Justice League #1

Only 4 of them are in this volume, and only 2 them for any significant amount of time (and 1 isn't even a superhero yet).

While I’ve read a lot of manga recently, and will do a “Catching Up On…” post for them soon, I wanted to quickly talk about the American superhero comic, particularly the DC New 52.

I started reading comics when Ben Reilly first became the Scarlet Spider. I stopped shortly after Norman Osborn returned and Peter Parker was, once again, Spider-Man. During that time, I read mostly Spider-Man and X-Men titles, including the big Marvel universe event Onslaught (and in turn read a few issues of the Franklin Richards pocket universe the Avengers and the Fantastic Four had ended up in as a result). Despite being a big fan of the Batman: The Animated Series, I never ventured into purchasing anything from DC Comics (synergy fail?).

I left comics for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that both comic shops in my town disappeared on the same weekend (raising even my young suspicions that they were doing something illegal, and got out of Dodge before the fuzz showed up). But by the end of the Clone Saga and the Onslaught event, I was just kind of done with the insanity and knowledge required to keep up some narrative points (so…many…back…issues…purchased…).

I, likewise, had shifted interests from comics to movies, and was spending my limited income from my first job on DVDs (thinking of how many back issues or different titles I could read had I spent the money on comics…man.). And so I pretty much left comics alone.

I started reading manga around 2005, 2006, but never felt compelled to get back into American comics (though I can’t tell you why). So when DC announced it would reboot its entire universe in an effort to be more new-reader friendly (and doing same-day digital launch), I was intrigued enough to not only read up on the discourse surrounding it, but actually preorder a number of titles (I’ll list the ones I’m reading at the end of the post). I decided not to do digital versions because, well, my laptop screen isn’t a great viewing experience for comic books (maybe if I laid it on its side…).

So when my copy of Justice League #1 arrived on Saturday (and way over-packaged, by the way, Midtown Comics. I mean, seriously, bubble wrap for a single issue? Really?) I was pretty primed to be one of those new readers who doesn’t do reviews. And upon finishing the issue, I kind of wondered who this was really for.

I’m a “new reader” in the sense that I don’t regularly buy comics (I pick up the occasional trade paperback based on recommendations or availability), but I know these characters, and I know the Justice League as presented in the DCAU series. (Well, I don’t know Hal Jordan from there (or at all, really), and I only know Vic Stone from Teen Titans). And this, to me, and this could be because I just know television better, was first episode of a new series. This is the pilot as it were.

And there’s nothing wrong with that in my eyes. It’s the first issue of an all new universe (kind of, anyway, considering that a lot of the recent Batman stuff seems to be carrying over), or the first episode of an all new series, with a little bit of a cliffhanger that will hopefully draw folks into purchasing/tuning in for the next installment. In that regard, I think the issue is fairly successful. Batman and Green Lantern are well-defined in their voices (Batman is Batman; GL is super self-confident in his abilities and snarky (was Hal Jordan always like this, or is this new?)), so I have a sense of who they are.

But I am also able to fill in gaps in personality aspects where necessary, which makes me wonder how successful this is for new-new readers, readers who may not be familiar with Batman or Green Lantern or may wonder why we’re visiting a football player very briefly (I can’t even imagine how new readers will feel about Justice League International and its roster of folks who are not remotely near the mainstream). I’m not saying origin stories for each are needed (that’s, largely, what their individual titles are(?) for (provided they have such titles (Cyborg does not)) but even upon reading it through a couple of times, I kept forgetting this takes place five years in the past of this (new-ish) universe, to recount the League’s formation, so it all seemed still a little inside baseball to me.

There’s nothing particularly revolutionary with the art. I’ve always liked Jim Lee’s pencils, so my comments are fairly limited here. Panel construction is easy to follow, which makes the story move briskly. I will say that both times I read it, I missed the parademon screeching “For Darkseid!” and had to flip back to the page after Batman and GL talk about it on the page that follows it. But that’s really a nitpicky point.

(Another (possibly) nitpicky point: I know there’s considerable debate about it, but I really wish Wonder Woman had on pants. Even the little extras at the end of the book that show some of Lee’s early art have in her pants. I wasn’t nuts about the jacket they gave her recently, but I dug the pants. Give her back her pants. And maybe shrink down her breasts a little. They’re going to get in the way while she’s punching parademons later.)

All in all, I’m in for another issue (glad they’re getting the Batman beats the crap out of Superman sequence out of the way now, no need to delay that), if only because, well, judging an entire relaunch on the merits of one issue just seems a little bit dumb (and because I already preordered it!). Like many things, you shouldn’t stop just after a chapter or episode or issue. Stories and characters need time to breathe and unspool, and I’ll be intrigued by my own ebb and flow with these stories. When do I grow tired of it? How do I adjust my narrative expectations on a month-to-month basis (and only 20ish pages per month)?  I do not know, but I’ll keep you abreast of my progress.

Other titles I’ll be reading

• Action Comics
• Batgirl
• Batman: The Dark Knight
• Batman
• Batwoman
• Detective Comics
• Justice League Dark
• Mister Terrific
• Supergirl
• Superman
• Teen Titans

Rather hastily, Drew Ayers and I have decided to do a little comic books reading group since, like me, he is just getting into comics again (he stopped a bit more recently than I did). We’ll be doing some joint posts about our experiences with the titles after we receive our issues (which will be at the end of the month).

This is all very tentative (I’m not even sure where these posts will appear, here or at his new site), but I suspect we’ll deal with lots of issues, including coming back to comics, issues of gender and race, and probably some academic jargon-y stuff (you know words like “liminal” or sentences like “Cyborg is really interesting as a posthuman who is also marked by being a racial Other”) that will be balanced out by “Man, I really hated/liked this” or “HOW FUCKING COOL WAS THAT SHIT?” sort of comments.

So I hope you’ll stick around and keep up with this for as long as we’re able to do it consistently.

Addendum: While it’s down below in the comments/pingbacks, here’s a link to Drew’s self-made newbie guide to comics. I can dig it.