Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice—Volume 1

Comic Info

Lady Justice (1) #1 Variant

Reprints Lady Justice (1) #1-11 (September 1995-May 1996).  Justice is blind, but the embodiment of Justice is always seeking an avatar.  Lady Justice shows that sometimes justice can’t be found in the courts.  Taking on the bodies of five women who have been wronged, Lady Justice will seek to expose the truth within deadly gangs, violent drive-bys, and fatal land-grabs.  Justice will be served!

Written by C.J. Henderson and Wendi Lee, Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice—Volume 1 is a collection of the first volume of the 1990s comic book series based upon characters and ideas created by Neil Gaiman.  Originally published by Tekno Comics, the series features art by Michael Netzer, Jim Webb, George Jeanty, Mike Harris, and Steve Lieber and was reprinted by the Super Genius imprint of MacMillan.

I didn’t read Lady Justice when it was initially released in the 1990s.  It was when I was headed to college and comic books were tight…and I probably wouldn’t have sought it out even if I had ample money.  The comic didn’t interest me much, but reading it over twenty years later, it does have some value.

Lady Justice (1) #7

The main interest in Lady Justice had to be the ties to Neil Gaiman.  Though he wasn’t part of the comic book series, he was a hot commodity back in 1995.  The Sandman was going strong and Gaiman was another author proving that comic books could be more than just kids’ stories.  Gaiman created Lady Justice and the titles Mr. Hero and Teknophage for Tekno Comics, but all of the comics were written by other authors.  This leaves me questioning how much Gaiman was involved beyond the initial ideas because the comic isn’t much in his style.

The character of Lady Justice however is an unique idea.  It essentially is like the Captain Universe character at Marvel that could be anyone.  Here, a person (in all cases here a woman) must be wronged and they are both seeking and compelled to seek justice in the crime committed against them or those they know.  This opens up tons of story ideas that also include diving into the idea of the vengeance spirit that is controlling them…but the comic does little to explore that in this collection.

Lady Justice feels both like a high concept comic book and a comic book rooted in the 1990s.  Though those ideas kind of contrast each other, the comic is a bit unusual in its structure and telling, but the presentation is lacking both in writing and art (though many of the covers are quite stylish).  The Lady Justice comic was cancelled after issue #11 (which also featured a crossover story called “The Big Bang” which was not included here), but it was relaunched for a second series which is collected in Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice—Volume 2.