“World’s greatest superheroes?” I just don’t see it.
The first issue featuring the newest incarnation of the Justice League of America’s lineup hit this week, and over the top of the title, DC blares that the book features the world’s greatest supeheroes. While no more inherently ridiculous than the Fantastic Four’s long-held claim to being the greatest comic magazine, this one’s a lot more offensive. Why? Because the cover features Congorilla, Mon-El/Valor wearing a Superman logo (everybody’s doing it—the Eradicator, raised from the dead without explanation in this month’s issue of The Outsiders, is back to sporting a big, red S as well) and Starfire, who’s come to this team straight from the orgy of failure that is The Titans. Joined in this comic by fellow Titans (not Teen Titans—Titans. There’s a difference) Donna Troy, Dick Grayson and Cyborg, it soon becomes clear that the Justice League of America has become the dumping-ground for promising characters who just don’t fit into DC’s idea of what they want to do with other titles (like letting a crazed badguy who’s already been overexposed since Identity Crisis lead his own team of “Titans”). Mon-El and The Guardian, both so incredibly popular with the fans that during the time they’ve starred in the Superman titles, sales have dropped by about forty percent, represent the Metropolis contingent with Batman’s understudy and Hal Jordan (currently featured in three monthly books as well as guest-starring all over the place) being the closest thing this team has to A-listers. Seriously, folks, I think that the upcoming Justice League: Generation Lost by Keith Giffen and Judd Winick, which will feature Guy Gardner, Booster Gold, Fire, Ice and the rest of the old JLI—once known as the all-time bottom of the Justice League barrel—may feature a more prestigious lineup than these clowns.
Inside, Red Tornado has been torn to pieces for something like the 185th time in his last 185 appearances. Vixen, the only representative of the Detroit Era JLA to make it into this volume of the title and who has been, to the disappointment of many fans, a member of the team since J’Onn J’Onzz left for no reason after having been with the team since its founding, decides that she’s got to quit the team, because she’s ashamed of what they did at the end of the hideously misguided editorial abortion known as Justice League: Cry For Justice (yes, the end of the miniseries that hasn’t ended yet).
The rest of the team struggles to recover from the aftereffects of Blackest Night (yes, the end of the miniseries that hasn’t ended yet), which raised many of their old teammates from the dead as villains, and even forced some living heroes to play dead for a while so they could be villains. Don’t worry, James Robinson assures the readers, “We ‘awoke,’ though. We survived.” That’s good news, I guess, for the thousands of readers who are eagerly awaiting February 24th’s Blackest Night #7 (of 8), in which the story of those heroes who have been taken over by Nekron continues to play out. I’m sure nobody would mind being told that the biggest event of the year, in which many fans have invested hundreds of bucks following every arcane tie-in, comes out alright enough in the wash.
All of these little editorial gaffes might be forgivable…if the comic were any good. Or original. Or fun. It’s none of those things. Mark Bagley’s art looks rushed and is outright hideous in some places (look at Damien’s face as he declares himself part of the Justice League, or Donna’s as she arrives to invite Batman. Also, if Hal Jordan’s body hasn’t been horribly mangled on a torture rack of some kind by the end of Blackest Night, there’s no reason whatsoever for the length of his torso and legs in comparison the rest of his body on the final story page). The story is dull and something we’ve all seen a hundred times before—Wonder Woman, acting as the only member of DC’s trinity not currently dead or living in outer space, picks a League and the rest of the issue is spent on a recruiting binge. There’s very little in terms of logical, reasonable cause to bring the characters together. Instead, it’s a team that’s being forced together out of the disparate pieces that DC editorial have decided, and Wonder Woman has prescribed, will compose it. It’s a whole issue of going through the motions, and the cardboard dialogue and pedestrian plot has to remind readers of last week’s awesome Starman #81 that James Robinson is best when he’s not handling the icons. Taking a franchise that nobody believed in or cared about, he crafted arguably the best ongoing monthly of the 1990s. Taking control of Superman and the Justice League of America, he’s created a directionless mess filled with uninteresting takes on third-tier characters.
