In the last post, I remarked on the fact that a decade has passed since author Brad Meltzer depicted DC's Trinity building a new Justice League. The homage to the first issue of All-Star Squadron should have been a warning that this iteration would be a slave to continuity.
The League has been revamped and rebooted several times since then, however; it seems Meltzer's homage to the "Satellite Era" of the 70s- early 80s was undone, as ever, by editorial fiat
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James Robinson blended former Teen Titans with a few pet characters of his own, such as the Guardian and Dr. Light, who seems tainted by the crimes of her depraved predecessor.
Geoff Johns and Jim Lee ushered in the New 52 with a line-up inspired by Super Friends cartoons of the mid-80s.
And now, five years later, writer/artist Bryan Hitch channels Geoff Johns' brave new world of hope and optimism in Justice League Rebirth.
Getting round to reading this comic yesterday, I'm afraid I found this debut a disappointing one. Hitch gives us photorealistic widescreen action adventure. He also gives us toilet humour ( from the Flash? I might expect this from the boorish Wally West version of the 80s but no version of Barry Allen I recognise talks about bathroom smells,) Hitch's Wonder Woman is also extremely plain and resembles neither Gal Gadot or Lynda Carter.
The plot - barely a vignette- is an homage to the Mass Effect video game. I was surprised that Hitch references Starro the Conqueror when "his" Reaper has exactly the same gimmick.
So far, so lacklustre; doubly so, since I had tried to follow Hitch's cinematic JLA series, But it's the all-important roster of the team that bothers me most. The iconic Leaguers are there but so, yet again. is one former New Teen Titan and two Green Lanterns.
The Justice League has been since its inception a conglomeration of the most iconic and successful super-heroes in DC's spandex stable. It sounds deceptively simple - and Brian Bendis used the formula to rejuvenate the Avengers over a decade ago, drafting previously-unthinkable fan-favourites like Wolverine and Spidey. But the Justice League blend is often difficult to achieve.
The focus on movie-style, world-shattering spectacle as seen in Avengers, Winter Soldier and Man of Steel is an appropriate one for the Olympian Leaguers. For a long time, I actually thought the JLA might be better served with urban noir or wetwork espionage stories. But that's the fit for a team of Outsiders, perhaps with the likes of Green Arrow, Black Canary, Nightwing and 1950s UFO scare-star Martian Manhunter.
Hawkman and Hawkgirl and the size-changing Atom (even my favourite, Ryan Choi) feel more like Justice Society characters to me: there's something venerable about them that speaks to me of Legacy Heroes on Earth-2. Similarly, though it pains me to say it, the equally historic Shazam and Plastic Man belong in worlds of whimsy very different to an Earth-One.
Elongated Man, to my knowledge, is now a ghost detective and Red Tornado's Pinocchio story has been done to death, in my opinion.
As for authors' "pet" characters like Zauriel, Congorilla or the blue Starman, they're simply not League material. And that's my continuing objection to Cyborg.
Vic Stone was a stereotypical Angry Young Black Man in the early 80s- a ghetto Ben Grimm with none of the pathos or comic potential. Horribly injured by a Space Blob and saved by his cyberneticist dad, Stone was a metaphor for the differently able blended with Reagan-era anxieties about computer tech.
In the New 52, he became the League's teleporter. But the Meltzer League had already reminded us that the JLA had been travelling between dimensions since the early 70s, so that techno-awe is redundant in a Green Lantern Corps world. To my regret, the moral and conscience -driven Black Lightning is just a little too Disco Era to convince as a Leaguer; no one has succeeded in doing a Luke Cage with him (yet.) So, that's why Cyborg is in the League. If John Stewart isn't ring-slinging, there is no premiere black male hero on the team and it becomes, like the Avengers of the movies, very white. But the New Teen Titans is a well-balanced and delicate machine of its own; the continuing presence of the Wolfman/Perez creations is testament to that.
The League is not the Legion: it's not a super-powered militia but an elite. I'm not convinced that-with Red Arrow, say- it's the place to tell Legacy stories like the JSA. The essential core members are obvious and perennial: the intellect and entrepreneurial expertise of the dread Batman; truth and the American way from Superman; loving submission from Wonder Woman; the Flash, the fastest man alive and Aquaman, ruler of 3/4 of the planet.
While Green Lantern Simon Baz's Muslim heritage increases diversity and is a mature move for DC, carrying arms and his threatening appearance are most certainly not. I would choose agoraphobe Jessica Cruz for her Latina ethnicity and increased gender balance,
The elephant in the room is Supergirl. If the JLA has a "no-duplication-of -powers " clause like the LSH, forget that! Kryptonian Kousin Kara deserves more than any other heroine to be on the League. While I like the junior high school version, the young adult Supergirl is the one with her own tv show. Come on!
I've actually filled the seven slots of the classic League but you know that if I could expand the limit, my reserves are Vixen and Firestorm, two more DC TV stars. Both creations of Gerry Conway, they would again add diversity to the team. There's also a flavour of the fantastic, of the utterly fanciful that makes the JLA inappropriate to the Spectre-style adventures of an Iron Man or Black Widow. In their earliest adventures, the League were turning into trees or chess pieces or fighting their own robot duplicates. It's not the whimsy of the World's Wickedest Worm but the pulp sci-fi of a Despero or Kanjar Ro.
So, that's what I want to see from a Justice League comic. It's only an imaginary story. But aren't they all?
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