"The Dark Things" part 5, guest starring the Justice Society of America, by James Robinson (w) and Mark Bagley (p). A crossover event.
Rating: Skip it.
I'm not a negative reviewer. I'm really not. I don't have enough money to buy comics I don't like, so everything I review (from my pull list) is stuff that, by definition, I enjoy. I don't buy a lot of DC books, because my favorite DC characters (Superman, Batman) have too many books for me to follow on a regular basis. I buy Justice League because it has my favorite characters and is only one book. Crossover events, then, are not my favorites.
James Robinson is a wonderful writer. Everyone tells me so. Everyone tells me that his Justice League is going to be great, because he's a great writer.
The only two books in the last two years that I've bought and just not been able to read have been JLA 47 and JLA 48. I don't understand what's going on. I don't know who these people are. I don't know much of anything (besides what students have told me) about the white rings and their nature. I don't know what happened to Alan Scott to put him in this situation, and I don't know who these young people in the Justice Society are. Isn't the Justice Society WW2-era heroes who have gotten older? Or are still in the 1940's?
I just haven't really appreciated the Justice League much lately. I didn't like the Red Tornado stuff, and I like this even less. I got about halfway through this book and just started to turn pages. Mark Bagley is a great artist, and I've appreciated other stuff he's done (Thunderbolts and Ultimate Spider-man, in particular), but this isn't great work. It's TOO busy and complicated, and I couldn't follow the action without serious study... which I'm not going to do because I don't know what's happening or who the people are.
A critique that I've had in my professional life about modern, 20th and 21st century classical music: if you have to study it before you can appreciate it, you're significantly narrowing your potential audience appeal. Same thing, here. It's great that there's so much continuity and back story in this book. It's not for me, who isn't a huge DC reader and not a Justice Society reader at all.
If issues 49 and 50 continue this story, I'm not going to buy them. I'm a completionist in my collecting, but I don't have $3.99 per issue to waste on something I'm not going to read. It might be time to drop my last DC book until the Magnificent Seven come back to the JLA. Give me Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (one I know, natch), the Flash, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter.
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