Justice League America #25 - DC

We're at issue #25 already. Man these last 2 years have passed by fast. I think that Dwayne McDuffie is finally getting a feel for these characters. The first couple of issues that he did . . I thought he did a decent job, but . . he was finishing up some stuff over at Marvel and, on this book, it kind of felt like he was just going through the motions. He put together some interesting stories, but he just didn't seem to be connecting with the characters as much as when this series first started. A lot of their comments and dialogue just seemed to be a little to 'canned'. But now . . now I feel like he's jumping into this assignment with both feet. He really seems to be drawing out more of all of these fantastic character's personalities. The dialogue between Wally and Hal was perfect, and I really like where this story seems to be going with Red Tornado and Kathy Sutton. He's taking a leave from the League, so I imagine there will be a mini-series for him somewhere down the line. Plus you have the relationship going on between Roy and Kendra. But the crux of this issue was to wrap up one story-line and push us into another. Reddy's story, as far as Amazo and Professor Ivo seems to be pretty much wrapped up . . for now. It's one of those story-lines that always seems to pop up sooner or later, but . . for now . . things are taken care of. The other story-line . . the one that's really just getting momentum . . is about Mari, her powers and the Totem. I wish I would've read this issue before I read Vixen #1 . . I wouldn't have had so many questions. Anyways, she's drawn into the Totem by Kwaku Anansi . . the trickster, the spider that lives in the Totem that originally gave Mari her powers. We find out that Mari and Buddy seem to be a lot more connected than they realized. Buddy thought that it was the yellow aliens that gave him his powers but it was also Anansi . . he's a trickster, remember? While in the Totem Anansi fixes their powers . . he's the one that mucked with them in the first place, and he figured since there weren't any animals present in his realm . . they would both be harmless. Famous last words. Anyways, long story short, by the end of the issue, Mari gets out of the trap but Buddy's been left behind. Like I said, I thought that Dwayne did a much better job with the story this issue. From what I've seen here, I think this book will continue to improve. Plus there was an all-star cast of talent doing the pencils for this issue. They included Ed Benes, Doug Mahnke, Darick Robertson, Shane Davis, Ian Churchill and Ivan Reis. Overall I thought the whole issue looked and felt fantastic.