Justice League of America #43: Writer: James Robinson. Pencils: Mark Bagley.
Last Issue: 8 out of 10.
Picking up from last issue, the newly constructed JLA attack the two villains who had invaded Blackhawk Island, but find themselves surprisingly unable to easily put the duo down. Although the villains are sporting New Genesis technology, Batman realizes that the JLA is having difficulty not because of the skill level of their foes, but because of the lack of teamwork. Congorilla and Starman wind up breaking the stalemate and tilting the scales slightly towards the side of the JLA, so the villains decide to leave via a boomtube. Meanwhile, Green Arrow is trying to keep from getting killed on the Watchtower as three villains with New Genesis tech attempt to hunt him down. GA manages to make it to the medi-lab where Red Tornado's pieces were being kept, and GA alerts Tornado as to what was going on. The villains manage to track GA to the lab, but Tornado manages to activate his body and is able to blow the villains out of the room. Since they had gotten what they came for(some strange alien artifact), the villains decide to leave via one of those blasted boomtubes. With the menace gone, GA tells Tornado that he has to leave before the rest of the JLA arrive, and when pressed by Tornado as to why, GA plays coy and ultimately leaves before answering any questions. Back on Blackhawk Island, the JLA lick their wounds and try to figure out what the hell just happened. Before they can come up with anything, SAINT Barry Allen runs over, tells Green Lantern that he had a new lead on the whereabouts of Prometheus and the two take off, leaving the rest of the JLA in the dust. From there, the team decides to head back to the Watchtower, and they invite Congorilla and Starman to join them... Sure, why not add a few more characters... Black Canary stays behind since she wanted to head to Star City, so the rest of the team heads to the Tower and immediately realize that GA had been battling somebody up there. They rush to the medi-lab to check on Tornado and he fills them in on what had occurred during their absence. From there we head a few days into the future and discover that the heroes had learned of GA's killing of Prometheus, which leads to the League splintering into pieces. After everything shakes out, only Donna Troy, Batman, Congorilla and Starman remain active on the JLA. However, even though they had lost a LOT of members, the new streamlined League begins to mesh and work like a team against the few menaces they face. This issue ends with the Justice Society of America standing over a stricken Alan Scott(who happens to be dead in the JSA comic, btw)whose powers seem to be going completely out of control.
Well, I DID say that there were too many people on this team last issue... Of course that didn't mean I wanted to see EVERYBODY leave! Man was that weird... So we started this issue off with Green Arrow, Batman, Red Tornado, Dr. Light, Guardian, Mon-El, Donna Troy, Cyborg, Starfire, Black Canary, Atom, Hal Jordan, and eventually Starman and Congorilla as members of the JLA, and we end the issue with only Batman, Donna, Congorilla and Starman left... OOOOOOK then... And the only excuse we get for it is that since Green Arrow had killed Prometheus, everything had changed... Yeah... After reading this issue, I kind of can't understand why James bothered to put SO many characters on this team if he was intending on jettisoning them all so soon. My main thought after reading this comic was that it was strange. It read like two separate stories, the first half dealt with the new JLA trying to deal with these weird New Genesis villains, while learning to work together as a team, while the second half dealt with the remaining JLAers making due with what who was left. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Did it leave me scratching my head in confusion? Definitely! I can't even begin to guess what the next issue holds...
Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.
That's a whole lot of JLAers... And that's not even counting Green Arrow and Red Tornado's head!
You know, it's kind of fitting that you mentioned George Perez in the comment section on one of your other JLA posts, since the scan in this post makes me think of him! It's not so much the style as it is the fact that both Bagley and Perez can draw virtually any character, and they don't even blink at throwing a whole bunch of recognizable characters together in the same panel.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when I think of George, that's exactlt what I think about, the fact that the guy can draw ANYBODY, and that he can fill up a page with just an incredible amount of characters and none of them look half-assed. I'd liked his New Teen Titans work, but I became a huge fan after the JLA/Avengers mini, and a lifelong fan after the FC: Legion of 3 Worlds mini.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I've never read his work on New Teen Titans. I've heard only great things about that series, so I'll have to give it a look. I really enjoyed his work on Avengers with Kurt Busiek. Back in those days, you got probably three times as much artwork and dialogue per issue as you do in Bendis's Avengers today...and in the same number of pages too!
ReplyDeleteHmm, well I have to say, the only reason the New Teen Titans would be worth reading would be for George's artwork, because story-wise, things really start to fall apart after a while... I think Marv Wolfman writes the series from start to finish(which was like 130 issues plus!)and he was running on empty idea wise towards the middle/end. Personally I don't like a writer staying on the same book for more then 50-75 issues, because after a while he's bound to start getting stale. There are a few exceptions, but not many.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention actual Avengers characters and stories that made sense!