Justice League #15 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Ivan Reis (pencils), Joe Prado (inks), Rod Reis (colors)

The Story: People can barely stay afloat in Gotham and it’s not just the recession.

The Review: Considering Dean’s generally dismissive attitude toward Big Two comics, I was nothing less than blown away that Justice League and Aquaman made his picks for the week.  Okay, true, in a week where each publisher only had two titles out each, the chances of landing a title on a five-count pick of comics are pretty good.  Still, the idea of a skeptic sort-of returning to the fold of mainstream comics just warms my heart—it really does.

That said, I question the wisdom of choosing Justice League as your gateway series.  Anyone who’s kept up with my coverage of this title since it launched knows that I’ve been less than warm and effusive.  The character work has been mostly shoddy when it wasn’t non-existent, and the various plotlines have been erratic and unoriginal for the most part.  Could a much-touted crossover with the Aquaman mythos really turn all that around?

Justice League #14 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Tony S. Daniel (pencils), Matt Banning & Sandu Florea (inkers), Tomev Morey (colors)

The Story: Wonder Woman loses a friend and gains a beau—a pretty good exchange, honestly.

The Review: The persistent mediocrity of certain, often major titles sometimes makes you wonder if DC is truly out to deliver the best, most ambitious stories possible, the way Marvel NOW! seems to be doing, or just settling for entertaining enough.  Justice League certainly falls into the latter category, and this issue shows why.  Instead of being the grand, epic, anchor title it should be, it mostly comes across as a readable and diverting series, and little more.

In terms of pure teamwork, the League is efficient and effective.  Every member gets a part to play, but they rarely break out of predefined roles.  The most interesting part of the whole mission is the Flash acting tank while his other teammates are occupied elsewhere (i.e. trying to get the feline out of Superman).  Unfortunately, Johns doesn’t explore the possibilities of Barry taking point, and things eventually revert to a very neat, but predictable battle sequence.

Justice League #0 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Gary Frank (art), Brad Anderson (colors)

The Story: This is what happens when someone forgets the “With great power…” speech.

The Review: It’s cliché to even say this, but we live in cynical times.  In an earlier, more innocent age, maybe it was possible to believe in pure virtue, if only in a hypothetical, imagined sort of way, but even that seems beyond us now.  And I’m about to get philosophical, but I think the less we believe in it, the more we compound the problem.  I notice that the bar for human righteousness has gotten so low that common acts of civility are considered novel nowadays.

Fiction serves as our mirror, so it’s of little surprise that our stories have grown similarly grayer.  The antihero, rather than the hero, prevails.  With Billy Batson, Johns has given us a character who well reflects the ordinary person: mostly unlikable, completely fixated on his own problems, but capable of extraordinary moments of redemption.  Sure, he’s not exactly the ideal champion; then again, we can’t all be Superman.  As in real life, we must set aside good for good enough.

Justice League #10 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Jim Lee (pencils), Scott Williams, Mark Irwin, Jonathan Glapion (inks), Alex Sinclair, Gabe Eltaeb, Tony Avina, Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: You don’t just break into the Justice League’s clubhouse and get away with it.

The Review: Before I get into the review, I have to apologize for the huge delay on my end this week.  As you may know, this gig isn’t my day job.  During the summer, I did take on quite a few new commitments that have eaten a lot of time, and this week was an especially rough example of that.  I can’t tell you much about the details, but I will say that while it sucked having to put the reviews on hold, it was completely worth it; we got the kid home.

And with that nugget of vagary, let’s talk about what’s really important here: people with superpowers wearing costumes.  Up to perhaps last issue, that was pretty much the extent of character development on the League.  Aside from a lot of buddy-idiot exchanges between Flash and Green Lantern, with a grumbling Batman in the background, we haven’t really seen this set of extraordinary individuals mesh together as a cohesive team just yet.

Justice League #9 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Jim Lee (pencils), Scott Williams (inks), Alex Sinclair, Pete Pantazis, Gabe Eltaeb (colorists), Gary Frank (feature art), Brad Anderson (feature colors)

The Story: Soon, the League will know the dangers of excessive fanship.

The Review: One of this title’s biggest pitfalls has been its inability to establish a consistent tone, direction, or even purpose for itself.  Although Darkseid’s invasion gave plenty of reason for the League to come together, they did so in a way that felt genuinely random.  It didn’t feel like destiny had any part in their gathering at all.  Once victory was theirs, they might as well have gone their separate ways; you didn’t really grasp the value of their association.

Up to this point, the League’s dealings among themselves have felt largely professional in nature.  Johns pulls away from that trend in this issue, splitting the team into little units and using that opportunity to show a somewhat more intimate interaction.  Even in these circumstances, you don’t see the heroes truly resonating with each other, but Johns plants the seeds for what may cause them to draw closer together in the future.

Justice League #8 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: If Arrows wants in so bad, you should at least give him the honor of hazing him.

The Review: If anything proves that relentless flash and glam can’t make up for ill-conceived, incomprehensible storytelling, it has to be the Garry Marshall-Katherine Fugate series of star-studded, holiday-themed films, Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve.  Despite being veritable cornucopias of tabloid regulars, these easily count as some of the least watchable films of the decade, completely lacking in personality, depth, and novelty.

Justice League may be the Valentine’s Day of comics right now.  Eight months after its explosive premiere, the title may still be selling like hotcakes, but it has failed to establish a consistent tone or agenda for itself.  Somehow, having six of the most iconic heroes of all time (plus Cyborg) in one convenient bunch has resulted in the most pedestrian storylines and the flattest of group dynamics.  True, their image of friendship was intended from the start as a public face, but surely Geoff Johns doesn’t mean to subject us to their bland interaction forever.

Perhaps this issue signals a turn for the better.  If the League as a unit lacks personality, Green Arrow has a dripping surplus, practically enough to make up for his would-be colleagues.  His shameless attempts to impress the Leaguers in hopes of getting an invitation to join them is quite entertaining for his audacity.  After the team defeats Amazo, Arrow doesn’t hesitate to point out his contribution to the battle: a single arrow protruding from the android’s left buttock.

Arrow’s boldness has the effect of bringing out the League’s collective straight man, making them more enjoyable to read than they’ve ever been.  Even Green Lantern’s obnoxiousness rubs a bit better when not directed at his own teammates.  He tells the emerald archer, “If Batman sprains his ankle, we’ll call you.”  He then whispers to Batman, “Totally lying.  We wouldn’t call him.”  Batman replies with an ambiguous “Thanks.”

If the League’s treatment of Green Arrow seems cold, they have good reason—other than Arrow’s incessant persistence (“So what do you say?  Am I in?”  In response, they leave him on a deserted road some miles outside of town.).  Some of them already have bad history with him (read: Aquaman), but all of them share a dark experience of letting in just anybody onto the team, particularly ones who can psychically ferret out all their secrets and ghost it out of there.

Shazam #1 – Review

By: Eric Wallace (writer), Cliff Richards (artist), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: Mary Batson, did no one ever tell you making deals with demons is never a good idea?

The Review: Captain Marvel and the rest of his ilk have always seemed a little out of place in the DCU.  Besides the gimmick of their magic word, there’s not much setting them apart from their superhero peers.  It’s even difficult seeing the Big Red Cheese himself as anything other than Superman—with magic (an idea Grant Morrison played with in Final Crisis).  Most writers have difficulty selling the Marvels’ natural goody-goodiness in a world that requires some attitude to succeed.

This is the problem Eric Wallace runs into in his one-shot of the Marvel family.  On the one hand, he deserves a bit of a break; the characters were left in shambles the last time they were written.  Billy and Mary lost their powers, which their underdeveloped civilian personas couldn’t possibly make up for.  Freddy Freeman’s promotion to the red outfit lost the Jr. from his name and added some long hair, but has otherwise done nothing to invigorate the character.  Wallace is working an uphill battle here.

But from another perspective, Wallace had a great opportunity to breathe some new life into the characters, and he mostly squanders it.  The tension between the Batsons and Freddy introduced at the start of the issue turns out to be a blind, which means they never lost trust in each other at all, which also means they avoid any character-building personal conflicts.  This is a big miss, since after all these years, their camaraderie seems based on tradition more than any signs of genuine friendship.

Wallace’s choice to have the Batsons bemoan the loss of their powers and how it’s holding them back comes across shallow and even a little insulting.  After all, when you consider the number of heroes in the DCU alone who play it no-powers style, wistfully regretting your former gods-given abilities seems a trifle narrow-minded, don’t you think?  It feels as if since the Marvels really have no identity beyond their powers, the only stories you can give them have to involve the loss of/earning of/quest for their powers.  Frankly, that’s all getting pretty old.