By: Marc Guggenheim (writer), Scott Kolins (art), Mike Atiyeh (colors) & Rob Leigh (letters)
The Story: The JSA takes on a super-powered terrorist.
What’s Good: Ugh! Not much. This was a hot mess. The best thing about the comic is Kolins’ art, which is quite good in places. Compared to the current inking style that uses heavy blacks, Kolins is using a much more nuanced shading scheme that probably takes a lot more time. This combines with Atiyeh’s colors to give the page an almost painterly look that is quite nice. They also have to handle drawing elderly heroes, which is something an artist isn’t called on to do everyday.
From a story standpoint, the most interesting thing is having the old Green Lantern and Flash staving off retirement to fight crime once again. So, it has a Space Cowboys vibe to it (if you’re into that sort of thing).
What’s Not So Good: Again breaking my rule about dragging my personal baggage into a review, but it is relevant in this case…. I’m almost exclusively a Marvel and small publisher reader, but have been sampling a lot of DC stuff recently. I quite liked Teen Titans #88. Enjoyed JLA #50 last week. Enjoyed the most recent issue of Supergirl. Mind you, I didn’t LOVE any of these titles, but I liked them enough to pick them up again next month.
It turns out that pattern didn’t continue with JSA #44. This was just full of a hodgepodge of characters who I am not very familiar with and have never felt compelled to learn about. The current JSA is made up of Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, Dr. Fate, Ted Grant, the new Mr. Terrific and Lighting. So, you’ve got 4 old (and I mean OLD) DC characters who have struggled to find relevance for years (decades?) and a couple of newer characters who I’d never heard of. With that mix of characters, it is just going to be hard to have a compelling story.
Conclusion: If you’re a DC completist or are a big fan of these characters, this might be something you want to try. Otherwise, I’d skip it because it wasn’t that good and doesn’t seem that essential to the DCU.
Grade: D
– Dean Stell
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