JUSTICE LEAGUE TASK FORCE was a spin-off from JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA when the latter title was riding high in terms of popularity and sales. Got something good? Milk the hell out of it seems to be the way companies work, so alongside the original title, we also had this one and JUSTICE LEAGUE EXTREME. TASK FORCE originally started out as something of an anthology title with different writers and artists doing three or four issue adventures with the hook being that the membership of the team would be fluid and chosen by the United Nations (who were running the team) for the task at hand. After a year or so of that take, things shifted and it became a book led by Martian Manhunter who was training some rookie heroes, among them Gypsy from JL Detroit.

By the time we find the team here, lost in Skataris and trying to find their way home, we’re almost at the end of the run and things are looking to get wrapped up. Needless to say, there’s the obligatory disagreement with the locals.

The team’s ship is blown up, partly caused by the Ray and Triumph fooling around, but Gypsy was still on board. Thankfully she was able to get out in time and school both Ray and Triumph in why they should have warned her about the impending explosion.

The rest of the issue is them trying to find some way home out of Skataris while explaining to the now friendly locals how they arrived in Skataris in the first place, before the inevitable guest appearance by

Because he’s everywhere in Skataris.

I know Priest (the writer on this run) has been lauded for his work on more recent titles but here he seems a bit bored and doing things by the numbers; his apathy toward the series seems to come through, at least to me, and it was a relief once the thing came to an end.