JSA, Book Two by Geoff Johns, David Goyer, Stephen Sadowski, Michael Bair, Carlos Pacheco, Jesus Merino, et al.

JSA by Geoff Johns, Book Two

Collection published: 2018
Contents published: 1999-2003
Read: June 2022

Writers: Geoff Johns, David Goyer

Artists: Stephen Sadowski, Michael Bair, Carlos Pacheco, Jesus Merino, Phil Winslade, Mike Perkins, Steve Yeowell, Keith Champagne, Buzz, Rags Morales, Dave Meikis, Paul Neary, Rob Leigh, Javier Saltares, Ray Kryssing, Andrew Pepoy
Colorists: John Kalisz, Tom McCraw

Letterers: Ken Lopez, Pat Prentice, Kurt Hathaway

This volume of JSA by Geoff Johns (where every story is co-written by David Goyer, but I guess he doesn't rate) collects two story arcs from the main JSA comic and also the graphic novel JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice and then some other stuff. What I am realizing is that I don't really care for Johns's approach to this book. First we have the seemingly obligatory storyline about a new Injustice Society, which like a lot of Geoff Johns stuff, is full of seemingly gratuitous violence in order to prove the situation is serious: he invents a whole Chicago superteam just to torture and brutally murder them, there's an evil Flash who runs through kids so fast they explode. It's just like... it's juvenile, and I don't read superhero comics to read about kids being murdered. I found it very hard to care.

The second big storyline is about a trip to Thanagar to resurrect Hawkman. I did really like Hawkworld, but Johns ignores any of its interesting complexities in favor of a melodramatic sub-Darkseid villain and a subplot about how a teenage girl just needs to give in and be romanced by an eighty-year-old man for the good of the universe.

Why does everyone assume she wants to be with him? (Also I spent some time wondering which Phantom Lady this was. The Action Comics Weekly one? But not so much time that I actually looked it up.)
from JSA: Our Worlds at War #1 (script by Geoff Johns, art by Javier Saltares & Ray Kryssing)

This book isn't totally unlikeable. In between those two storylines, there's a decent done-in-one that gives us some much-needed character focus, and actually the Our Worlds at War tie-in issue was pretty good too. And I also enjoyed the Secret Files & Origins issue that leads into Virtue and Vice, as well as the early parts of Virtue and Vice itself. When Johns (and Goyer) want to write these characters hanging out and talking about things, they do a decent job... but it seems they rarely do. If you compare this to the characterful and deft way that Len Strazewski wrote the last JSA ongoing, this just doesn't compare; I have very little sense of these people as, well, people. Like I said, Virtue and Vice starts good, but it soon becomes Yet Another Apocalyptic Battle with huge masses of people dying violently... which I am sure will promptly never be mentioned again. I also don't care much for stories where heroes are mind-controlled to be evil, especially if they promptly become stupid.

I have never cared for Johns's take on Power Girl.
from JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice (script by David S. Goyer & Geoff Johns, art by Carlos Pacheco & Jesus Merino)

Some other thoughts: I think Secret Files & Origins and Virtue and Vice are included out of sequence; suddenly Mr. Terrific is JSA chair, and Stargirl is living in Metropolis, and Captain Marvel is a member, and there's a new Hourman who I don't think is the new Hourman from the previous book. None of these things have happened in the actual JSA series yet. It amused me that suddenly Green Arrow is alive again, so he has to contend with the fact that Black Canary has moved on romantically since his death. Virtue and Vice had some good President Luthor stuff. The way the heroes swap places with the statues in the Rock of Eternity is pretty neat.

This post is thirty-second in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers Golden Age Secret Files & Origins. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
14. Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
• Wonder Woman: Earth-Two (1977-78)
15. Secret Origins of the Golden Age (1986-89)
16. The Young All-Stars (1987-89)
17. Gladiator (1930) ["Man-God!" (1976)]
    
18. The Crimson Avenger: The Dark Cross Conspiracy (1981-88)
19. The Immortal Doctor Fate (1940-82)
20. Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice (1951-91)
21. Armageddon: Inferno (1992)
22. Justice Society of America vol. 2 (1992-93)
23. The Adventures of Alan Scott--Green Lantern (1992-93)
24. Damage (1994-96)
25. The Justice Society Returns! (1999-2001)
26. Chase (1998-2002)
27. Stargirl by Geoff Johns (1999-2003)
28. The Sandman Presents: The Furies (2002)
29. JSA by Geoff Johns, Book One (1999-2000)
30. Wonder Woman: The 18th Letter: A Love Story (2000)
31. Two Thousand (2000)
    

Faster than a DC Bullet, Issue #12: Superman Batman: Absolute Power

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2005 (contents: 2005)
Borrowed from a friend
Read September 2009

Superman Batman: Absolute Power

Writer: Jeph Loeb

Penciller: Carlos Pacheco
Inker: Jesús Merino
Additional pencils: Ivan Reis
Colorist: Laura Martin
Letterer: Richard Starkings

DC Universe Timeline: Two Years Ago
Real World Timeline: 2004?

Jeph Loeb can write good comics, right? I know this. I've read Superman For All Seasons and The Long Halloween; he can do absolutely brilliant work. He can, and I know it. So what the hell happened here?

What happened here, as far as I can tell, is that Jeph Loeb ingested the entire DC Universe and then vomited all over some pages and called it a script.

Absolute Power opens with someone traveling back in time and altering the origins of Batman and Superman-- Bruce Wayne's parents' killer is gunned down, and the Kents are fried electrically, and both children are taken away to be raised as the new rulers of the Earth. Of course, you might object that there are a lot of other superheroes out there who would stop that, so our mysterious time travelers also go back in time and kill off Green Lantern, the Flash, and the rest of Earth's great heroes, plus Aquaman. Quite why someone would pick Batman to rule the Earth baffles me-- he has no powers, so they'd have to train him from scratch. What makes him different from anyone else in that case? Might as well pick the Blue Beetle or even Doiby Dickles.

The perpetrators of these time-travel shenanigans are three people called Lightning Lord, Cosmic King, and Saturn Queen. I think they have something to do with the Legion of Super-Heroes, but it's not like anyone ever explains what they're doing or where they came from or why they're taking over the Earth of the 21st century. Or perhaps most importantly, why they can't just take over the Earth themselves, instead of getting Batman and Superman to do it for them. Or why they creepily insist on being called Batman and Superman's parents, while the provide their "children" with hot babes for sexxxing.

Wonder Woman and Uncle Sam round up a group of should-be superheroes to take down the Axis of Evil. A storyline about the Earth's heroes striving to take down an evil Superman and Batman-- you might think that this is where things would start to get interesting. Well, you'd be wrong. This is where things start getting stupid. They assemble a team in about two pages, then there's lots of incoherent fighting, including some of that good-old Superman-on-Wonder-Woman violence Jeph Loeb needs to work into every issue. Then Batman dies. Then everyone travels through time! Why? WHO KNOWS.

This is where the Jeph Loeb Upchucked Continuity Tour really begins, as we randomly hop through the DC Universe, visiting Kamandi, some Wild West characters (in Gotham for some reason), and Apokolips. Also, the Kingdom Come Superman shows up. Again. Plus, the demon Etrigan. Oh, and Metron. Seriously, Loeb, is there anyone else's better idea you need to work into your story? Then Superman and Batman go back in time and stop the villains from changing history. Then Batman shoots his parents' killer before he shoots his parents. This disrupts history even further! OH NO! MORE RANDOM TIME TRAVEL.

Now they have to fight R'as al Ghul, who's apparently taken over the Earth and killed everyone ever with Batman gone. Also, World War II is still going on for some reason. Bruce Wayne learns to be Batman again in twelve minutes (apparently it's not that hard after all), the Justice League is brought back to life only to be killed minutes later, overly portentous narration bubbles mention "The Age of Heroes" a lot, Superman gets stabbed, and then everything's okay. Except-- can Superman ever live with the guilt of killing Wonder Woman in a world that never happened? And can Batman mention the life he should have had one more time? And will Steve ever recover from having to read a bunch of nonsense held together with no rhyme or reason?

WHAT THE HECK. It's like Jeph Loeb has ADD and no plotline interests him for more than five pages. I'm not sure what this was supposed to be about, why most of it happened, or why I should even bother to figure it out. These aren't Batman and Superman, they're two random people with the costumes. It's amazing, but Loeb seems to have created something with even less redeeming value than Supergirl. Thank God this is all James owns of the Superman Batman series, because I'd hate to see what comes next. Actually, it's probably just Batman and Superman making out while Wonder Woman gets beat on by sixteen hundred copies of Doctor Polaris and the Anti-Monitor.
I'm actually kind of disappointed with this review, as I don't think it adequately represents the sheer depth of loathing I have for this story, though the only way to do that might be to just say "please make it stop" a dozen times, and then I'd be too much like Tat Wood for comfort. But dang, this was awful. At least the artwork was pretty.

Note that this originally appeared on my old LiveJournal and included pictures back then. Sadly, the pictures are lost in the mists of the Internet.