Quinn and Beast Boy have been boosted up to cosmic level status seemingly on a whim, bringing them to prominence because they're about to have big media projects on the horizon. Thankfully, the succeeding issues of the weekly event have made things more clear, showing that they serve an actual purpose on their respective teams.

Having arrived on Brainiac's home planet Colu and witnessing the Superman villain's head being blown apart, the assembled Justice Leagues have had to improvise their plan to save the world from the Omega Titans. After splitting off into their Brainiac-devised groupings -- Mystery, Wonder, Entropy, and Wisdom, named after four cosmic energies -- they tackle the trees scattered across the planet emitting energy signatures that coincidentally align with each team's name. Though Wonder Woman's Team Wonder has a relatively easy go of "igniting" their tree, the other teams have a more complicated road ahead of them.

Team Wisdom, made up of Robin, Flash, Atom, Cyborg and Harley Quinn, successfully arrive at their tree only to find that the Wisdom Titan is lumbering its way over to the plant as well. Cyborg can't think of any way to outsmart Brainiac, but Harley Quinn can!

Likening Cyborg and the tree to a unicorn and tornado, she helps him think outside of his normal 1+1=2 linear logic to use his Mother Box to talk to the tree's artificial intelligence. Because Harley's thinking is so unorthodox, she ends up outsmarting the smartest mind in the universe, something that we got a tiny glimpse of in the DC Nation No Justice prelude released earlier this month.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Beast%20Boy%20Gets%20Sage%20Advice...%20From%20Lobo%3F']

Over on Team Entropy, Beast Boy is still unsure of what he's supposed to contribute. Compared to heavy hitters like Lex Luthor and Lobo, Gar can't help but feel like the odd man out; after all, this is a situation where jokes won't cut it. If it weren't for Batman being part of the team and trying to take charge, there's a very good chance that Gar would've been gutted by Slade, but Lobo decides to impart some sage (for him) advice to the teen superhero.

Lobo can tell he's been holding back and tells him the only thing one could tell a kid who can shapeshift into deadly animals: Turn into the "scariest damn thing you can think of." Of course, Gar turns into a giant green lion and throws Lobo into a Coluan ship, finally living up to the chaotic definition of entropy to reignite the tree the team is heading for.

And then there's Sinestro, leader of the Yellow Lanterns and member of Team Mystery. Like many of the other villains in these Justice League teams, his inclusion is strange, but Lex Luthor, Starro and Deathstroke actually have been given roles to do within their own teams, even if it's as simple as tearing guards apart. The only thing Sinestro's really done so far is pick a fight with Starfire, but arriving at Colu's Mystery Tree gives him a chance to become useful.

The Mystery tree contains a nursery housing thousands of planets, including Starfire's homeworld Tamaran, similar to how Brainiac bottled the Krypton city of Kandor. Because releasing them is the only way to ignite the tree, Starro uses his mental powers to placate the bottled citizens as Sinestro. With Starro's mental powers placating all the citizens inside the bottled planets, Sinestro makes a construct to carry the entire nursery out of Colu before releasing it, thereby restoring tens of thousands of old planets (and countless lives) into the galaxy.

In giving these three characters the chance their moments to shine, No Justice colors the future adventures of these characters. It now makes sense for Harley to wind up on Apokolips, for Beast Boy to be an active participant in the rise of metahumans post-No Justice, and for Sinestro to join up with Luthor's new Legion of Doom. Sinestro in particular only freed the captive planets because he was overruled by the heroes for a goal that ended with Colu destroyed and Starro dead. Like Luthor, he certainly has to see their methods as useless to existence.

As No Justice barrels toward its conclusion, the Omega Titans have reached Earth and it's officially hit the fan. Now that these three characters in particular have gotten moments that will color their future actions, all that's left is to see how they -- and the rest of the assembled heroes and villains -- react now that the war has hit their home.

KEEP READING: A Major Villain Goes Down a Hero in Justice League: No Justice #3