COMIC BOOK COVER OF THE WEEK

COMIC BOOK COVER OF THE WEEK

Welcome back, boys and girls!  We once again dive into our bin of comics to pick out this week's comic cover.  And this week, we head AWAY from "The Big 2", and take a look at a series I managed to find on newsstands back in 1986.  While I had been an avid collector of mostly Marvel and DC titles, I happened across a mini-series published by an independent company called Comico, which operated out of Pennsylvania.  The series was called Justice Machine Featuring The Elementals.  It introduced me to two new superhero teams, a new universe, and new characters to enjoy.  This mini-series led to the Justice Machine getting their own series after the success of the story with The Elementals, who had already been established at Comico.  So, this week, we look at the debut of this super-team's regular series.






JUSTICE MACHINE # 1


COVER ARTIST:  Mike Gustovich
WRITER: Tony Isabella
ARTIST:  Mike Gustovich
INKS:  Mike Gustovich
COLORS:  Tom Vincent
LETTERS:  Bob Pinaha
EDITOR:  Diana Schutz
COVER DATE:  January 1987
PUBLISHER:  Comico


STORY TITLE:  "Heroes And Villains"

Justice Machine #1 takes place just after the end of the Justice Machine Featuring The Elementals mini-series.  Comico had started about 5 years earlier by a group of artists who had begun the company at college in Pennsylvania.  Originally, they only produced black-and-white comics until they obtained the licenses to such properties as Jonny Quest, Robotech, and Matt Wagner's series Mage.  They also had begun publishing original material from Bill Willingham, who had created The Elementals.  The Justice Machine - the creation of writer/artist Mike Gustovich, had originally published stories through a company called Noble Comics, but they folded, and he moved his creation to Comico with the limited series with The Elementals, to introduce the team to new readers.  The success of the series allowed the company to greenlight an ongoing series produced by Gustovich, and co-plotter Tony Isabella.  The covers were done by Gustovich through all of the series' 29 issue run, and  we're done in a wraparound style.  The series follows a superhero team from another world called Georwell, where they not only fought supervillains, but corrupt officials of the state as well.  It also featured a bickering ex-married couple on the team, as well as a drug addicted hero to boot.  Isabella didn't stay with the series through it's entire run, but helped establish the characters with Gustovich.



THE STORY:  Shortly after the Darkforce Affair, and their subsequent team up with The Elementals of Earth, the Justice Machine are looking to capture the rebel/criminal known as Maxinor and his son Robert, who goes by the name of Youthquake.  Using the same type of dimensional lock that had brought the Elementals to their homeworld of Georwell, Maxinor and his son escape to Earth.  Georwell's chief Prosecuter, Zarren, then orders the team to track down Maxinor, and bring him back to Georwell to face trial, giving them seven hours in which to accomplish their mission.  The team departs, tracks down Maxinor, and captures him.  However, once they try to get back, they find out that they have been branded traitors by Zarren, and he accuses them of being in league with Maxinor.  


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It doesn't take long for Tony Isabella and Mike Gustovich to put our intrepid heores in a sticky situation, as they are assigned a mission for the Georwellian Government, complete the mission, only to be set up by the Chief Prosecutor, and branded traitors.  Aside from the fact this team has a group of VERY flawed heroes, they always find a way to work together to get the job done, hence accomplishing their mission in capturing the viliian known as Maxinor.  We discover even more about Georwell as being a strict military state, where all eyes are upon you.  We also see two villains in not only Maxinor, but in Zarren himself, for setting up the troubled team from the outset.  We find out as the series goes on just WHY they were branded as traitors, they're new life on Earth, and the internal squabbles and personal issues that plague each member of the team.  While the mini-series gives you a small serving sample of these characters, the series begins to give you even more of the main course, which helps draw you in.  Gustovich stayed with the series through it's short 29 issue run before it was cancelled (mostly because the company itself had gone bankrupt and folded).  The series would get it's story's end with the Justice Machine Annual #1.  It was a shame the company suffered financial ruin, because I truly enjoyed this series as an alternative to the typical stylings of Marvel and DC.  It allowed me to get invested in new characters that I had not heard of before, and grow with them.  It's a series that, if you can find it bundled, is worth a read.