Comic books: 'New 52' line stars Justice League origin

When DC Comics relaunched its entire superhero line in September as "the New 52," it put its best foot forward with "Justice League" No. 1. Now DC is doing it again with the first "New 52" collections, beginning with "Justice League Vol. 1: The Origin" ($25).

"Origin" collects the first six issues of "Justice League," set five years ago and depicting how Aquaman, Batman, Cyborg, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Wonder Woman first met. That alone makes "Origin" a landmark event in comics, but what launches "Origin" into the stratosphere is its legendary creative team: chief creative officer Geoff Johns, who wrote it, and co-publisher Jim Lee, who drew it.

Of course, the Justice League isn't new -- it's existed since 1960. So when DC relaunched its superhero universe, Johns had to decide what parts of the "old 52" Justice League he would keep and what to scrape away.

"The core is obviously the big characters -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman -- that core roster of the most well-known superheroes that DC has," Johns said. "That, of course, was going to stay. And then I read the original origins of the League, and Jim and I spoke, and we said that if there's a villain the League is going to fight for the very first time, that brings them together, it's going to be Darkseid."

That would be the mad god of Apokolips, an enormously powerful entity who invades Earth to enslave its population. The new superheroes of Earth rise to meet him, although they haven't yet met each other and don't really get along when they do.

Another change is the replacement of Martian Manhunter as a founding member with Cyborg (of the Teen Titans in the "old 52"). That gives the team more diversity -- Cyborg is a black teenager -- but Johns says it's more than that.

Cyborg's high-tech aspect "really helps the team feel more modern" and makes the character "integral to the team." Plus, thanks to the "Teen Titans" cartoon, Cyborg is "pretty well-known." Finally, Johns said, adding Cyborg makes this Justice League origin story unique.

"One of the things we didn't want to do was tell the same story," he said.

Perhaps the biggest change is that the Justice League will be more human than ever.

"They have problems and personality quirks and issues and strengths and weaknesses just like us," Johns said. "And so that'll be explored; that'll be the core of the book."

One thing that hasn't changed is that "Justice League" remains a big-concept book where the action is turned up to 11.

It's "a comic-book comic book, embracing all the superhero stuff that I think makes superheroes great, and trying to do it on as big a scale as you can," Johns said.