NEW TO ME: JSA volume 1

Now that I’ve been at the UMaine library for half a year, I am finally availing myself of their services – specifically, utilizing the interlibrary loan functionality in order to get trade collections and graphic novels that I’ve not yet read but have wanted to for some time. The first book I received was volume 1 of Grant Morrison’s much-lauded JLA run. Two posts on that can be found here and here.

The other series I am checking out is the return of the JSA under the guiding hands of David S. Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins) & James Robinson (Starman), which would eventually lead into Geoff Johns’s run on this series from 1999.

I read the first volume – Justice Be Done, collecting issues 1 through 5, plus Secret Files #1 – and it was okay. At least it was better than the initial JLA volume from Morrison, Porter, and Dell.

The story worked well, though it did feel terribly padded. There seemed to be a lot of “talking heads” scenes that were meant to remind readers (or introduce them) to these characters – a mix of the classic JSA heroes such as Alan Scott (the original Green Lantern) and Jay Garrick (the original Flash) and new characters like Sand (once the ward of the golden age Sandman, Wesley Dodds) and Jack Knight, the new Starman from James Robinson’s well-received series of the same name. My thoughts on the first omnibus collection of this series are here.

The main thrust of this first story arc is the pending return of Dr. Fate, and the heroes’ need to find and protect the child who will house the reincarnation of Nabu (the spirit/entity that is Dr. Fate) before Mordru gets to him. For what it was, this was a fairly good story. It set up the new status quo well enough; it brought back a classic version of a classic hero (Dr. Fate), and it came to a climax with a bit of a twist – though a twist I saw coming as soon as Mordru got hold of Nabu’s vestments. But, maybe I’ve read too many superhero comics to be that surprised anymore.

The dialogue – which is something that grates on me in Robinson’s Starman series – was okay, but often fell into “exposition” mode far too much. Again, I get that they were introducing old and underused characters to a “new” audience. But for a writer of Robinson’s acclaim – I found it disappointing.

The art, mainly from penciler Steve Sadowski with inks by Michael Bair, was serviceable. It was, for the most part, solid superhero work with occasional stabs at innovation (a two-page spread with Black Canary comes to mind, but that was ruined by poorly placed word balloons). The storytelling was clear, the characters were recognizable, but it was all pretty “vanilla.” Which isn’t a bad thing – clear storytelling will win over muddled “experimentation” as much as not. But it made little impression on me.

Ultimately, the main thing I took away from this first collection of JSA was that I did not care about these characters. Even Jay Garrick and Alan Scott – characters with which I have a bit of history from my years reading comics – didn’t excite me. And I really wonder if it isn’t a result of James Robinson’s writing. Starman – though I found the initial chapters exciting – is a series I’m unsure I will continue reading past those first sixteen issues of Omnibus #1. The Golden Age did nothing for me. And this is serviceable, at best.

But I will be continuing with JSA because I have enjoyed most of what I’ve read from Geoff Johns, and his work begins in the next trade. I’m anxious to see what he does with the characters and to find out if it’s the characters or the creators that are leaving me cold.

-chris

Currently Reading: Starman Omnibus #1

NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD!

So I finally took the plunge and picked up the first Starman omnibus edition, collecting the first 17 issues of the series (#0-16). I've heard great things about this series, the Comic Geek Speak guys gush about it, so I knew I had to read it at some point.

And I'm not sure what I think of it yet.

The first dozen or so issues were - I won't say difficult to get through - but I didn't find myself needing to read the next chapter as soon I finished the previous one. It wasn't like Naoki Urasawa's Pluto, which I am dying to finish (I only have the first 4 volumes, but hope to remedy that later this year), or Dave Sim's Cerebus (I'm currently halfway through volume 5: Jaka's Story, and find myself reading 3, 4, or 5 chapters at a time when I find the time).

But it wasn't that I found it to be a bad comic. It was/is good. I just wasn't being pulled into the story like I have with other books.

I will say that the concept is great - I particularly appreciate the characterization of Jack, the uninterested protagonist whose passion is collecting/trading/selling antiques, a vocation comic collectors can easily relate to, and the manner in which this is symbolized through his choice of costume - which is to say, Jack chooses no costume at all, rather street clothes that might be practical while in a fight utilizing his cosmic rod (the only real "superhero" trapping for this character).

And, I love the Shade - mysterious, not on one side or the other, preferring to walk his own path while safeguarding Opal City, but to what end? His own personal gain or something more altruistic? I guess I'll have to read on to find out.

The art is good, but I am not a fan of Tony Harris, despite my enjoyment of another of his long-form book, Ex Machina with Brian K. Vaughn. It's merely a matter of personal taste. His storytelling is good, clean, his characters are always recognizable, and he doesn't skimp on backgrounds - something of particular import with this series, as creator James Robinson wished to make Opal City as much a character in the book as Jack Knight or the O'Dares.

But I have to say the fill in issues with art by Matt Smith and the amazing Teddy Kristiansen were much more to my liking. Those artists, with their looser line work, have a more expressive style that just appeals to me more. Wonderful stuff.

And the writing from James Robinson is good, but - at least in these early chapters - not great, in my opinion. I appreciate much of what he's doing. His characterizations are good, and I enjoy the relationship developing between Jack Knight (the main protagonist of the book) and Ted Knight (his father, the original Starman). The plots are not reformatted, rehashed, and regurgitated plots from comics we've seen before, and I truly appreciate that (I especially loved his use of the sideshow freaks to get the blue Starman into the mix, a character with whom I am wholly unfamiliar, and I can't say if this was a new creation of Robinson's or another part of the Starman legacy, though I am guessing the latter).

But it's the captions and some of the actual dialogue that bothers me. It's stilted in places and doesn't read smoothly for me, doesn't sound natural. For me, reading (and writing) is all about rhythm, which isn't to say I am looking for iambic pentameter in my prose or comics, but I'm looking for words that flow easily from one to the other, enlightening and entertaining me while not forcing me to go back and re-read passages in order to get the tone and meaning correct. I found myself having to do that a lot with this initial tome, and it lessened the enjoyment I had, or could have had.

Some things I really enjoyed were the "Times Past" stories - as noted above some of that had to do with the different artists. But it also had to do with the plots themselves. The first one, with Oscar Wilde, was a wonderful little period piece that illuminated a bit of the Shade's past for us. The second, with the original Ted Knight Starman and other golden age heroes - Jay Garrick (the Flash), Alan Scott (Green Lantern), Hourman, and Dr. Midnight - having to take down a once laughable villain who's become a murderous scourge was well done, adding a weight to these once pristine heroes that felt natural while also exhibiting the emotional toll of the altercation for these heroes.

And as the "Sins of the Child" storyline began with issue 12, chapter 13, I found myself sucked into the story. The conversation between Jack and Ted after Jack's court date for killing one of the Mist's children (which was also a refreshing, new take on superheroes, having them answer for breaking the law, even if the murder in question was of a super-villain) in the beginning of the book really pulled me into the narrative and made me care about these characters. Subsequent chapters began at the same point as this initial chapter, but followed the story from the points of view of various other characters in the book, and I found that to be interesting, because we could see "the rest of the story" while putting the timeline into place.

I was loving this story.

And then we got to the end, and the new Mist just let Jack Knight go . . . because she wanted to see him grow to his full potential as a superhero while she worked on growing as a super-villain, so that, one day, she could kill Starman, because that's what arch-enemies do. Certainly, a novel approach to the climax of a long battle between arch-foes (despite this really being their first battle, and the both of them relatively new to this game), but it just fell flat for me.

Completely.

All that build up for something that felt forced - up to this point, Jack has behaved in a very "real-world" manner, not gravitating to being a hero, questioning himself, wondering if what he is doing is truly the right thing to be doing, and other characters have acted in a similar fashion. This is the internal consistency, the internal logic, of James Robinson's Starman. And then he has this new Mist arbitrarily allow Jack Knight to go, when she has him in her sights - which is followed by a monologue . . . a freakin' monologue . . . to explain her motivation and such. Sure, she's mentally unbalanced, and maybe she would not react in a sane fashion. But, she just killed six people trying to find a medal her father received from serving in the Great War, and she's not going to kill Jack? And Jack, though obviously at a disadvantage, acts very calmly and does nothing to try and take out Mist - who has just killed six people in a city-wide rampage.

It didn't work for me, and that was disappointing, because I was really getting into the story with this final storyline of the omnibus. And it makes me wonder if I'll continue with the series. We'll see.

chris