Review: JSA All-Stars: Glory Days trade paperback (DC Comics)

Writer Matt Sturges's JSA All-Stars: Glory Days both confirms and rejects my assertion, after reading the previous volume Constellations, that JSA All-Stars is really just a new iteration of the classic Infinity, Inc. team. Plot-wise, there isn't much remarkable in Glory Days, but fans of the team's roots will find a bit to enjoy nonetheless.

[Contains spoilers]

It isn't just that members of the JSA All-Stars team reminisce about their Infinity, Inc. days. It's isn't just that the book cameos another former Infinity, Inc. member, or that it picks up the threads of an Infinity, Inc. story. It's about the time that members of the JSA All-Stars actually drive by the old Infinity, Inc. headquarters and stop to take a look that it becomes impossible to deny how much the ghosts of that former team drive this book. Sturges begins the "Glory Days" story in Infinity, Inc.'s home base, Los Angeles as the team helps out former Infinity, Inc. supporting cast member Chief Bracken; this leads Infinitors Hourman and Atom Smasher to joke about the old days, all in the first six pages of the story. The connections grow exponentially from there.

The stated message of "Glory Days," however, is that one can't regain the past. A group of telepathic children transformed into gods remain these gods in the end; the All-Stars can stop their rampage, but can't turn back the changes of time. Just so, the old Infinity, Inc. headquarters has been condemned and is demolished in the end; to defeat the gods, the All-Stars have to let go of an element of their past, including Atom Smasher acknowledging that Infinity, Inc. is "history."

To take Glory Days at face value, perhaps Sturges does mean to bury the connections between the All-Stars and Infinity, Inc. Between Atom Smasher letting his past go, the final image of the demolition of the old headquarters, and Infinitor Brainwave turning down membership in the All-Stars, there's no knowing wink at the end of the book that suggests an ironic valuation of the past; rather, Sturges seems to suggest, the past is past. Perhaps this benefits Sturges; if despite having four former Infinitors in lead roles in All-Stars (making this the Justice Society equivalent of Cyborg leading the Infinite Crisis-era Teen Titans), Sturges meant to separate his All-Stars from Infinity, Inc., then making those ties explicit and subsequently putting them to rest might be the way to do it.

I can't, however, entirely believe it. It would seem to me there's plenty of potential in Sturges's Infinity, Inc. sequel, including guest-appearances by the newly resurrected Jade (who gets a mention in this book) and her brother Obsidian, another appearance by Brainwave, maybe more about Fury and Silver Scarab (the modern Justice Society's long-time Dr. Fate) who died toward the end of the JSA title. Much as I'd like to evaluate Glory Days on its own merits, whether Sturges is serious about jettisoning this book's Infinity connections could best be determined by the amount of Infinity material in the book that followed; sadly, DC cancelled the JSA All-Stars: The Puzzle Men trade and solicits for the subsequent issues reveal few clues.

Sturges sandwiches the four-issue "Glory Days" between a single issue spotlighting the character Damage, and two issues on the character Cyclone. Damage, one of my favorite teen heroes from the 1990s, gained a heavy dose of attitude under writer Geoff Johns; I've long been torn between happiness that Johns used the character and disappointment at what an angst-ridden grouch he made Damage. Damage's romance with Judomaster never quite made sense (he liked her, it seemed, for her body, and why she responded to him I'm not sure); in the memorial issue, Sturges both forwards their relationship a bit and tweaks things such that the usually-mute Judomaster can talk about it. These are obvious narrative devices both, but I liked that Sturges gave Damage some due respect and even revealed the characters' face, and all-in-all I was satisfied.

The Cyclone issues ("Yon Twelve-Winded Sky," with art by JLA's Howard Porter) were interesting, though I wished for just a little bit more. Sturges does well with a heavy science-fiction vibe in the story, both in fascinating presentations of nanobytes and cloning in regards to Cyclone, and his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cut scenes as the All-Stars fight in an alien revolution (I was reminded, if you can believe it, of the New Titans's "Siege of the Zi Charam*"). But I've understood for a while that Cyclone Maxine Hunkel was actually a robot -- maybe I misunderstood something Red Tornado said once -- and I was hoping we'd get into her origins in depth in this story. Instead, "Twelve" puts everything essentially back where it started; it is a good enough story to "end" JSA All-Stars, at least for collections fans, but didn't quite live up to my (perhaps erroneous) expectations.

There and elsewhere, it's true not much happens in Glory Days. The memorial issue is mostly reflective, "Twelve" doesn't change much, and "Glory Days" is not really about the All-Stars -- they have to face their pasts, sure, but the bad guys have no real ties to the All-Stars specifically, unlike in Constellations. Indeed, Sturges never quite explains how the Paradorian dictator actually turns the telepathic children into gods, for instance; the plot here is less important than the characters' interactions. There's nothing wrong with that, per se -- at times it's even welcome -- but if you don't have a soft spot for these particular characters' "glory days," you may very well feel like JSA All-Stars: Glory Days doesn't do enough to distinguish itself.

In the end, between Constellations and Glory Days, I enjoyed the two volumes of JSA All-Stars more than I thought I would, and the series has certainly cemented my appreciation for Matt Sturges -- an obvious Infinity, Inc. fan, to this extent, is not to be overlooked. Had I to choose between JSA All-Stars and other similarly cancelled series for resurrection, like Doom Patrol and REBELS, I think I'd still side with Doom Patrol, but JSA All-Stars has plenty going for it, too.

[Includes original covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

Later this week ... Collected Editions's Best Trades of 2011 List, and the Green Lanterns go to war. Be here!

* I miss Jarras Minion. Does anyone else miss Jarras Minion?

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Review: JSA All-Stars: Constellations trade paperback (DC Comics)

I have not read what is probably writer Matt Sturges seminal work, Jack of Fables, or his equally popular House of Mystery. I've encountered Sturges's writing just a few times, most notably on the heels of Bill Willingham on Shadowpact, but those few times I've enjoyed myself (Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! being a single exception). So it was, following up on some continuity notes, watching the last hurrah of some favorite characters, and also in a conscious attempt to read more of Sturges's work, I came to JSA All-Stars: Constellations.

The second opportunity afforded to me by Constellations was to study Freddie Williams's artwork further. I liked Williams's art on Robin, but was less satisfied with the more cartoony aspects in the aforementioned Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! (Sturges and Williams re-teaming on JSA All-Stars was one reason I was slow to pick up this book, until interest in a variety of characters brought me in). Since Run!, I have struggled to enjoy Williams's art again -- "Why should I like it?" I ask, and DC Comics replies, "He draws it all digital!" "Yes," I repeat, "but why should I like it?" "It's digital!" OK, I think; maybe there's something to that.

With an open mind but some trepidation, I ventured in to JSA All-Stars.

[Contains spoilers]

I had not been in favor of the Justice Society team splitting nor DC publishing two JSA books. I didn't think the market would support it (and indeed JSA All-Stars was later cancelled, the final issues uncollected). The split essentially separated into two titles the "stodgier" (forgive me) and "hipper" parts of the Society, a combination I thought necessary to make the initial book work; the "hipper" characters, whom I'd prefer to read about, were under a creative team I disfavored; the "stodgier" characters, whom I found more interesting, were under the creative team I was more likely to try. I maintain that the Justice Society franchise is poorer for this split; I have liked a number of the Justice Society books since then, including Axis of Evil and Supertown, but not so much as I liked the original books by Geoff Johns.

But a few pages in to the second chapter of Constellations, it clicked for me where the JSA All-Stars title fit in the overall DC Universe, and this largely informed my enjoyment of the book. There is, indeed, some precedent for all of this. Though the two teams did not exist in the same time period, there was a time when All-Star Squadron presented the adventures of the classic Justice Society, while another title offered the "hipper" exploits of the Society's descendents. When Stargirl Courtney Whitmore talks about missing the JSAers on the other team, and Hourman Rick Tyler commiserates that he, too, misses his old teammates, I realized: "All-Stars," nothing; this is a new incarnation of Tyler's old team, Infinity, Inc.

In that mindset, that All-Stars is not some lesser, substitute version of my favored Justice Society, but rather a young team of legacy heroes a la Infinity Inc., I found I could let go of my expectations and enjoy the story. And Sturges makes this easy. Constellations quickly fills up with my favorite aspects of Justice Society -- Power Girl as team leader, former JSA chairman Sand and Infinity, Inc.-er Atom Smasher nee Nuklon gain membership, and the Injustice Society shows up (even as I decried their ubiquity the other day in my Supertown review, Sturges uses the Injustice Society's appearance to pick up on elements from one of my favorite JSA stories, Stealing Thunder).

I can even forgive some of the annoying bickering between characters Tomcat, Damage, and others as "youthful enthusiasm," given that this is not Justice Society but rather Justice Society by way of Teen Titans (or rather, by way of some of the better "twentysomething" teams of the past couple decades, like Devin Grayson's Titans or Judd Winick's Outsiders). As a story in which the JSA All-Stars fight the Injustice Society, Johnny Sorrow, and the King of Tears, Justice Society fans might be justified in stating they've seen it all before. But I felt Sturges successfully channeled the tone of the best of Geoff Johns's work on the original JSA in a number of the cutaway scenes with Sand and Atom Smasher, and in Sorrow's secret scheme revealed in the final pages.

I also adored the conflicts of leadership between Power Girl and Magog and their differing philosophies of battle (and capital punishment). It's a shame that Magog has to exit the title early on; I did note the similarity between Magog chiding Power Girl for saving the life of one villain, even if that villain would kill hundreds later, and new character Anna Fortune warning Power Girl that if Fortune used a spell to save the single life of King Chimera then, she couldn't use the spell to save hundreds later. Sturges seems to set up Power Girl to have to justify her "needs of one outweigh needs of many" philosophy later on down the road, and I'm hopeful he can get to it before cancellation and cancelled collections end the book.

In the end, if I thought JSA All-Stars: Constellations would be silly, campy, irreverent, or gratuitously violent (all attributes I'd ascribe to Final Crisis Aftermath: Run!), it was none of these things. I finished the book quite pleased with Matt Sturges's writing and interested to read the next book in the series.

I can't claim, however, to feel much more comfortable about Freddie Williams's art than I did before. I did not dislike it as much as I did in Run!; as I noted in my review of Run!, Williams likely tries to achieve some ugliness and distortion in that book befitting the tone of the story, that he did not in Constellations. His depiction of Power Girl, talking to Sand in the sixth issue, is downright pretty, and his supernatural Anna Fortune resembles the best costume design of Humberto Ramos. I can even forgive some distorted figures as "stylistic" (see Stargirl with pointy noggin on page three); I'm a long-time Duncan Rouleau fan, and you hardly find figures more distorted than his..

But much as I studied Williams's sketchbook at the end of the book, I couldn't quite see what advantage his digital art brought to the page; it's quite interesting, for instance, that Williams creates digital "sets" for the book's various locations, but I didn't see many unusual perspectives or panels come out of it. Perhaps when considering "digital art," I'm imagining something more like Brainiac-13 from the "Superman Y2K" storyline (Superman: Endgame); if I didn't know Williams's art was completed on computer, I'd never think so. To that end, while I can deal with a little distortion, I was disappointed by Williams re-using the same panel three times in the third chapter, or Power Girl's costume losing a certain famous element for a part of the same chapter. Williams's work in Constellations improves my previous opinion of his art, but does not necessarily make me a fan.

All in all, however, JSA All-Stars: Constellations came as a pleasant surprise, and writer Matt Sturges has much to be proud of; more's the pity that, so far, he seems to have found no place in the DC New 52. The next book, Glory Days, is the one that really has my interest, as it deals with the death of a team member and one of my favorite characters. We'll have that review here some time coming up.

[Includes original and variant covers; sketchbook section by Freddie Williams]

Barring any breaking news, this is the last Collected Editions review for 2011. Come Monday, we'll have a special guest review by Wayne Brooks, whose take on Aquaman: Death of the Prince you enjoyed; and then at the end of the week, the Collected Editions review of the long-awaited Chase collection, including all of Dan Curtis Johnson and J.H. Williams's issues, back-up stories, and more. Happy new year, and see you soon!

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Review: Justice Society of America: Supertown trade paperback (DC Comics)

In its last two volumes before the DC New 52 relaunch, Justice Society of America gets a new writer, Marc Guggenheim, and a new direction -- the signs of a series popular enough that fans have clamored for its inclusion in DC's new line, but not so steady as to have warranted a number of recent creative changes. Justice Society: Supertown is still a little rough around the edges, not exactly at the level where one might hope this book would be, but the finale is quite interesting and definitely left me eager for the next volume.

[Contains spoilers]

Just as Bill Willingham's Justice Society: Axis of Evil was largely a Mr. Terrific story guest-starring the Justice Society, Guggenheim's is really a Golden Age Flash story (Guggenheim also wrote, to much acclaim, the best issues of the otherwise abysmal Flash: The Fastest Man Alive), the story finds Flash Jay Garrick announcing his retirement (fitting, on the eve of the New DC Universe); by the end, however, he gains new purpose as the savior and incoming mayor of new DC locale Monument Point. Jay's journey from irrelevancy to ultimately setting an example of "responsible heroism," plus the upcoming political drama that the ending portends, are all quite engaging and speak good things for the book.

I also appreciated that the master villain in Supertown is one of the senators who forced the Justice Society to retire rather than reveal their identities in the 1950s. Though that story is often referenced, I've never seen it addressed as a plot point even though it's conceivable the government players might still be alive. Supertown also turns on a World War II fight between the Flash and the Golden Age Green Lantern over whether to murder a super-powered Nazi baby, a conflict that has consequences in the present day. Both of these elements make Supertown a story about the Justice Society, rather than just an adventure the Society goes on, and the story is better for it.

Unfortunately, Guggenheim lost me early on with a key element, and it shadows the book just a bit. The Society arrives in Monument Point because of "terrorist" threats made by the villain Scythe (though we never hear these threats nor does Scythe even speak all that much). Teen hero Lightning asks "Terrorists? Like, real terrorists? Like Al Qaeda-type terrorists?" Wildcat retorts, "Are there any other kind?" and Mr. Terrific says, "Actually, yes. But that's not what's important right now."

Fair enough -- the kid is ignorant, Wildcat is characteristically uncouth, and Mr. Terrific corrects them.  But then a page later, Green Lantern makes reference to Scythe's "politics" (quotes Guggenheim's) and adds "and I'm being extremely generous there, I know" -- and mind you, Scythe hasn't said a word yet. After Scythe disables Green Lantern, leaving Wildcat and Lightning to the fight, Wildcat says, "We'll take care of Bin Laden."

Now, it's comics. And I grant that Wildcat is supposed to say insensitive things as part of his "came up before political correctness" ethos. But without the villain of the scene saying a word, Guggenheim implies through jokes and innuendo (and the fact that Scythe, off-screen, apparently makes a statement on Al Jazeera television, though how he does so from Monument Point is tough to say) that Scythe is a Muslim extremest -- in fact, other parts of the story would suggest he's a Nazi, if anything -- when neither has much to do with his goals or character and Scythe might otherwise just be an angry behemoth. It's sloppy writing of the worst kind, in my opinion, because it uses stereotypes instead of characterization, and makes the Justice Society seem old and out of touch at the book's outset.

Guggenheim sets a nice ticking clock in the middle of the story when the Justice Society races (and fails) to prevent Monument Point's mayor's murder, but the villain here, too, is rather ill-defined. Guggenheim makes Dr. Chaos plenty scary, but also somewhat ludicrous. This old man fights the heaviest hitters of the Justice Society -- Hourman and Citizen Steel, for instance -- to a standstill, and Guggenheim never offers a reason why. I appreciate that Guggenheim creates new foes for the Society (I don't need to see the Society fight Icicle or Johnny Sorrow again), but I appreciate the villains making sense (even comic book sense); else it just seems Guggenheim arbitrarily twists the story for the needs of the moment.

Artists Scott Kolins and Mike Norton are each perfectly suited for the Justice Society title, their art more on the sedate side of the spectrum than an Ed Benes or Jim Lee. (Though Kolins offers a butt-shot of Manhunter that I thought there must have been another way to present). Like in the recent Superman/Batman: Worship, both Kolins and Norton's pencils are colored un-inked, giving the book a painted quality that again seems just right for the Golden Age Justice Society. I was glad, however, that Supertown is the penultimate Justice Society book when I saw Kolins's new Green Lantern costume -- it is meant as a shell for the paraplegic Lantern, but he comes off looking more like a Lantern baseball mascot than a superhero.

All of this contributes to Supertown's less than stellar rating; it is good, but I would not call it great. Guggenheim's implied criticism in the book that superheroes never clean up their messes (as the Society prepares, initially, to abandon a decimated Monument Point) is an old chestnut addressed before (and if anyone wouldn't be guilty of it, I'd think it would be the Golden Age heroes), but I like the action it spurs the Flash to, if not the impetus itself.

My hope for the next volume, Monument Point, is an Ex Machina-type political story; to see the Justice Society set themselves up as a real society, with a town of their own, sounds like a fitting closing arc to me.

[Contains original covers. Printed on glossy paper]

Later this week, guest poster Zach King Hulks out with a new review. Don't miss it!

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Review: Justice Society: Axis of Evil trade paperback (DC Comics)

I didn't like the story choice to split up the Justice Society into two titles, nor was I enthusiastic about either creative team set to take over the books. Justice Society of America: Axis of Evil, however, is fantastic, far exceeding my expectations. It's a Mr. Terrific story, mainly, with less emphasis on the entire team, but this is eminently forgivable since it turns out to be writer Bill Willingham's both first and only solo outing on the book. Whether read as a Mr. Terrific miniseries or a Justice Society special, Axis of Evil is exciting and moving, a sleeper hit -- the best kind.

[Contains spoilers]

The rather run-of-the-mill Nazi-themed villains the Fourth Reich attack the Justice Society, the Justice Society beats them back -- and suddenly, Willingham sends us twenty years into the future, where superheroes live in concentration camps and Mr. Terrific spies for the resistance. The difference between the two eras is striking -- Willingham's villain team in the present are laughable caricatures (like "Doctor Murder"), whereas Willingham and artist Jesus Marino achieve a real atmosphere of horror in placing DC Comics's heroes essentially against the background of the Holocaust.

Willingham's success in this book is all in the details. The five issues of the "Fatherland" storyline give Willingham a lot of space to flesh out Terrific, his Nazi guard Karla Lander, the other captured heroes (many from outside the Justice Society), and this new Reich-controlled world. In a terrible situation, the de-powered heroes are even more heroic -- Batman, and then Blue Beetle both sacrifice their lives without hesitation for the benefit of small gains; in a twisted splash page, true to the characters, Willingham has Batman and the Joker die side-by-side.

The Nazi brutality is shocking -- as when fuhrer "Kid" Karnevil swiftly shoots Karla -- and the compassion Willingham has the characters show all the more touching -- as when afterward Terrific and Obsidian discuss living with the terrible memories of that future, or when Terrific goes to visit young Karla in the present.

Aside from Obsidian's role in the end, "Fatherland" is mostly Mr. Terrific's story. The fantastic cameo-filled escape sequence name-checks scores of DC heroes, but those who get the most screen time include Superman and Batman -- Dr. Mid-Nite, Terrific's best friend, barely even gets a nod in the future. I didn't mind this so much, perhaps because this is the end of Willingham's Justice Society stint -- no danger that the other heroes will always be behind the scenes, just a spotlight on Terrific this time, taking his place in the DC Universe pantheon.

And I like Terrific as a character, liked him in Checkmate (wish we might've seen some Checkmate characters), liked his nobility here with Karla and with Obsidian and in the beating he has to appear to take from Blue Beetle. Though I've balked at Green Lantern and Flash stealing the spotlight from Superman in DC's crossover events, I loved watching Mr. Terrific, essentially, save the entire universe and every other DC hero -- it's not all that often that Terrific gets the spotlight, and I found all of this entirely appropriate for the Justice Society title.

Axis of Evil leads off with a two-part tale of the Justice Society against Legion of Super-Heroes villain Mordru. That story is rather dull, emphasizing the likable new Dr. Fate but not offering much intrigue or suspense. It was, with apologies to Willingham (whose Fables I adore), about what I expected -- even with Shadowpact, Willingham sometimes has a tendency to over-narrate, pit the heroes against repetitive parallel dangers, and drown out the story with too much supernatural verbiage. I found the bland gang of villains in Willingham's previous Justice Society: The Bad Seed too much like his bland gang of villains in Robin: Days of Fire and Madness, and I thought that's where we were headed at the beginning of "Fatherland." Be patient, however, because Willingham's expansive story of the dystopian Fourth Reich future is worth the wait.

Justice Society: Axis of Evil's tale of alternate realities, time travel, and DC heroes coming back from the brink contains shades of JSA: Stealing Thunder and JLA: Rock of Ages, two of my favorite volumes from those two series. I would have, without question, read another Justice Society book by Bill Willingham, and I'm unexpectedly sorry to see him go so soon. This makes Axis of Evil all the more notable of a volume; this is a book I can see myself picking up again for a great go-to, self-contained Justice Society story.

[Contains full covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

We'll follow the Justice Society now over into their Justice League crossover with Dark Things, coming up next.

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Review: Justice Society: The Bad Seed trade paperback (DC Comics)

It's been a little more than a year since the last time I read Justice Society, which is surprising given that in its JSA incarnation, at least, this was one of my favorite titles (JSA: Stealing Thunder remains a classic -- and hey, DC, how about a JSA by Geoff Johns omnibus?). But the book's quality lessened in my opinion in Johns's switch from JSA to Justice Society, and my experience with writers Matt Sturges and Bill Willingham's work (Fables notwithstanding) and tepid early reviews of their run on this book made me slow to pick up this newest volume.

[Contains spoilers]

I finally read Justice Society of America: The Bad Seed in the lead-up to the Justice League/Justice Society crossover The Dark Things, and what I found is that I liked Bad Seed better than I thought I would. That Justice Society splits into two titles at the end of this story still seems like one Justice Society title more than DC Comics needs, but the reason for the split actually makes a lot of sense. Willingham and Sturges manage to create warring factions with the Justice Society without making any of the team members caricatures of themselves. I felt Willingham's writerly persona came through perhaps a bit too much, but otherwise Bad Seed is surprisingly compelling.

Where Bad Seed works is in the conspiratorial attack against the Justice Society. The team is targeted by mysterious villains far earlier in the book than they realize, and the true intentions of the bad guys kept me guessing throughout. Mid-way through the book, there's a great sense of locked-room paranoia as the team interrogates one another to find the traitor among them (the tone is good, even if the traitor is obvious). Power Girl, Flash Jay Garrick, Jesse Quick, and others at moments do seem frightened, as if panicked, and this is a great shift for a team that starts the book almost overly self-assured.

Though there are plenty of ways in which the Justice Society fractures in this book, Willingham and Sturges represent the two sides most directly in the conflict between Wildcat and Magog. Magog is a relatively new (and therefore somewhat outcast) militaristic Society member, and Wildcat is the tough-as-nails, often gruff, former-heavyweight senior member -- in short, they're a lot alike. One could argue that Magog is a 1990s comics caricature, and the writers present Wildcat as overzealous in his attacking Magog, but it worked for me; they are enough the same as to convincingly show the Society turning against itself, whereas I didn't think the writers could convince me.

Especially when JSA became Justice Society, Geoff Johns injected a certain Normal Rockwell ethos to the stories; we saw the team help out at a fire station, for instance, and go with Stargirl to the dentist. This is well and good and different from other DC Universe titles, but it seems to stretch suspension of disbelief that an "actual" superhero team could get away with it for long. In that way, the Justice Society's split in this book feels rather natural; Magog expresses the audiences own misgivings about the direction of the Justice Society, and I do appreciate the way this plot puts focus on the title's incongruity.

The writers also consistently remembered that Power Girl is the Justice Society's chairwoman and presented her as in charge, which is a plus; as well, I liked their use of the new Dr. Fate (maybe hearkening to both writers' considerable work writing supernatural characters), and their portrayal of him as an inexperienced but ultra-powerful sorcerer learning the ropes.

Bad Seed's let-down, perhaps, is the villains themselves. The Justice Society fights a random assortment of villains from the silly, like Willingham's Tape Worm, to the powerful Eclipso whom the writers unfortunately also write as silly and cowardly. This "villain blitz" plot seemed cribbed whole cloth from a similar story Willingham wrote in Robin: Days of Fire and Madness, using many of the same villains, and one character even identifies Tape Worm as the villain "who fought Robin." Anyone who read Willingham's Shadowpact: The Pentacle Plot will recognize the team's traitor right away, and Kid Karnevil plus Tape Worm is a bit too much.

I like when writers use reoccurring characters amongst their work -- Greg Rucka does it to good effect between his Huntress, 52, and Question stories -- but Willingham's here seems gratuitous. There's so many more Justice Society-specific villains that this team can fight than Tape Worm, and Kid Karnevil is a rather incongruous choice; as compared to Rucka, Willingham does not seem to be telling large-canvas stories so much as plugging (or reusing) his earlier work, and the instances were so glaring as to take me out of the story.

That aside, however, I liked Justice Society: The Bad Seed. It has not the scope of Geoff Johns's JSA: Stealing Thunder, but there's nothing specifically embarrassing, for instance, to be found in this book; artist Jesus Merino remains consistent throughout, with some heavier inks toward the end that makes his work look like Howard Chaykin's (if you like that kind of thing). It might be a while before I pick up this title's spin-off book, JSA: All-Stars, as I'm not a big fan of Freddie Williams's art, but I'm in for Justice Society: Axis of Evil -- in part again because of Justice League: The Dark Things, but I'm looking forward to it more than I thought I would.

[Contains full covers]

What do you think of the new direction for Justice Society? Like it or hate it? Going to keep reading?

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Review: JSA vs. Kobra trade paperback (DC Comics)

There's a number of ways in which JSA vs. Kobra marks a return. It is the return of artist Don Kramer to the JSA characters that he drew under writer Geoff Johns. The art gives the miniseries an authenticity that in my opinion the current "split" Justice Society lacks, suggesting the return of the original (JSA-era) Justice Society as well. And it's also the return of Eric Trautmann to the Checkmate characters, tying up some loose ends and addressing some long-simmering issues. All in all, despite some rough patches, that adds up for to me to a book worthy of taking a look.

[Contains spoilers]

Eric Trautmann's work on Checkmate and The Shield has given him a reputation, to me at least, of being a writer whose stories contain political or global undertones. In JSA vs. Kobra, Trautmann examines the underpinnings of terrorism; as he writes through Mr. Terrific in the end, "Suicide bombings, terror weapons, assassinations -- it's all about kicking down the underpinnings of society." Far from costumed goons robbing a bank in Gotham City, Trautmann posits this new iteration of Kobra as the DC Universe's ultimate terrorist cell -- seemingly regular people who might suddenly cause destruction without warning. Worst of all is the Kobra members unwavering faith to their cause, unmatched by the generally agnostic DC heroes and specifically the traditionally atheist Mr. Terrific.

Trautmann wisely builds upon the issues of faith that Terrific faced in JSA: Lost and elsewhere, enhancing just how much this story feels like an original JSA tale. While Terrific and Power Girl take up most of the action, there's scenes for Sand, Jakeem Thunder, and Stargirl, among others. I'm hopeful for good things from Marc Guggenheim's forthcoming Justice Society run, but it seems Eric Trautmann could do a fair job on the title, too.

Mr. Terrific and Kobra Jason Burr are obviously pitted here as foils. Both are brilliant; both came to their current lives from the brink of death; and both are chess-players, planning their moves well in advance -- only Burr represents the faithful, and Mr. Terrific represents the faithless. Burr succeeds through most of the story due to his single-minded devotion to his cause, while Terrific flounders for some time because he can't trust his friends. Burr, as a matter of fact, spends much of the miniseries killing off those who followed his brother's Kobra cult; indeed it's Burr's luxury that the only person he has to have faith in is himself. While Trautmann has a tendency to over-narrate here, letting Burr or Terrific describe the action on almost every page, certainly he believably sets up the two as life-long DC Universe nemeses.

At one point in the story, Terrific prevents the hero Damage from severely beating a suspect, reaffirming "that's not how we do things." While no less true, this sentiment that "heroes don't torture" becomes somewhat old hat at this point, reaffirmed as it's been any number of places including Justice League: Cry for Justice. Whereas Cry ends on a somewhat uncertain note as to whether torture or murder might sometimes be justified, Trautmann here is nicely unequivocal, in that Terrific decides that trust in his friends, reason, and love will guide him against Kobra. If not the most complicated conclusion, it is well in-character for Mr. Terrific and the JSA.

JSA vs. Kobra feels almost pleasantly inevitable, like the intended last chapter of both JSA and Checkmate, in that for a long time Mr. Terrific served as a member of both organizations; some tension regarding this was bound to arise. Indeed, in that the arc of the Checkmate series was always Checkmate's growing acceptance by the superhero community (from Shadowpact to the Outsiders and Nightwing, and finally to DC's Big Three), this final equalizing -- Mr. Terrific learning which side to trust when -- seems perfectly natural. Further, JSA vs. Kobra hinges squarely on Final Crisis: Resist (from the Final Crisis Companion), making the story all the more relevant; for fans, this is really the next volume of the Checkmate series.

Inasmuch as I've sometimes decried DC Comics's miniseries-with-a-purpose, feeling they lead too much into something else without meaning something on their own, JSA vs. Kobra might be too far the other way. This is seemingly the concluding Checkmate story, and all I want is more -- some indication that the Checkmate characters will appear elsewhere, or that Kobra will continue to be a threat, that we'll learn more about Jason Burr -- something other than "this is it." If you have a chance at conventions, please do ask -- JSA vs. Kobra is a spy thriller of the type that seems rare these days at DC, and I'd be eager to see more of the same.

[Contains full covers]

Coming up ... Collected Editions's look at the new Batgirl!

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Review: 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen trade paperback (DC Comics)

After our Top Ten DC Trades with Female Protagonists list the other day, a Collected Editions reader wondered why, if I liked Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman and Checkmate runs so much, why I hadn't reviewed 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen, which includes elements from both of those series.

The answer is that the Four Horsemen miniseries seemed to me like the worst kind of crossover bait. I had a hard time seeing the necessity of a miniseries involving the Four Horsemen, essentially one-shot villains vanquished at the end of 52, except for the money DC Comics might make on a book with 52 Aftermath in the title. Black Adam: The Dark Ages filled in, at least, some of the gaps between Black Adam and Felix Faust's final appearances in 52 and their next appearances elsewhere; Four Horsemen reminded me of those Star Wars novels that tell a giant story about an insignificant background character, ultimately signifying nothing.

[Contains spoilers]

Having now read the book, I'm still not entirely convinced this is a book that needed to take shelf space away from something else. That said, there are a number (even a surprisingly great number) of in-roads through which a reader could find some value in grabbing a copy of this book on the cheap, not the least of them is dark, sketchy artwork by Pat Olliffe, which I had felt cast something of a pall over the final collection of the more-hopeful All-New Atom series, but that I found better-suited and enjoyed much more in this volume.

The first of Four Horsemen's hooks is that, perhaps purposefully, whereas Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were absent when 52 pit all the DC Universe's heroes against the Horsemen, this time it's DC's Big Three who fight the Apokolyptian villains. Writer Keith Giffen offers an effective "trinity" story that ends with a nice, unusually quiet moment for the heroes. Giffen's take on the three heroes' relationship reminds me of the epilogue of Mark Waid's Kingdom Come, especially in the dialogue between Superman and Batman -- they banter, they put each other down, they finish each others' sentences, very much like brothers who compete but still care about one another.

If anything, I felt Giffen's characterization of the heroes together was a bit too easy. Batman works with the other heroes, but otherwise he's unnecessarily a grump, insulting a few too many times Checkmate operative Snapper Carr; the first time Batman tells Snapper to "shut up" is humorous, but the twelfth time is a drag. Giffen has one of the Horsemen give Superman a magic-infected bite early on in the series, and this too-conveniently de-powers Superman so as to not overwhelm the other heroes. And while I very much enjoyed Wonder Woman's interactions with the character Veronica Cale from Rucka's run, Wonder Woman is separate from Superman and Batman for most of the story, making this not a true "trinity" story until almost to the end.

That said, it is a relief to read a "trinity" story that doesn't beat the reader over the head with the characters' similarities and differences, and rather is just a superhero case that happens to involve these three. To an extent, Big Three team-ups now seem to be considered "events" in the DC Universe, whereas I miss when the Super Friends working together was just natural.

The book's second hook is the aforementioned Checkmate agent Snapper Carr, a concept given some legitimacy by the character's subsequent appearance in Rucka and Eric Trautmann's Final Crisis: Resist. Snapper's history is a bit unclear in current continuity, but he's a fascinating character especially teamed with DC's Big Three -- this is a sidekick, mind you, who betrayed the Justice League. It's as if Robin were to sell out Batman to Two-Face -- that story isn't specifically referenced in Four Horsemen, but it underlies in interesting ways, especially in Batman's dealings with Snapper. Giffen also suggests that Snapper knows every secret identity of every DC superhero, which is certainly controversial for a Checkmate agent. If you enjoyed Checkmate as I did and noted Snapper's appearance in Resist, here's what started that off.

Finally, it turns out Four Horsemen is, above all else, a lead-in to Keith Giffen's new Doom Patrol series. Halfway through the book, nearly apropos of nothing, the core members of the Doom Patrol show up on Cale's Oolong Island to help Cale and her fellow mad scientists defeat the rampaging Four Horsemen. I don't imagine there's much here that can't be picked up from the first issues of Giffen's Doom Patrol, but the scenes of arguments between Doom Patrol chief Niles Caulder and Veronica Cale are also very strong, and it seems some of Horsemen's final loose threads will be tied up in that series. As such, if you're a Doom Patrol completist, you might start here; and, I liked seeing just the core members of the Doom Patrol in action again in this story without all the extra members or continuity trappings, much in the same way Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman appear here in fairly iconic form.

What lacks the most in Four Horsemen is, tellingly, the Horsemen themselves -- War, Pestilence and the rest aren't aren't any more well-defined than the sum of their names, and their mission beyond destruction is never entirely clear; at times I wasn't even sure which Horseman was which. Frankly I don't think any Four Horsemen story can ever really be about the Horsemen so much as about the heroes fighting them. To that end, this miniseries accomplishes some nice character points among DC's Big Three and the rest, and maybe I'll find some additional relevance in it once I get to Giffen's Doom Patrol; for now, fair stuff, but as I suspected not a "must read."

[Contains full covers by Ethan Van Skiver (though strangely half-covered by chapter numbers)]

Still, every book is someone's favorite, so if Four Horsemen spoke to you, please chime in and tell us why.

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One more DC Universe Sandman appearance - JSA

In light of the DC Comics announcement that Neil Gaiman's Sandman character Death would appear in Action Comics during Paul Cornell's upcoming run, there's been a bunch of great articles about other Death and Sandman-character appearances in the DC Universe - including Once Upon a Geek, and Chris's Invincible Super-Blog, to name a few.

The first one that came to my mind, however, are the Sandman-character appearances in Geoff Johns' first JSA run. Comics Alliance also has a nice run-down, but mentions JSA only briefly and not in as much detail as the appearances by the Sandman Daniel in JLA -- but I found at least twice that Daniel physically appears in JSA.

Remember that in Infinity Inc. #49-51 (when, oh when, will this series be collected?), Hector Hall (Silver Scarab, son of the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman, and later the JSA's Doctor Fate) returned from the dead supposedly as the new Sandman. Gaiman's Sandman revealed Hall's position to be false, but yet the son of Hall and his wife Lyta, named Daniel, was destined to become the Sandman after Gaiman's Morpheus.

Hall dies, but is later resurrected in JSA: Justice Be Done; he's reunited with Lyta in JSA: Black Reign.

The Sandman backstory is ever-present (in continuity, even) throughout Hector and Lyta's appearances in JSA, but Johns also throws in a specific cameo or two.




JSA: Lost, where the Sandman Daniel warns Per Degaton
from harming his parents.



JSA member Sanderson "Sand" Hawkins, now the Sandman, dons Hector Hall's Sandman guise also in JSA: Lost.



Hawkins as Hector's Sandman, with Sandman characters Brute and Glob, from JSA: Lost.



JSA artist Keith Champagne writes the story that puts Hector and Lyta to rest in JSA: Mixed Signals. See the shadowy Sandman Daniel saving Hector and Lyta's lives by drawing them into his dream world.
There you have it -- still more precedent for Sandman characters in the DC Universe!

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Review: JSA Presents: Stars and STRIPE Vol. 2 trade paperback (DC Comics)

JSA Presents: Stars and STRIPE is an odd egg, a two-volume collection of the entire run of a good-but-not-critically acclaimed Justice Society lead-in series. Of course we know it's not the series' JSA ties that warranted its collection, nor even its popular appeal (else we'd have a JSA Presents: Hourman collection by now); rather this series ought be called The Geoff Johns Collection: Stars and STRIPE, and therefore the real intention of the collection might be more pronounced.

Regardless, however, of whether you come to this series for the story itself or the role it had in shaping DC Comic's new chief creative officer, Stars and STRIPE is an enjoyable read, hitting the mark of "teen comics" in a way Teen Titans isn't and Supergirl has struggled to, and shows the first hints of thematic depth that we'd later recognize would make a comic "Geoff Johnsian."

Stars and STRIPE has always been about nontraditional legacies; obviously the step-parent/step-daughter relationship between former Stripsey Pat Dugan and new Star-Spangled Kid Courtney Whitmore is one. Most interesting in this second volume, however, is not just the familial relationship, but also that Dugan bucks superhero tradition by formally bestowing the mantle of Star-Spangled Kid on his step-daughter rather than, specifically, his own son Michael who's asking for the legacy. Johns underlines the unusualness of this in the book's first chapter, where the original Star-Spangled Kid Sylvester Pemberton refuses the "Starman" name in favor of Ted Knight giving it to his son Jack.

In both cases, we know the mentor's choice pays off, but I wished Johns had more time with this series to explore the implications of Dugan's choice, specifically regarding the secret reasons Michael has for wanting to be the Star-Spangled Kid. In what's mostly a light-hearted book, the reader cheers for Courtney becoming "official," but at the same time Dugan brushing off his son seems unexpectedly cruel. Perhaps to its benefit, this book about second chances and starting over never had a chance to examine the consequences of past mistakes, but there's an intriguing glance here as to where this title might have gone next.

It's difficult, in a way, to separate Stars and STRIPE from Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory miniseries that came a few years afterward. In the last volume, the heroes re-vanquished the Nebula Man, one of the Soldiers most noted foes; here, former Soldier Shining Knight returns, his cry for help having brought Pat Dugan to Blue Valley in the first place. Johns sets up plotlines involving new iterations of Solders Crimson Avenger and Spider, though those stories end prematurely; Johns would later show the Crimson Avenger in JSA, but both Spider and Shining Knight have subsequently been replaced by Morrison's versions. This volume of Stars and STRIPE is appealing in that it offers a more traditional sequel to the Golden Age Justice League/Seven Soldiers stories, but it's not ultimately take that became most firmly entrenched in current DC Comics continuity.

From the art perspective, it's also notable here that when artist Lee Moder takes a break, Scott Kolins comes on; Kolins would later draw part of the Flash run that would make Johns a household name. With inks by Dan Davis, Kolins' characters are a bit darker and more "squareish" than with Doug Hazelwood on Flash (or, later, Kolins inking his own work), and I think this volume bears examining as a sample of Kolins' work in transition, and not just Johns'.

The second volume of Stars and STRIPE moves past some of the villain-of-the-week and high school antics of the first volume to a prolonged-but-exciting battle between the heroes and the Dragon King, with detailed stops along the way for Seven Soldiers history; in this way, I found it very entertaining. I might not have kept reading this book in monthly issues (in fact, I didn't) because the tone's still a little light for me, but in comparison to a book like Teen Titans that's felt like "no fun" lately, I think Stars and STRIPE hits the right balance.

[Contains full covers, sketchbook by Lee Moder (including revealing who some of the villains in the book were originally intended to be)]

More reviews on their way ... stay tuned!

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Review: Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Unfortunately I was disappointed in Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis. While the concluding chapter of writer Geoff Johns' run on Justice Society (collected in the middle of this volume) represents well what made this series unique, the actual titular story spends too much time setting up future comics to satisfy. I adore that Johns teams with comics legend Jerry Ordway for this Captain Marvel-centered tale, but frankly Black Adam and Isis reads more like issues of Power of Shazam than Justice Society.

[Contains spoilers for Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis]

I'm not the first to criticize Geoff Johns for writing stories that amount, ultimately, just to lead-ins to other stories. Certainly this criticism has been leveled at Justice League: The Lightning Saga and Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, each of which lead to Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds -- but I felt these at least were solid stories on their own. The three-part "Black Adam and Isis" story collected here leaves open so many questions, surely to be answered in another comics, as to be almost completely unreadable on its own. From the mysterious stranger on the subway platform, to the Rock of Finality and hints of a greater villain, to the Wizard Shazam's strange anger at the end, Black Adam asks more and more, but provides no answers. This close to the end of Geoff Johns' run on Justice Society, I understand and appreciate his wanting to revisit Black Adam, but not at the cost of making the Justice Society secondary characters in their own series.

Still, Johns continues to make Black Adam a compelling character. In Black Adam: The Dark Age, the reader saw Adam try and fail to resurrect his lost love Isis; now, finally sucessful, Adam must balance his love for Isis with his increasing discomfort in Isis's new, violent ways. Adam once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, and Johns convincingly demonstrates Adam's uncertainty. In his final issues, Johns parallels Adam and Isis's failed relationship with the equally star-crossed Stargirl and Captain Marvel; theirs was an interesting sub-plot early in Justice Society's predecessor, JSA, and I enjoyed that Marvel finally revealed to the Justice Society his secret identity, even if it didn't lead to rejoining the team.

Would that the entire book were more like "Black Adam Ruined My Birthday," Johns' closing Justice Society story. Justice Society, even more than JSA, has been as much about superheroics as about the quiet moments that happen in between world-conquering villains. I mentioned before the Norman Rockwell-esque Justice Society charity event, and we've also seen them sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, and here, celebrate Stargirl's birthday and take a trip to the dentist. There's few superheroes, and especially superhero teams, that can pull off such unironic Americana, and Johns (with artist Dale Eaglesham) deserves considerable credit for it. I don't imagine that we'll see a title with as much hopefulness any time soon.

We all know Johns holds a special place for Stargirl Courtney Whitmore, but indeed Courtney is Johns' legacy in the Justice Society. Over numerous storylines since JSA began in 1999, the character has shown natural growth from a flip teenager to a model for the new young Society members to follow. Fans of this modern incarnation of the Justice Society couldn't imagine the team without Stargirl -- it's simultaneously hard to believe and no suprise that the character is at this point more than ten years old -- and "Black Adam Ruined My Birthday" works because the characters acknowledging Stargirl as a "core" member of the Justice Society feels fitting both within the story and from the readers' perspective as well.

Jerry Ordway both contributes to Johns' revisiting the pages of Ordway's Power of Shazam, and takes over writing and drawing chores in two transitional issues before the new Justice Society team arrives. No doubt it's as much a thrill to see Ordway drawing the Captain Marvel characters again as it is to see him drawing Infinity Inc. in this two-parter, but the story decidedly suffers from repetitious dialogue and silly misunderstandings between the characters. I enjoyed seeing the Justice Society interact with the new Crispus Allen Spectre, but the confusing motivations and overblown speech of the story's villain made the end feel like every bit the (well-illustrated) fill-in it was.

Black Adam and Isis begins and ends with hints of fractures with the Justice Society team. As the Justice Society often appears in idealized situations, it's easy to think of them as a team without problems; on one hand, I appreciate a team that doesn't have bickering infighting like the Teen Titans, but on the other hand, likely that's not "realistic" from a story perspective. In the middle of this book, the Justice Society has twenty members, and certainly it feels like a lot, but I'm not convinced that the solution is to have a both a "gentle" and "extreme" Justice Society as Hawkman suggests in the beginning, a la the Justice League's former Extreme Justice.

I judge, I know, without having read the stories to follow, but as Geoff Johns departs, I may find myself setting this title aside as well. It's hard to believe that more than ten years ago, JSA began in the spirit of Grant Morrison's JLA, written by James Robinson part-way through his acclaimed run on Starman, and Geoff Johns was a relative unknown. Morrison's still around, as is Robinson, though much is different about the landscape of the DC Universe. I'm thankful for the last ten years that cemented the Justice Society's place in the DC Universe, but as when Greg Rucka left Gotham Central, possibly DC should have let Justice Society end rather than fade off poorly like so many other series have when their leading writers leave (Birds of Prey and Teen Titans immediately come to mind); here's hoping the next writers can follow the example that Johns set.

[Contains full and variant covers]

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Review: Black Adam: The Dark Age trade paperback (DC Comics)

It will be hard to convince me that anyone can write Black Adam quite like Geoff Johns writes Black Adam, but Peter Tomasi comes close in Black Adam: The Dark Age. On display here is both Adam's moral ambiguity and the startling violence that follows, even unwittingly, in his wake. Tomasi asks at least some of the hard questions, and while I'm not sure he provides suitable answers, The Dark Age is an enjoyable read all around.

Black Adam is either the Charlie Brown of the DC Universe set -- nothing he does ever works out quite the way he intended it -- or the Rodney Dangerfield, cursed to get no respect. Try as he might have to live a peaceful life as the demi-dictatorial ruler of Kahndaq, the villains of the DCU teamed together and murdered Adam's wife Isis; Adam's "reasonable" genocidal response brought down on him the heroes of the DCU as if he were the villain. Now all Adam wants to do is resurrect Isis, except he's being attacked by a government agency, hunted by the JSA and the JLA, and sent all around the world on a mysterious mission by the wizard Faust -- what's a Black Adam to do?

In this way, Tomasi presents Black Adam's troubles as never his fault, and instead the consequences of a man who's always right doing what has to be done. Adam is a study in contradictions; he is just as quick to save the life of an innocent doctor who herself saved Adam, as he is to doom an entire village when he steals the amulet that makes them fertile. Adam has a distinct moral code that rewards loyalty but values himself over all, and his regrets are only for what he's lost, not what he's done. It's fun to read about Black Adam because of the struggle within him to do good -- and "good" he sometimes does, though the reader can't ever be sure when Adam will decide to do bad instead.

A defining aspect of the Black Adam story so far has been his friendship with Albert Rothstein, the hero known as Atom Smasher. Once, as Nuklon, Rothstein's teammates considered him a "pollyana," so optimistic was the hero -- but a villain murdering his mother, and then his friendship with Black Adam, changed that.

Tomasi bookends The Dark Age with Adam's conversations with Hawkman and Atom Smasher -- two heroes not afraid to shed blood, but Hawkman wants Adam to turn himself in, while Atom Smasher councils Black Adam to hide. Adam heeds neither's advice, but the fact that he fights with Hawkman but leaves Atom Smasher in peace speaks volumes of Adam's character. The difficulty with calling Adam a villain is that ultimately, he's a reasonable man -- his villany isn't so easily classified in bank robbery or world domination schemes. His reluctance to throw the first punch, when "heroes" like Hawkman have no such reservations, threaten to redefine our concepts of heroes and villains.

Along with artist Doug Mahnke, Tomasi offers six issues that leave no question why we find Black Adam so fascinating. Mahnke demonstrated his talent for drawing the absurd in Major Bummer, but here as in Batman his close-up characters, all with serious, piercing eyes, set the right tone for the book's moral questions. Blood and gore flow freely here, but all in the service of Adam's struggle.

Ultimately Tomasi leaves most of the reflection to those around Adam and not Adam himself. I might've liked an answer, for instance, to Atom Smasher demanding to know why Adam destroyed the rival country Bialya, for which there is a good reason, but Tomasi lets the moment pass. Still, there's no question that Tomasi understands the parameter's of Adam's difficulties, and presents, if not answers, them well in this book.

As a side note -- I picked up Black Adam: The Dark Age some time ago and waited to read it until I had Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis in hand. Looking around when I wrote this review, however, I come to find that The Dark Age is out of print, and sells for upwards of fifty dollars on some sites! This isn't a story terribly tied to continuity, and so my guess is that it's the rarity of the book, more than the book itself, that makes it so valuable. Still, if you want this book, I recommend you check online or the shelves of your local comic book store -- it's possible you may still find it for regular price, but probably not for long!

[Contains full covers]

On now, as I mentioned, to Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis. Stick around!

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Review: Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Vol. 3 hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

The third volume of Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come ends an interesting experiment in trade paperback comics.

As much as has been beneficial about the rise of trade paperback collections, it's also at times been an excuse for writers to pad out shorter storylines to a neat six-issues in order to fill a trade, with done-in-one-trade stories that don't much forward the title's status quo (see recent volumes of Teen Titans). Thy Kingdom Come instead introduces a seemingly new kind of long-form superhero comics, a storyline with a distinct beginning and end, but with a number of digressions along the way and unrelated storylines which weave in and out of the main thread. At times this is a mini-series, at times these are single issues of Justice Society -- it's a novel, it's a comic, it's a collage. I have a sense that what writer Geoff Johns attempts here is wholly new, at least in terms of DC Comics superhero collections.

In a fashion, we could argue, Johns attempts the same thing with Green Lantern, as Grant Morrison does with his run on Batman. The difference is that both Green Lantern/Blackest Night and Batman RIP remain individual storylines among separate-but-connected storylines, whereas Thy Kingdom Come is just one storyline at the near unheard-of size of twelve-plus issues. If anything, perhaps only Johns and James Robinson's open-ended Superman: New Krypton story comes close; it remains to be seen how long this storyline will be or to what extent DC Comics will collect it under the "New Krypton" bannerhead, but that too may produce connected multiple volumes during its year-or-longer run.

This is important, I think, because as a trend it would cause a certain equilibrium to enter the trade paperback reading experience. No longer would trade paperbacks be collections of self-contained storylines on one hand, or a collected series of done-in-one issues on the other. Instead this kind of long-form storytelling combines the best aspect of monthly comic book collecting (a deepening story that builds over time) with the more sustained reading experience one gets from a trade paperback. At the outset I felt some frustration that Thy Kingdom Come would take three volumes to tell, but in the end I marveled at how each issue and volume stood on its own, but combined to create a massive and involved storyline.

Writer and artist Alex Ross talks at the end of Thy Kingdom Come about how the story is not as much a sequel to Ross and Mark Waid's original King dom Come as it is an homage and a "checking back in" with the Kingdom Come characters. I much prefer thinking about it this way, as the second volume of this series all but drops any ties to Kingdom Come short of the presence of that series's Superman. The third volume returns to the subject; though ultimately Thy Kingdom Come might've been told without Kingdom Come at all, Ross and Johns flesh out a couple of the original's scenes, and integrate enough of the new and old in the end that one might almost believe Thy Kingdome Come really fits between the pages of the original. I for one wouldn't have minded the Kingdom Come Superman sticking around a while longer, though likely that would cause more confusion for new readers than it would be worth.

At the center of Thy Kingdom Come are Gog and Magog, and I found the latter as fascinating as the former ridiculous. No reader very well believed Gog would turn out to be the benevolent god he seemed, but his downfall left me shrugging; I was sure that the "gifts" he provided had some ulterior motive (restoring Dr. Mid-Nite's sight at the cost of his powers; sending Power Girl to her home universe, except everyone tried to kill her), but it turns out instead that Gog's just a very bad gift-giver. Gog turns out to be in the end just what he says he was, a god of the Third World buried underground, and ultimately how the Justice Society members fought over Gog's presence was far more interesting than Gog himself.

The new Magog, however, provides one of the most chilling chapters of Thy Kingdom Come. Writer Peter Tomasi steps in for a surprisingly bloody chapter where Magog, former Lance Corporal David Reid, seeks out his captured former unit and takes gory revenge on their captors. The chapter, which comes right in the middle of this volume of Thy Kingdom Come and at a time when much of the Justice Society is at odds with one another, reveals Magog quite nearly as a villain, certainly someone Superman would sooner put in jail than team-up with. It posits Magog as nearly the Black Adam of the new Justice Society (though he's back, too), a time-bomb waiting to go off, and it's a harrowing example of the powerful digressions Thy Kingdom Come contains. Based on this, I'm not running to read a new Magog series, but I'll be curious to see how it goes over.

Another of Thy Kingdom Come's digressions is Power Girl's trip to Earth-2, supposedly her long-lost home until that world's own Power Girl shows up (see "Gog-the-really-bad-gift-giver"). Here, Geoff Johns turns DC Comics's revamped Multiverse concept on it's head; Power Girl, we learned in Infinite Crisis, is the last survivor of the Earth-2 that was destroyed in Crisis on Infinite Earths, though seemingly at the end of 52 Earth-2 returned. Except, what we come to understand is that the "new" Earth-2 isn't the same planet as the old Earth-2, but rather a recreated Earth-2 with its own Power Girl. Maybe it's better that Power Girl can now see "our" Earth as her home, but it seems Johns causes no end of confusion here -- Power Girl is the last survivor of Earth-2 "but not that Earth-2, the other one." The Earth-2 sequences in this book (with art by Jerry Ordway) are much fun, but I'm stymied as to the story's ultimate purpose.

Geoff Johns reunites us for a while with the Kingdom Come Superman in Thy Kingdom Come, in a powerful story that shows the depth of the Justice Society characters even if it winds and rambles and doesn't tie all of its strings quite together. Ultimately Thy Kingdom Come strikes me as nearing what may be the next iteration of trade paperback comics, something that reads more like a series of novels than a collection of comic book issues; I'm curious if anyone else had the same reaction.

[Contains full covers, character bios and summary section, sketches and thoughts from Alex Ross.]

A bunch of new Superman reviews coming up!

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Review: Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Vol. 2 hardcover/trade paperback (DC Comics)

While writers Geoff Johns and Alex Ross, and artist Dale Eaglesham, have created an interesting, visually striking story in their second volume of Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, it's a seeming departure from the intended point of this series. While Thy Kingdome Come part two sees the culmination of Johns intent to make the former JSA into a real justice "society," the aspect of this meant to be a sequel to Kingdom Come fades away.

A fun pin-up that Eaglesham includes at the end of this book sports twenty-five Justice Society members, and even the first pages of the book involved Jakeem Thunder and Stargirl discussing how crowded the Justice Society brownstone has become. Indeed Johns has suceeded in making the Justice Society a real society of heroes (that "society" didn't mean the same thing back then as now not withstanding).

With so many characters, it's understandable that some of them fall by the wayside -- Thunder, Hourman, and Judomaster, to name a few, while the young Cyclone somehow suddenly manifests a monkey -- but each also has a distinct personality as evinced by Eaglesham's pin-up. One of my favorites without doubt is the new Amazing-Man, tied to a civil rights legacy; he shines in his success talking with a risen god as a man of faith, when Mr. Terrific fails to communicate using secular means.

Indeed, even as the plot of Thy Kingdom Come tends toward the scattered and predictable, what's striking here are the pages upon pages that Johns devotes to discussing the different faiths and philosophies of the characters. Justice Society has mildly dealt with the beliefs of Mr. Terrific and Dr. Mid-Nite before, but here the amount of dialogue was akin to Greg Rucka's Checkmate. There are full-blown action sequences here, but also a lot of talking and comparing among the heroes, and I welcomed it. In three volumes, Thy Kingdom Come is a decompressed story to be sure, but Johns uses the decompression to give a great amount of depth to the heroes.

Thy Kingdom Come didn't work for me in two places. First, Johns replaces the initial villain of the piece with a second villain half-way through, and it has the effect of making many of the events of volume one rather unnecessary. Second, the replacement villain has even fewer ties to the Kingdom Come Superman that appears here than the first one did; for a story that's supposed to be a sequel to Kingdom Come, it begins to seem that the only tie between one story and the next is Superman.

Frankly, the initial story was the more interesting to me. Volume two involves a resurrected god providing wish fulfillment that the reader just knows is going to go wrong. I enjoyed the Multiverse aspects of this, as the god sends Power Girl to a Jerry Ordway-drawn Earth-2 to meet that world's equivalent of Infinity Inc., but ultimately it seems Johns spends too long suspending a hammer over our heroes heads, pretending it won't drop when we all know it will.

Certainly in terms of depth and personality, it's no question why Justice Society of America remains one of the best books on the shelves. I'm just hoping part three of Thy Kingdom Come binds the pieces together better, making the story more than just a frentic superhero romp.

[Contains full covers, Dale Eaglesham Justice society pin-up, "What Came Before" pages, brief character bios.]

Collected Editions is back! We continue next time with Thy Kingdom Come volume three.

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Review: JSA Presents: Stars and STRIPE Volume One trade paperback (DC Comics)

Seeing Stargirl (nee the Star-Spangled Kid) and S.T.R.I.P.E. jumping out of the bold yellow title page of JSA Presents: Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., I was struck by how long this book has been in coming. Consider that when the first issue of this comic first hit the stands, Geoff Johns was a virtual comics unknown, Dan DiDio hadn't yet joined DC Editorial, and Hal Jordan was dead.

In his introduction to this volume, Johns waxes on the creation of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. much like Paul Levitz does with Huntress: Darknight Detective: with a bit of cringing, but also with great affection. Indeed while Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. has its fits and starts, there's also much to like here, and overall it offers a revealing cross-section of it's era's DC Universe.

With trademark Johnsian deftness, Geoff Johns sets up the Star-Spangled Kid's origins, her powers, and her motivations all in just the first few pages of this book. Courtney Whitmore is a regular teenager given powers by the belt of the original Star-Spangled Kid (it's an origin, considering it, that's remarkably similar to another great teen hero, the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle) who superheroes mainly to aggravate her stepfather, the original Stripsey. The kid's origins aside, Johns moves right in to her conflicts with any number of ever-present super-villains.

Decompressed, therefore, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. is not. Fans of stories done in one or two issues will find much to like here. And it's also clear that Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. was not written with a collection in mind; the chapters weave in and out -- and reference -- Courtney's adventures with the Justice Society and in the Johns-written Day of Vengeance crossover in ways that will likely confuse fans not familiar with this period in DC Universe history (I'm mildly surprised DC didn't include any explanatory text pages).

The stories vary in quality. Johns shines, of course, in the interaction between Courtney and her stepfather Pat Dugan, and ultimately it's their relationship that sells the series. Courtney's battles with some villains, like her opposite number Shiv or the original Star-Spangled Kid's foes Solomon Grundy and the Nebula Man, were riveting in their danger or their use of DC history. Others, like Courtney's fight with her color-power-driven art teacher, smacked of the kind of high school soap opera silliness that, I think, made me stop buying this book the first time around.

I was also surprised to find that the Young Justice appearance here were some of the worst chapters of the bunch, especially considering how powerfully Johns would write many of these characters years later in Teen Titans. For my tastes, Johns wrote the Young Justicers just too stereotypically -- Superboy lusting after everyone, Arrowette hating to get dirty -- for me to enjoy. It's also interesting to see Johns write the Marvel Family, and Captain Marvel, given Billy Batson's later relationship with Courtney in JSA.

Some of the detailed, Seven Soldiers history that Courtney becomes involved with happens in the next volume of Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., so I'll definitely be picking that up. I applaud DC for collecting this series, which is a good read overall -- now I'd like to see similar volumes for Chase, Damage ... what else?

[Contains full covers, introduction by Geoff Johns.]

More reviews, coming soon!

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Review: Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Volume One collected hardcover (DC Comics)

The only bad thing about Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Volume One is how long we have to wait, as they say, for the next exciting episode. Geoff Johns brings his usual level of excellence to Justice Society, making even the tiredest comic book cliches new again in a blast of costume-wearing superhero greatness, and if part one is this good, I can't imagine how rock solid part two will be.

The "Thy Kingdom Come" storyline that begins in the third chapter of this book stands as a sequel of sorts to the Johns-penned Infinite Crisis. Power Girl recalls the death of the Golden Age Superman Kal-L in that tale, tying his dying words to her new chairmanship of the Justice Society, just as a new Superman who strongly resembles Kal-L makes the scene. Other books have referred to Infinite Crisis, but the way the characters recall both Kal-L and Superboy-Prime make this a natural follow to that story.

Johns obviously tries to have his cake and eat it too here, having killed off the Golden Age Superman but still returning an "older" Superman to the Justice Society. I like the post-Infinite Crisis attempt to bring the DC Universe more in line with its history, putting a Superman into the Justice Society case in point, though I worry about the effects it has on the DC Universe overall. The whole point of chasing off the Golden Age Superman in the first place was so that new readers wouldn't wonder why there were all these Supermen running around; having an "older" Superman around, in my opinion, makes the younger Superman less special.

What I like so much about Johns's Justice Society is how unabashedly the book embraces superhero culture. The first chapter brings us the origins of the new Citizen Steel, as the other heroes assume Steel will become a hero even before he himself knows. Johns similarly ends the book with the origins of a number of other heroes--a new Amazing Man, another of Black Lightning's daughters, the great-grandson of Franklin Roosevelt--their stories coming one right after another in simple, understandable form, all of them only too happy to play a part in the Justice Society. This is the legacy of Infinite Crisis shown also in Brave and the Bold -- the DCU is filled now with interesting, easily understandable heroes who like one another and work toward the common good. We've been so long in the grim and gritty, this is a breath of fresh air.

There's a scene at the beginning of "Thy Kingdom Come" where the Justice Society serves pancakes at a fire station, straight out of Norman Rockwell, that by all rights shouldn't work. I'm hard-pressed to believe that the Avengers ever end up riding to fight a fire with a dalmation tagging along, but the Justice Society does -- and it's not nearly as corny-looking as it sounds. These are not simplistic heroes -- the moving second chapter has Damage taking the villain Zoom hostage -- but they're also not ones that Johns understands have to be "badass" to be cool; they're just cool on their own. It's all helped a lot by Dale Eaglesham's art, which I've always felt has a dark tinge even in the lighter scenes, giving this aged team a modern feel (and when's Eaglesham going to get to pencil a major DC crossover, I'd like to know!).

The main villain of Thy Kingdom Come doesn't even make the scene in this volume, but the characters -- from the junior Red Tornado, Cyclone, to the new Amazing Man and Wildcat, Damage, and the Kingdom Come Superman -- are just so interesting that the story is gripping nonetheless. Justice Society, frankly, more than Countdown, seems to me the real spine of the DC Universe -- that is, the series that sets the tone -- or should, at least as far as I'm concerned -- for all the rest of DC Comics' titles.

[Contains full covers, alternate covers, character biographies, "Previously" page.]

On now, at long last, to Superman: Last Son, and then a bunch of Superman stories from there.

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