Justice League of America #31: WTF, people?
OK, when you run an issue of people reacting to a major event, it's customary to do so *AFTER* the major event has been printed.
Seriously, WTF, DC? This issue is about Black Canary reacting to Hal Jordan and Ollie Queen starting their own Justice League in the wake of Final Crisis and Batman's death. And possibly some other event- it's not clear. Also, apparently Superman and Wonder Woman are leaving, so we see her reactions to that as well. And Red Arrow is leaving, but at least we see him make the announcement.
But back to the point. I'm reading the first few pages thinking "this is probably the best-written JLA issue since they rebooted the series 30 issues ago, but I am so fucking lost!" I had to dig out the last few months of issues to verify that I hadn't missed one (hey, it happens). But no, I hadn't. And none of these departures/splinter teams happened in Final Crisis, because I just re-read that whole mess including it's satellite books.
And then I see the *, which tells me that for the full story of Hal's splinter team, I can read some miniseries that's coming out in *July*.
July? As in four months from now? WHAT. THE. FUCK?
The opening scene to this issue is a fascinating discussion among Dinah Lance, Ollie Queen and Hal Jordan. Especially fascinating if you know their long history, particularly the celebrated early-70's Green Lantern / Green Arrow run. And I love the banter about the homoerotic undertones of Hal and Ollie's relationship. But it's all discussing stuff we haven't seen! The heart is cut out of the scene because we can't tell if Canary's reactions are justified or overblown. We don't even really get a clear idea of what Ollie actually did. It's only sort of clear what Hal did. And apparently JLA will be continuing despite the "breakup" announcement on the last page, so are we supposed to just muddle along not knowing any of this stuff for the next third of a year?
Superman's departure at least makes sense in terms of what's going on in his own series, and Wonder Woman's reasons are vague enough to fit anything (her status quo is a bit up in the air anyway).
Kudos at least to writer Dwayne McDuffie for more or less acknowledging that this series has been kinda crap ever since it was rebooted after Infinite Crisis. In the thirty-one issues between Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis (#0-30), first under Brad Meltzer and then under McDuffie, the JLA has really done... nothing much. They've dealt with the member's own problems quite a bit (this actually covers the majority of the run). They've engaged in some oddly inconsequential battles with groups of villains, and they've dragged down the quality of JSA for a few months in a muddled crossover. The best concept was McDuffie re-introducing the Milestone Comics characters, but the story around that wasn't great, and it was one of these annoying "we just tricked you for the greater good and now we'll disappear" things instead of setting up some more active relationships to explore.
Is this really what the *flagship* team of the DCU's most well-known heroes is for? Plus, what was the point of making Black Canary the leader when she hardly ever does anything, and when she does no one pays attention (this issue finally addressed that somewhat). She's a more than capable character, but you wouldn't know it from this book.
Anyway, I hope James Robinson's Justice League lasts beyond the miniseries (I had thought it was getting an ongoing right off). And I hope they figure out *something* decent to do with this book. It seems like they might bring in some of the Milestone characters to plug the gap, which would be good, as long as they keep a mix with existing DCU characters (if I want to read Shadow Cabinet, I'd rather just have a Shadow Cabinet series).
But again, scheduling? Off by FOUR MONTHS? WTF?
Seriously, WTF, DC? This issue is about Black Canary reacting to Hal Jordan and Ollie Queen starting their own Justice League in the wake of Final Crisis and Batman's death. And possibly some other event- it's not clear. Also, apparently Superman and Wonder Woman are leaving, so we see her reactions to that as well. And Red Arrow is leaving, but at least we see him make the announcement.
But back to the point. I'm reading the first few pages thinking "this is probably the best-written JLA issue since they rebooted the series 30 issues ago, but I am so fucking lost!" I had to dig out the last few months of issues to verify that I hadn't missed one (hey, it happens). But no, I hadn't. And none of these departures/splinter teams happened in Final Crisis, because I just re-read that whole mess including it's satellite books.
And then I see the *, which tells me that for the full story of Hal's splinter team, I can read some miniseries that's coming out in *July*.
July? As in four months from now? WHAT. THE. FUCK?
The opening scene to this issue is a fascinating discussion among Dinah Lance, Ollie Queen and Hal Jordan. Especially fascinating if you know their long history, particularly the celebrated early-70's Green Lantern / Green Arrow run. And I love the banter about the homoerotic undertones of Hal and Ollie's relationship. But it's all discussing stuff we haven't seen! The heart is cut out of the scene because we can't tell if Canary's reactions are justified or overblown. We don't even really get a clear idea of what Ollie actually did. It's only sort of clear what Hal did. And apparently JLA will be continuing despite the "breakup" announcement on the last page, so are we supposed to just muddle along not knowing any of this stuff for the next third of a year?
Superman's departure at least makes sense in terms of what's going on in his own series, and Wonder Woman's reasons are vague enough to fit anything (her status quo is a bit up in the air anyway).
Kudos at least to writer Dwayne McDuffie for more or less acknowledging that this series has been kinda crap ever since it was rebooted after Infinite Crisis. In the thirty-one issues between Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis (#0-30), first under Brad Meltzer and then under McDuffie, the JLA has really done... nothing much. They've dealt with the member's own problems quite a bit (this actually covers the majority of the run). They've engaged in some oddly inconsequential battles with groups of villains, and they've dragged down the quality of JSA for a few months in a muddled crossover. The best concept was McDuffie re-introducing the Milestone Comics characters, but the story around that wasn't great, and it was one of these annoying "we just tricked you for the greater good and now we'll disappear" things instead of setting up some more active relationships to explore.
Is this really what the *flagship* team of the DCU's most well-known heroes is for? Plus, what was the point of making Black Canary the leader when she hardly ever does anything, and when she does no one pays attention (this issue finally addressed that somewhat). She's a more than capable character, but you wouldn't know it from this book.
Anyway, I hope James Robinson's Justice League lasts beyond the miniseries (I had thought it was getting an ongoing right off). And I hope they figure out *something* decent to do with this book. It seems like they might bring in some of the Milestone characters to plug the gap, which would be good, as long as they keep a mix with existing DCU characters (if I want to read Shadow Cabinet, I'd rather just have a Shadow Cabinet series).
But again, scheduling? Off by FOUR MONTHS? WTF?