Toaster's Ramblings - Justice League VS JLA Edition

For Christmas I received the first two volumes of Grant Morrison's run on JLA from the late 90's. I love it. It features the biggest heroes in the DC universe in larger than life storylines against epic villains, such as defending the Earth from an invasion of White Martians guised as heroes or fighting off an invading army of angels from destroying the Earth or the epic Rock of Ages storyline. This is what I wanted when, at the birth of the New 52 reboot, I subscribed to Justice League. I just don't feel like it delivered anywhere near as well as JLA did. So sorry, this is yet another bitch session about the New 52.

I really just wanted that super team book with big names and great storylines. New 52 gave us big names, but the stories have largely sucked. The first arc where they come together to fight Darkseid felt rushed and was the first big taste of how DC was making its timeless characters more "edgy." They made them into assholes. Green Lantern and Batman snipe at each other like kids on a playground. Their new interpretation of Superman would rather beat the living hell out of someone, causing massive collateral damage in the process, than... oh, I don't know... talk to them? Reason with them? Find out what's going on? You know, those traits that made Superman one of the most revered heroes ever. No, even though he is knowingly capable of killing almost anyone and can level cities, he would rather just kick someone's ass.

From there was the lousy 'Graves' storyline, where the guy who wrote about the Justice League became a bad guy with psychic powers to mess with the heroes... you know, like Despero, The Key, Dr. Destiny, Gorilla Grodd, Dr. Psycho and the litany of other psychic villains that are part of the League's rogues gallery. Like I said, the story was boring and crappy.

Then we got the Throne of Atlantis arc. This could have been good except for two problems. The first was that the Justice League book suddenly became the launching point for readers to have to buy a bunch of other titles to know what was going on in the storyline. JLA could tell a story within that actual book, but the New 52 Justice League has to spread its story out to other books. Granted, the only other book to buy here was Aquaman, but this leads me to the second problem... I just didn't care. You see, the whole Atlantis invading the land and using tidal waves to destroy cities and Aquaman having to come to terms with being the King of the Oceans and a hero and a part-time land-dweller... it's all been done before. This is a frequent complaint I have with the New 52. So the Teen Titans have to face Trigon for the first time... again? Oh no, you mean there are evil counterparts to the Justice League from another dimension? That's news to me! (More on this later).

The Trinity War followed. What a waste of time. We were led to believe that the Justice League would be fighting the US government founded Justice League of America (and for some reason Justice League Dark). It was an interesting set-up harkening back to the Justice League Unlimited plotline of the USA being distrusting of the god-like heroes who claim they were protecting them. The inevitable conflict that would arise from their confrontation would have made for a great read... and we almost got that for one part of the seven part series. The rest was a damn wild goose chase, a red herring to the advent of Forever Evil. I honestly feel lied to. Remember that Free Comic Book Day comic about the Trinity War where we saw several heroes fighting in the streets? That never happened. What about the advertisements that showed members of all three teams in a massive free-for-all? Nope, just bullshit.

I will admit, the introduction of the Crime Syndicate was cool. But the Forever Evil event... and I say event because it is a universe-wide storyline, except for several books that I guess can't be bothered (Stormwatch, the super-team tasked with the planet's protection from outside forces apparently have better things to do)... the Forever Evil event is just dragging on and on. This is turning into a year long arc that is rapidly losing steam. I was collecting it, but now I think I will just wait for a trade paperback collection... if it ends well. And to get back to my main point, this entire long storyline has left almost all the League members indisposed, so it really isn't a great Justice League story either. In fact, the book seems to just be this weird means to re-introduce other, seemingly forgotten DC properties such as Doom Patrol and The Metal Men.

You know, I want to point out that there are a hell of a lot of DC characters that could actually fight the Crime Syndicate and probably win, but for whatever reason have been dismissed. What about Apollo, Midnighter, Power Girl, Huntress, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, Starfire, Red Hood, Arsenal, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Static and virtually everyone from that Justice League International book that was cancelled? They alone would be one hell of an army! Where are all the other DC heroes? Or did Johnny Quick somehow create a time vortex that they got sucked into like the Teen Titans? (Lame.)

Now to follow with another common argument I make when bitching about the New 52... how great the Marvel Now material has been by contrast! I started reading Uncanny Avengers from the first issue because it seemed interesting and it had Havok, one of my favorite Marvel characters, leading the team. Now this book is what I was looking for from Justice League! You have heavy hitter characters like Thor, Captain America and Wolverine mixed with various (and sometimes underrated) X-book names like Havok, Rogue and Sunfire. And they have awesome storylines, kept within their book so I don't have to buy a bunch of side issues to follow the action! They have fought the Red Skull who, with the super telepathic brain of Charles Xavier grafted to his own, mentally suggests to the humans of the world to kill the newly revived mutant population. Currently, there is this insane storyline about the Apocalypse Twins that I can't even to begin to explain how awesome it is. Let's just say they had their own "Four Horsemen of Death" comprised of Banshee, Grim Reaper, Daken and the Sentry! That alone is cooler than anything I've read in that Justice League book. The Uncanny Avengers is one of those comics that reminds me why I love comics!

I will probably stick with Justice League for at least a while after the Forever Evil story concludes. The new Justice League incarnation set to follow with Lex Luthor in charge seems promising. (Though I should point out that showing us advertisements for the team featuring characters currently "fighting for their lives" kind of lets a lot of the air out of the suspenseful nature of that big story arc.) I just wish that they would get back to good storytelling like from that other universe whose years of continuity were thrown away for a gimmick and some quick sales. But hey, now our heroes are edgy assholes, so that's something... right?

Toaster's Ramblings - Trinity War and Forever Evil edition

Jonny and I bitch a lot about DC’s New 52 relaunch. It’s not that we’re just perpetual haters; it’s that they took a universe that we had come to know and love, flaws and all, and restarted it under the pretense three factors. The first is that DC wanted to make their comics easier to access by their fans. Instead of having to pick up a comic with a decade or more of back issue continuity, fans could start with issue one. The second reason was to erase the mistakes of bad writing as well as de-age all the characters to keep them younger and more relatable to the target demographic. But the main reason was of course to make money… and in that respect the New 52 has been a huge success. However, there have been tons of problems that we have had with the relaunch and its subsequent storylines.

This leads me to my main point. From the literal beginning of the New 52 and for two years since, DC has been building to the “Trinity War,” this huge battle between Justice Leagues that was going to rock the universe. I decided to give the storyline a chance. What a friggin’ let down.

The Trinity War offered little in the way of the all-out war between the Leagues (as was promised by the Free Comic Book Day promo comic). Instead, it was really just a lame wild goose chase centered on a red herring. I did, however, like the ending of the Trinity War storyline of introducing the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3 into the main DCU. But this in turn had me questioning, much like I did with Marvel’s Ultimate line ten years ago, how many new ways can you tell the same old story? How many times now has the Crime Syndicate of America been “introduced” into the main DC universe?

Moving on, there was a confusing jump where the CSA claimed that the Justice League was dead and that they (or evil) had taken over the world. Funny, I thought evil just took over the world a few years ago during the Final Crisis storyline. Huh. Obviously they aren’t really dead or else DC will have to pull something out of their asses like replace them with another alternate reality Justice League or even have to do another reboot.

Of course this lead to the new gimmick of releasing a month’s worth of villain-centric issues in place of the regular monthly titles. And just so we know that the spirit of the 90’s is still alive and kicking, DC offered those issues in neat 3D lenticular covers. I will admit that many of them looked really cool, even if they did tend to give me a headache.

I didn’t read all of the villain issues, but I have thumbed through those not in my pull box at the comic shop. They were pretty hit or miss. Some were pretty interesting, like the issues dedicated to Deadshot, Penguin, Relic and Doomsday. Others, like Deathstroke’s, Solomon Grundy’s, Darkseid and Desaad’s… not so much. The best one I read was Black Adam’s. That one not only explained his resurrection but also featured him kicking some serious ass! 

The best thing to come of these villain issues, at least with some of them, is the chance to learn what their current origins are in the New 52. Some are pretty much the same, while others like Bane’s, Cyborg Superman’s and Creeper (who apparently is now a villain) have been changed considerably. My point is that some of these issues are filling in the ambiguous origins of these villains post-reboot. That has been a major issue Jonny and I have had with the New 52.  Instead of beginning the reboot at, I don’t know… the beginning, they started the universe about 5 years in and didn’t bother to tell us what was already canon and what hadn’t “happened” yet. Worse yet, it seemed that the continuity of the Green Lantern books have carried over from before the reboot, despite much of that history not likely to have occurred? For instance, was Coast City destroyed and cause Hal Jordan to go insane and become Parallax? If not, why is Kyle Rayner around? If so, how was the universe restarted without the “big bang” created by Damage, who doesn’t seem to exist in the New 52? See what I mean? These villain issues at least give us some idea of this “lost” history.

Where the Forever Evil storyline is headed seems to be a big showdown between the Crime Syndicate versus Lex Luthor and whoever he can scrape together to back him up (shades of the original CSA story). Will it be any good? Probably not as good as what Marvel’s doing with their Infinity event. Since the Marvel Now rebranding (I don’t know what else to call it… it’s not a reboot) they have been doing some cool stuff. I find myself far more excited to read Uncanny Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova and Deadpool than I am any of the DC titles I have subscribed to at the comic shop. Maybe it’s time for another reboot.