Wednesday, September 12, 2018

I Had Issues! My Old Review of Justice League #1


A meager offering this week. Included mostly for the continuity of future (re)postings about the New 52. The funnier one are coming, promise. Originally published September 21, 2011. Edited lightly to correct grammar errors.

 I swear that the campaign to set up Jim Lee as the savior of DC comics is akin to the neocons' campaign to elevate Ronald Reagan to sainthood. I'm sure Lee's a nice guy, but he has to be complicit in this movement given his position in DC. Either way, nothing in recent memory shows his work to be worthy of enough attention to be the flagship title for this new launch.

I don't DISlike Lee's work in this issue, but I can't think of any real stand out images. He veers from overly rendered and too pin-upy to not quite finished. It's almost as if he's out of his element.

When I saw a couple of issues of Hush and skimmed through All Star Batman and Robin, I could see that even Jeph Loeb and Frank Miller were at least taking advantage of Lee's gift for splash. All Geoff Johns wants to do is share how funny he thinks it is when Batman and Green Lantern interact.

I can picture Jim Lee trying to draw while Johns keeps yelling over his shoulder, "Oh, my God, it's hilarious! Batman's so dark, and Green Lantern's so bright! Don't you see?!? It's like they're the ultimate cop duo! It's perfeeect!" Then Jim Lee makes some excuse about needing quiet while drawing boots.

This book, along with it's unimpressive storyline title "Justice League," makes me wonder if DC is trying to recreate the success with All Star Superman. Maybe this whole New 52 is just a way to dump the continuity and attention to detail and have creators throw what they want against the wall to see what sticks. They can't do it with the All Star line since Miller and Lee shattered any future expectations. If that's true, then DC has no appreciation for Morrison and his attention to detail while being able to weed through the 70 years of B.S. that everyone clings to. With this first issue, we can already see said B.S. smearing down the walls, and I've never been so underwhelmed at the prospect of Darkseid as the main villain of a series.

No comments: