Justice League #1 - Eric's Review

The first comic I ever bought with my own money was Uncanny X-Men #275. You could buy comics at 7-11 in those days, off of a spinner that was kept segregated from more overtly adult fare on the other magazine racks. Guns, girls and fast cars were kept over here, but comics are for kids and were stocked on the spinner rack over there. This separation seems necessary unless you actually knew what was inside the comics.

It was 1991. I was 12 years old. I had enough cash on hand to buy one comic, and I picked the X-Men book out of the bunch because I was drawn to the artwork, done by a rising star named Jim Lee.

I can’t help but feel a slight tinge of irony, knowing that the one of the architects of a brand new DC universe is part of generations past and has been working in comics for more than 20 years. On the other hand, maybe Lee’s involvement makes perfect sense. If heroes and villains and stories can be reinvented, why can’t the creators themselves?

Lee’s collaborator, writer Geoff Johns chooses to set this everything-old-is-new-again introduction to the Justice League five years in the past, a gambit fraught with danger since we don’t really know what the present looks like in this everything-old-is-new-again DC universe. The story opens with a police chase and a caption: “There was a time when the world didn’t call them its greatest super-heroes. There was a time when the world didn’t know what a super-hero was.” The Justice League doesn’t exist yet. This will be the story of its creation.

Soon, the object of that police pursuit becomes clear. Johns wisely chooses to begin his story with the one member-to-be of the Justice League who legitimately needs no introduction. Batman is arguably the most popular superhero in the world, and if you don’t already know that billionaire Bruce Wayne dresses as a flying rodent and fights crime in Gotham City, then you’ve probably spent the last dozen years or so living in a cave, possibly a Batcave.   

Batman mostly ignores the police as he continues his own pursuit, of a seemingly superhuman entity. Green Lantern shows up, introducing himself to Batman again for the first time. Hijinks ensue before the pair heads to Metropolis to enlist the aid of another hero. That hero, sans red trunks for the first time in more than seventy years, appears on the last page, promising a showdown with Batman, to be continued next issue.

The issue is not without its faults, but Johns and Lee handle this Herculean labor effectively enough. The story works best when they keep it moving forward, playing to their strengths as writer and artist. From the police chase to the pursuit of the superhuman-extraterrestrial, it turns out-entity to the appearance of the JL’s third charter member, the comic moves at a frenetic pace, only slowing down long enough to introduce Vic Stone, a high school football player whose father is somehow involved in superhuman research. Longtime DC comics readers will understand Vic’s eventual significance, but to the new readers that this Justice League and this whole New 52 initiative are targeting, this pause in the action may seem like an awkward and unnecessary digression.

Johns’ economical use of dialog to develop characters is another of the book’s key strengths. Green Lantern is brash. Batman is, by necessity, kind of a jerk, but he does his research. He’s the world’s greatest detective, an aspect of his character that is all too often ignored by other storytellers. Johns use of dialog to explain how Green Lantern’s ring works fits organically into the story and is one of the high points of the issue. However, whenever Johns relies on dialog to advance the plot or provide exposition, the story falters. GL’s references to himself in the third person quickly become tedious. The guy in green with the lantern symbol on his chest is the Green Lantern? Got it. Let’s move on.

The issue’s biggest shortcoming, however, is that it feels woefully incomplete. Justice League will likely be someone’s first comic book, and as such should’ve been structured to give the reader a complete experience, with a beginning, middle and a satisfactory ending. This is not to say that Johns and Lee needed to introduce the entire roster. On the contrary, they should be commended for their approach, easing into the story and taking time to establish each character. However, it would’ve been nice to see Batman and Green Lantern do something besides bicker while the extraterrestrial menace they’d been chasing conveniently self-destructs.  Jim Lee is one of the most dynamic artists in the medium; putting his skills, and those of Batman and GL, to the test with a big damn fight could’ve provided a little more content and might have done wonders in making the book feel like a complete experience.  

Justice League #1 is not perfect, but it’s a perfect place to start, and it represents a solid first effort from the architects of this new DC universe. However, after spending most of the long holiday weekend in search of a sugar-free Slurpee (such a thing DOES exist), I noticed that those comic book spinner racks are conspicuously absent from 7-11s these days. I can’t help but wonder if maybe there’s a better, easier way to put comics in front of new sets of eyes.