Justice League #16 / by MELINDA Schmidbauer

Rumaan Harjati is back in this issue.  Max and Batman decide that the League needs to find out what he is up to, and stop it.  So, Batman and part of the team (the part that is not off following Mr. Miracle trapped on a shopping expedition to the stars) go undercover to find out what is going on in Bialya.

Of course, Batman goes undercover as Bruce Wayne.  But none of the others (Green Flame -- I can't get used to that, Beetle and Booster) know that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person.  And they don't even suspect?  These guys are NOT the world's greatest detectives!  So Flame is posing at Bruce's lastest bimbo, and Booster and Beetle are aide-de-camps/assistants.

Now, I am not sure, but does everyone (the world, or just the JLI) know that the Blue Beetle is Ted Kord?  Is Ted Kord head of Kord Industries at this time? Because I would have thought that Ted could get invited to this, too.  Unless Rumaan knows that Ted is the Blue Beetle.  Argh.  No wonder DC wants to start over every now and then.

I am not sure what the deal is with Flame's hair.  It looks like she is wearing a mop for a wig.  I am sure that the JLI could afford better wigs for her!  But we do find out that is actually "Ms. Dacosta" -- so this is actually Fire -- and Bruce knows her secret identity.  If it is actually secret.

(Did you know that Fire served the longest of any JLI member?  I didn't.)

So, we find out that Rumaan is in cahoots with Queen Bee, and several former members of the Global Guardians. (Is this how the Bialyans figured out that Bruce and his bimbo weren't who they seemed to be? Someone recognized Flame!) Rumaan unveils his secret weapon, who is actually the alien superhero Wandjina (who in a previous issue was exposed to a nuclear reactor in Russia, while saving the world).
Queen Bee has Wandjina kill Rumaan and takes over Bialya.

Wow, what an issue.  And this doesn't even include the space chase -- a few pages dedicated to the JLI'ers who are in space to rescue Mr. Miracle.