May 212013
Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin (The New 52)
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
As a part of the monumental DC Comics—The New 52 event, comics superstars Geoff Johns and Jim Lee bring you an all-new origin story for the Justice League!In a world where inexperienced superheroes operate under a cloud of suspicion from the public, loner vigilante Batman has stumbled upon a dark evil that threatens to destroy the earth as we know it. Now, faced with a threat far beyond anything he can handle on his own, the Dark Knight must trust an alien, a
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“You can call us… the Super Seven!”,
- Green Lantern: “What are your powers anyway? You can’t fly.”
- Batman: “No.”
- Green Lantern: “Super-strength?”
- Batman: “No.”
- Green Lantern: “Hold on a second… You’re not just some guy in a bat costume, are you? Are you freaking kidding me?!”
So when the hullabaloo’s died down, what then? For a few months DC dominated the comic book market with its new “no trunks” 52 relaunch, its cr@pload of number one issues compelling you and me and that hopeful speculator to empty out our pockets. DC’s flagship title, JUSTICE LEAGUE, started off strong, as only a project could when helmed by Geoff Johns and the mighty, mighty Jim Lee. The near-irresistible hook presents us with these heroes meeting each other for the first time all over again, and most of them copping an attitude.
This inaugural story arc is set five years ago, in this reimagined universe. It’s a time when DC’s metahumans first burst onto the scene and were immediately viewed with suspicion and alarm by the populace. Except there’s nothing like a global alien invasion to all of a sudden quell them pangs of mistrust.
It’s a really promising start. The first four issues are helluva fun reads, mostly because we’re eyeballing Jim Lee’s dynamic classic artwork (he really does make Superman’s metal-plated costume look good) and because we get to soak in these new again characters’ awkward, prickly interactions with each other. The first issue, which features Batman and Green Lantern’s frosty first meeting, establishes the tone. I get a big kick that each new hero then introduced would echo Green Lantern’s natural curiosity in determining what Batman’s super-powers are. Geoff Johns infuses these initial issues with a good amount of humor, mostly at the expense of the Dark Knight. Surprisingly, Superman takes a back seat, what with the other heroes itching to prove their badasssery (**coughGreenLanterncough**). FOr whatever reason, I like Wonder Woman’s battle lust and smile at her sheer obliviousness (or is that naiveté?) at the snarky sausagefesting going on around her.
Ultimately, it all feels too pat, and progressive issues went on to erode my bump of fan joy. The good banter aside and once the initial excitement’s died down for me, it turns out I have problems with certain elements of this arc. I’m a bit torn about Johns’ use of decompression. On one hand, it makes sense that he’d take his time to showcase each character. For greater dramatic effect, in introducing the big guns, it may be best to pace out the issues. But, at the same time, there’s this sense of water being treaded. I was enjoying the verbal back-and-forth and the posturing, but I also wanted for things to get a move on already.
I comprehend the need for a really big bad to match up against our heroes in their debut get-together, and certainly Darkseid is the biggest big bad in DC not named the Anti-Monitor. So it’s disappointing that Johns didn’t do his due diligence. Once the dust settles, what impression will readers – especially them new ones – take away from having seen this Darkseid in deliberate action? That he’s got destructive eyebeams that crazy zigzag and relentlessly track their targets, yes. That he’s a hulking brute that can stand toe to toe with Wonder Woman, certainly. But Johns doesn’t build up enough to what separates Darkseid from other, more pedestrian super-villains. In these issues, there’s no whiff of the scope of this dark god’s depraved and cruel excesses. And other than one panel of the media reporting of these “boom tube” portals opening up around the world, there’s no sense of the sheer scale of the global invasion or the devastation wreaked by Darkseid’s hordes of para-demons. Payoff’s kinda weak, yo.
I like Cyborg, but I like Cyborg in the Teen Titans, call it my old-school bias. Vic Stone’s insertion into the Justice League is jarring. It feels forced, as if the DC folks took a peek over at Marvel and noted how this guy, Luke Cage, was having such a strong and prominent role in the Avengers. I really like the old Cyborg. I want to like this Cyborg. Except I feel that Geoff Johns is forcibly spoonfeeding me this version of him. It makes me snarl.
Okay, here’s a big honking SPOILERS alert…
I absolutely do NOT buy Batman’s revealing of his Bruce Wayne identity to Green Lantern. I feel that that was done too soon. Yes, the world is being threatened, but, even in this so far Frank Miller-less reboot, Batman must surely still foster a healthy bump of paranoia. You’d think Batman would be resourceful enough to arrive at a pep talk that doesn’t involve his having to unmask in order to motivate GL to get with the program. This totally took me out of the story.
There, end of SPOILERS.
JUSTICE LEAGUE Vol. 1: ORIGIN collects issues #1-6 and offers the following bonus stuff:
- variant cover gallery
- Jim Lee’s…
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|Strong art carries this unnecessary reboot,
Despite the outcry on the web, the costume changes for the Justice League are actually somewhat conservative. What’s mostly change is the ditching of the SuperUnderPants and the “spandex” now looks like it could be armor. On the whole it’s done very well by Jim Lee who has extensive experience and success in the DC universe. Wonder Woman gets a nice compromise between the Biker Girl look at the dominatrix classic outfit. It works well for her Amazon Warrior slant.
The real issue here is that Justice League is rebooted back to the origins, which no one really needed or asked for. The Justice League has a long history with some excellent stories. The problem with the JL comics the past few years has just been weak writing and art. Not that the origin wasn’t well understood or the characters don’t banter enough. The relationships with JL were complex, layered and have a long history behind them.
By rebooting the JL back to the origins, Johns see’s this as a chance to reset the relationships. Hal Jordan is a lot more snarky and spends time being a blowhard who forces his clash with Batman when it’s not really presented as reasonable. The way the characters meet and interacts is very contrived and the entire story with Darkseid here reads like a rejected film script.
The dialog, the action, the pacing, it’s all perfect for a 90 minute film. There is the hollywood cheesey lines, going ga-ga over hot ladies, and of course the trope of the young gun, unsure of himself coming through in the clutch.
While the writing is better than the Green Lantern film, it certainly has similar flow to that Johns work. It’s almost as if after every line Batman says, you could add an “oh snap!” and it wouldn’t seem out of place with the way these characters cornball it up.
It’s low hanging fruit for the most part, they even give Aquaman an aqua hippie necklace, just so they can set up a gag at the end about his outfit.
It’s not a bad book by any stretch, it’s just an extremely generic story with bad hollywood style gags and by rebooting the JL they have discarded the entire rich history of the team. Especially the very highly rated Grant Morrison JL books.
All of that, thrown out of the window, so we can be hit over the head that Green Lantern and Batman clash.
It’s a complete lack of subtlety and depth, that the Grant Morrison JL contained. It’s obvious, flashy and shallow, in a way that aims to draw in new fans. Time will tell if that works.
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|Wait… This DRECK is the “Flagship” title for the New 52?,
Now I used to be a really big fan of Geoff Johns. He’s obviously a smart writer when he wants to be. Personally, I was a big fan of his work on GREEN LANTERN and BRIGHTEST DAY. But when I look at most of his “event” comics, like INFINITE CRISIS, FLASH: REBIRTH, or the absolute worst of the lot, FLASHPOINT, I get a little upset. He just doesn’t seem comfortable unless it’s a character he is incredibly familiar with and knows inside and out (like Green Lantern).
But Johns and his partner in crime on this comic, legendary artist Jim Lee, had just been promoted to very significant positions of authority within DC’s chain-of-command, and Dan DiDio, DC’s EIC, saw a general decline in comic sales and was looking to turn things around. This resulted in DC’s NEW 52 initiative: Not terribly dissimilar to what DC almost did almost 20 years ago with the “ZERO HOUR” event and the various “Crises”, which is to bring a whole lot of characters together from various DC publications and offshoot publishers like WildStorm, resurrect a few and mash them all together from either their very beginnings, or in the present.
The granddaddy of all of these new comics was the release of JUSTICE LEAGUE, with Johns writing and Lee doing the art.
I think at last count, the first issue of JL had gone to press SEVEN TIMES, but for the life of me, I don’t understand why.
JUSTICE LEAGUE, as written by Johns, is the worst kind of team book there is. It’s the “meet-cute/fight-cute/work-together” cookie-cutter team assembling. This book basically takes place five years in the past (yes, you read that right… everything that’s happened to all of the characters that were essentially unaffected by the NEW 52 have only been operating for five years… Batman has had five Robins in five years… figure THAT out) and all of the heroes, from Superman to Batman to Green Lantern to The Flash to Wonder Woman to Aquaman to… Cyborg (WTF?) are just beginning their careers in the superhero biz and nobody really knows who anybody else is yet.
The characterization is basically “You know who I am and what I can do”, which is not that much different than Marvel’s THE AVENGERS motion picture, but without the grace, style and wit of Joss Whedon. Batman: “I’m dark and smart.” Green Lantern: “I have a power ring that makes stuff from my head.” Superman: “I’m strong and… you know.” Aquaman: “I swim.” The Flash: “I’m fast.” Wonder Woman is the worst of the lot: “I’m kind of a woman but I love to beat the crap out of things and people because that’s what men do!” Cyborg is kind of a non-entity since this is essentially his origin story, but of course is critical in the time of the League’s greatest need.
Seven heroes. They discover Darkseid. They fight Darkseid (Spoiler Alert: They win… for now…). And thanks to Jim Lee, it looks pretty.
If that’s all you want from a comic, then this must have been Heaven for you. If you want something that actually has a plot and has something to say and is written/drawn with style, intelligence and inventiveness of The New 52, I recommend Scott Snyder’s BATMAN, Jeff Lemire’s ANIMAL MAN, Paul Cornell’s DEMON KNIGHTS, Joshua Hale Fialkov’s I, VAMPIRE, Gail Simone’s BATGIRL, Peter Tomasi’s BATMAN AND ROBIN, J.H. Williams III’s BATWOMAN, Jeff Lemire’s FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E, and Scott Snyder’s SWAMP THING.
I love how even the negative reviews of JUSTICE LEAGUE also resonate as equally as the positive reviews.
Those are all titles that range from very good to absolutely fantastic. JUSTICE LEAGUE is near the bottom of the barrel. Yes, it’s Michael Bay-esque eye candy with things that go boom, but it also has about the same after-effect, which is, “Wait, what did I just look at?”
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