I first fell in love with the Justice League during the Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis run. Kevin Maguire was doing the interior art, Adam Hughes was doing cheesecake covers and Giffen and DeMatteis were riotously funny and irreverent with their characters and storylines. I only recently read the excellent late-90’s reboot of Justice League, but my heart will always belong to the Giffen and DeMatties series. Since I’ve been out of comics for so long, I haven’t had a chance to read I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League or Formerly Known as The Justice League but I’ve got a supplier over at Cartoon Network who’s hooking me up. My co-worker Bill wasn’t all that impressed but I’m holding out hope.

So today, I was cruising Newsarama to fuel my own non-subscription-having self-loathing when I came across this piece: GIFFEN & DEMATTEIS TALK DEFENDERS AND A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING. Despite the soup to nuts title, the article is actually quite informative and entertaining. The two authors are genuinely funny and I think the new book will be just the same. The art samples are the same Kevin Maguire I knew and loved back in the day. The witty back-and-forth bandying banter was icing on the cake (both in the article and between Namor and Banner in the sample pages). I officially can’t wait for this book.

As a truly random aside, I used to want my hair to go grey at the temples a la Doctor Strange and Reed Richards. What is it with intelligent men in the Marvel Universe and grey hair?

What’s not to like? A talented creative team doing something new and fun with a retread team for a different publisher. Now all we need is a new What the? series and it’ll be 1987 all over again.