Justice Society of America 80-Page Giants by Jesus Merino, Jesse Delperdang, Freddie Williams II, Scott Hampton, Victor Ibàñez, et al.

Alongside Justice Society of America vol. 3, DC published three "80-Page Giants," collections of seven ten-page stories (the other ten pages are ads). I have a lot of time for the 80-page giant format (see entry #11 in this series below, for example); usually these kind of collections will have a couple stories by big name writers and artist to anchor them, and then work by newer writers and artists to develop talent. I think the format works particularly well here, as a companion to an ongoing series, as it lets the creators spotlight characters from the main series in different situations, with a variety of voices and styles.

The first has a framing narrative, set between Jerry Ordway's and Bill Willingham's runs on the parent title. In the frame, the JSA brownstone becomes subject to dream logic, as characters move through time and appear and disappear at random. I kind of suspect this was picked to smooth over discontinuities between stories, but I didn't care because I thought it worked really well. It has a good dreamlike feeling to it, as characters disappear between page transitions and the logic is a bit hard to follow but also not totally random.

from Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant #1
(script by Zander Cannon, art by Scott Hampton)

Not all of the stories are great, of course, but I found enough to be worth reading. I liked "Heart of Steel" (Felicia D. Henderson, Renato Guedes, and José Wilson Magalhaes), which gives some much-needed pathos to Citizen Steel, "Mother's Little Secret" (Jerry Ordway), which explores the history of the new Wildcat, and "Spin Cycle" (Jen Van Meter, Jesus Merino, and Jesse Delperdang), which is a cute meeting between Cyclone and Power Girl while doing laundry. Particularly nightmarish is "Damage" (Zander Cannon and Scott Hampton), a bizarre story about Doctor Mid-Nite surgically removing people from Damage's insides, which I can't imagine working in any other format; good use of the frame, and a great collision of writing and art.

The other two collections have no frame; they're just collections of seven stories apiece. Typically, a few stories take place at the "now" of when the issue was released, and then a few must take place earlier on in the run of Justice Society vol. 3 based on what characters are present. These I liked for their spotlights on characters who may have been present in the main title, but were often unfocused on as it jerked from big event to big event. For example, one of my complaints about the parent title would be how Obsidian was either demoted to a disembodied presence or turned into an egg or going nuts again, so I appreciated "...the Not-So-Secret Origin of Obsidian!" (Marc Andreyko, Mike Norton, and Bill Sienkiewicz), which gave some unity to his disparate appearances and connected to what was being done with the character in Manhunter at the same time.

Liberty Belle/Jesse Quick quickly established herself as a favorite in Justice Society vol. 3 even though I felt like she didn't actually get much to do, so I enjoyed "Unstoppable" (Robert T. Jeschonek and Victor Ibàñez) where she takes on abusers, and "Guiding the Gifted" (Drew Ford, Andy Smith, and Keith Champagne), where she protects a kid with new powers. They both had a good domestic focus, but also a clear indication of how she doesn't take any crap. (Should I expand this ever-lengthening project to track down her appearances in Titans?) And again, there was a good Citizen Steel story in "The Tin Man" (Matthew Cody and Tim Seeley), where he falls in love with a patient he can never touch. I never really liked Steel much in the main series, so I was grateful for the positive focus these issues gave him.

from Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant 2011 #1
(script by Adam Beechen, art by Howard Chaykin)

I also appreciated this series following up on dropped plot points from the main one; for example, during James Robinson's run, Green Lantern became the guardian of a magic city on the moon, but Marc Guggenheim did little with this; here, we get "City of Light & Magic" (Matt Kindt and Victor Ibàñez), which actually looks into this. There's also one historical story, "Duty, Honor, Country" (Adam Beechen and Howard Chaykin), which is told from the perspective of the guy designated to serve papers to the Justice Society for their congressional hearing back in the 1950s. A neat angle on a story the comics have revisited a lot.

Overall, I was often disappointed with how Justice Society vol. 3 was jerked from big event to big event, eschewing the character focus that makes team books so appealing to me. These three anthologies did a lot to rectify that, and I was glad I incorporated them into my reading experience. Alas, the stories are not collected so far as I know, and the issues are not available on DC Universe Infinite, so if you want to follow my lead, you'll need to track them down on the secondary market.

Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant (Jan. 2010), Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant 2010 (Dec. 2010), and Justice Society of American 80-Page Giant 2011 (Aug. 2011) were each originally published in one issue. The stories were written by James Robinson, Felicia D. Henderson, Kevin Grevioux, Jerry Ordway, Jen Van Meter, Zander Cannon, Lilah Sturges, Marc Andreyko, Robert T. Jeschonek, Justin Peniston, Christina Weir & Nunzio DeFilippis, Jason Starr, Freddie Williams II, Brandon Jerwa, Steve Niles, B. Clay Moore, Matt Kindt, Matthew Cody, Drew Ford, Ivan Brandon, and Adam Beechen. They were pencilled by Neil Edwards, Renato Guedes, Roberto Castro, Jerry Ordway, Jesus Merino, Scott Hampton, Freddie Williams II, Mike Norton, Victor Ibàñez, Tonci Zonjic, Jesse Delperdang, Leandro Fernandez, Mateus Santolouco, Josh Adams, Tim Seeley, Andy Smith, Nic Klein, and Howard Chaykin, and they were inked by Wayne Faucher, José Wilson Magalhaes, John Floyd, Jerry Ordway, Jesse Delperdang, Scott Hampton, Freddie Williams II, Bill Sienkiewicz, Victor Ibàñez, Tonci Zonjic, Jesus Merino, Leandro Fernandez, Mateus Santolouco, Bob McLeod, Tim Seeley, Keith Champagne, Nic Klein, and Howard Chaykin. Colors were provided by Mike Thomas, David Curiel, Allan Passalaqua, Danny Vozzo, the Hories, Zac Atkinson, Tonci Zonjic, Alex Bleyaert, Chris Beckett, Mateus Santolouco, Thomas Chu, Nic Klein, and Jesus Aburtov, and letters by Rob Leigh, John J. Hill, and Swands. The stories were edited by Chris Conroy, Rachel Gluckstern, Mike Carlin, and Joey Cavalieri.

This post is forty-fifth in an ever-expanding series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment is a supplement covering a reading order for Justice Society of America volume 3. Previous installments are listed below:

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LX: Flashpoint

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2011 (contents: 2011)
Borrowed from the library
Read September 2016

Flashpoint

Writer: Geoff Johns

Penciller: Andy Kubert
Inkers: Sandra Hope, Jesse Delperdang
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano

After five thick volumes of build-up-- not to mention my own extradiegetic knowledge of how this book changed DC's continuity-- did Flashpoint live up to it all? Not really. The Flash wakes up in a world that I already knew the basics of, having read all the World of Flashpoint tie-ins (the Wonder Woman and Batman ones were probably the most relevant in the end). He spends a lot of time being baffled why he doesn't have powers and why his mom is still alive, he goes to talk to Batman, he electrocutes himself, he blames Professor Zoom the Reverse Flash for it all but discovers it's his own work, and he fixes his mistake. Given the large, complicated world the tie-ins introduced, the events of the main story are distressingly straightforward. (And some of them never really tied in at all, like Kid Flash's role in the Flash volume.)

C'mon, Barry, it's an alternate universe. You're a superhero, you should be used to this crap.
from Flashpoint vol. 2 #1 (art by Andy Kubert & Sandra Hope)

There's some potential in the idea that the Flash blames his enemy for messing with time, but it turns out to be his own work, but Geoff Johns doesn't really exploit that here. It should send your world shuddering to a halt, instead it just feels like a minor road bump on the way to the climax. That Barry Allen, not just the fastest man alive but often the nicest, could create a world so horrific seems worth delving into, but Johns doesn't. That he did it in his sleep, apparently, is a big copout. There's a good story about parents and expectations somewhere in here, given that the biggest character other than the Flash is a version of Batman who is a Thomas Wayne that watched his son die, but Johns doesn't do anything with these themes or ideas. Even at five issues (compare to Crisis on Infinite Earth's twelve-plus!), this story feels stretched out, with Barry electrocuting himself to regain his powers twice for no obvious narrative reason.

I wish I remembered.
from Flashpoint vol. 2 #5 (art by Andy Kubert and Sandra Hope & Jesse Delperdang)

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a good metric here: Marv Wolfman and George Perez made something epic. Then, when Wolfman novelized it and told it from the perspective of Barry Allen, it became something impressively personal. Flashpoint is neither as epic nor as personal as it wants to be.

Including Grifter in the same tier of heroes as Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman makes the presence of Cyborg look positively reasonable.
from Flashpoint vol. 2 #5 (art by Andy Kubert and Sandra Hope & Jesse Delperdang)

Next Week: What's this new DC universe like? I go back to the beginning to find out, to the days of the Zero Year!