Geoff Johns And David Finch Team For New ‘Justice League Of America’ Series

Green Arrow! Hawkman! Green Lantern! The Martian Manhunter! The classic Justice League members are back, working together for the first time in DC's New 52 as part of an upcoming Justice League of America ongoing series next year by Geoff Johns and David Finch.The new series was announced at this weekend's FanExpo Canada, and spins out of Johns' current Justice League series. He'll continue to write that book after this new series launches, and although he told MTV that the books "will be tying into each other," don't expect an immediate crossover just yet:

One of the main goals for JLA when we launch this is to establish a cohesive team, and the relationships for that team, before we go into any big stories or crossovers, or anything like that.

Beyond the four familiar JLA'ers (One of whom isn't actually familiar; the Green Lantern is Baz, the new character primed to take Hal Jordan's place next month in Green Lantern #0), the other members of the team may be somewhat of a surprise: Catwoman, Birds of Prey's Katana, former Justice Society of America cast member Stargirl, apparently-not-as-dead-as-he-seems Justice League supporting cast member Steve Trevor and Vibe. Yes, Vibe, from the much-derided Justice League Detroit era. Fans can only hope that Steel is next for a revival.

"I love the fact that its not every single most popular character in the company, it's characters that don't really have the same kind of exposure some of them," says series artist Finch, who'll be moving from his The Dark Knight series to this new title. "It really gives us a chance to define those characters, and put our stamp on them. That's really exciting to me. The chance to take them, make them larger than life, but also we get real, and grounded, and as believable as we can make it."

The characters will be brought together by ARGUS, The New 52's super-secret government agency dedicated to keeping tabs on the supernatural and superheroic (It stands for Advanced Research Group for Uniting Superhumans, and has shown up in Justice League and DC's Free Comic Book Day issue for the year already), and will face another re-imagined DC mainstay in their first adventure together: The Secret Society of Super-Villains.

Teasing the new series for MTV, Johns promised "a book that harkens to some of my favorite team books, and mystery books... And hopefully [is] something that you won't know what to expect, and when you get it you'll think it's what it should be, but you never could have imagined it." He went on to add, "there's a big twist in the first issue that I don't want to spoil, but it will explain exactly what's happening, and what the team is doing, and everything else."

Justice League of America is due to launch in 2013.