Justice League #55 / by MELINDA Schmidbauer

Breakdown, Part 5

First page, I am already lost.  Blue Jay?  Who is that?  It appears as though the Justice League renegades, Beetle, Ralph, Ice and Captain Atom, are in conflict with the Global Guardians in Bialya.  One of the GG is dead.  Beetle seems like a voice of reason, wanting to stop the fight and find out what happened to Mermaid, but Captain Atom doesn't.  

Then, a check in with Queen Bee.  She wonders why the JLA is here now, but assumes the Global Guardians will take care of them.  And in another room, Sumaan is expositing about his role in this whole mess.  He had Jack kill Mermaid, I guess to make the JLA look bad.  He is determined to rule Bialya.

The rest of this issue is just action packed.  The renegades from the Justice League are trying to get away from the Global Guardians without a fight.  The Global Guardians are being mind-controlled by Queen Bee.  The rest of the JLI is coming in, at Queen Bee's request, to remove the renegades, who have uncovered the secret chambers where Queen Bee has her mind controlling equipment.

Suddenly, there is a big explosion, and the hidden complex collapses, with everyone inside.  The Queen is distressed because this will reveal her evil machination, and she moves to get out of the country.  Ice has saved all the JLA inside the complex, and they start tending to the other wounded.  The Global Guardians realize they have been mind-controlled, and that Jack O'Lantern is NOT really Jack O'Lantern.  And, by the way, Kurt Heimlich is a robot?  

Ice seems to get some sort of mental call about her family, and she flies off.  Fire follows.  Sumaan kills Queen Bee.  Wow!  This was some issue!

And in a final note, the letter column was put in the middle of the book, to make room for double-page spreads and a ballot to vote on who should be in the Justice League.  It is quite the list.  There are 40 characters listed, and they don't say how many you should vote for.  Maybe six?  Is that what the League usually has?  And you could have a write in vote.  Hmmm.  G'nort's not on the list.  I know who I'd vote for.  Booster, Beetle, Fire, Ice, Elongated Man and Martian Manhunter.  But Sue Dibny comes with Ralph, right?