They’ve lost fights. They’ve dissolved the team. They’ve had individual members die, they’ve been wiped out of existence, and they’ve been rebooted and forced to start over from scratch. But the Justice League has never faced a problem exactly like this before, and they’re not going to get a second chance to solve it.
DC Comics has revealed that Justice League #75 will feature the team… well, dying. Like, almost all of them. According to writer Joshua Williamson, who spoke to Entertainment Weekly, “We’re going to see things get darkest before the dawn. The Justice League gets called in to fight this Dark Army that’s been building on the edge of the multiverse. They go up against this Dark Army and they lose.”
And when Williamson says “lose,” he means “die.” Of the superheroes who go to fight the Dark Army — Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, John Stewart/Green Lantern, Zatanna, Aquaman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, and Martian Manhunter — only one will survive to give humanity the bad news. And that will be the final issue of Justice League (for the foreseeable future, at least).
It’s no coincidence that the League is dying in issue #75; it’s the 30th anniversary of 1992’s famous Death of Superman event, in which the Man of Steel fell at the very large fists of Doomsday… in Superman #75. But while he got better relatively quickly, it doesn’t sound like the Justice League will have the same opportunity. Again, from Williamson: “I think one reason [the death of Superman] was so powerful was that after the ‘Funeral for a Friend’ story, there were no Superman comics for three months. That’s part of what led us to make the decision that this is the last issue of Justice League. But then three months later, there’s still not gonna be a Justice League comic. It’s gonna be a while, and that’s gonna be a major part of what the DCU looks like after this story: There is no Justice League.”
With interior art from Rafa Sandoval, Justice League #75 will be a super-sized, 48-page issue with a multitude of covers from Daniel Sampere and Alejandro Sanchez, Alex Maleev, Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund, Mikel Janin, Simone Di Meo, Tony Harris, and Todd Nauck. It’ll go on sale at comic shops and digitally on April 19.