The Elite was initially DCs answer to the Authority or at least the idea of the Authority (and was promtly taken down by Superman in Action Comics #775). Later the Elite was reborn as Justice League Elite (JLA v3 #100), a proactive undercover unit that tried to defuse threats before they became serious. In that regard it was much more similar to Wildstorm’s Sleeper series than to the high-profile Authority. Sadly the series never managed to explore the problems of being undercover as well as Sleeper did. Each of the members could have easily walked away and they just didn’t have a good foil like Tao was for Holden Carver in Sleeper.
Which means that despite all the talk about loosing sight of who they were, they never actually did. The one murder that happened on their watch was done by a traitor and all the “good” characters actually remained do-gooders from start to finish. The so-called moral ambivalence just wasn’t there. The reason I actually liked the series was that it was under the surface a well-done conventional superhero team series where good guys went up against bad guys and had to sort out some personal problems along the way. Justice League Elite wasn’t really edgy, but it was well written and had likable characters.
