Justice League #1 Review
It's finally here. It's out with the old and in with the new. Flashpoint wrapped up what was left of the old DC Universe and right alongside it came Geoff Johns and Jim Lee's Justice League #1. The book has been set apart from the rest of the New 52, heralded as the movement's flagship title. This is the comic that longtime readers will be picking up to make their judgment calls, but more importantly, it's the title that new readers will be turning to in the aftermath of the media storm that is taking place as you read this. But underneath it all, beyond the hyperbole generating hype machine, is this a comic that will satisfy both crowds?
Justice League #1 brings us five years into the past of the new DCU, a time when superheroes were feared by the public and operated separately from one another. They don't know one another's identities and they certainly don't trust each other. Johns and Lee are clearly aiming to establish the coming together of the Justice League we all know and love, but issue #1 would be more accurately labeled as a Batman/Green Lantern team-up. Johns delivers the goods on the personality clash of Hal Jordan and Bruce Wayne, with a bulk of this issue featuring fun banter that conceals essential exposition to get new readers up to speed on the general concept behind each character. To be honest, reading it as a longtime fan requires some getting used to, as it's a scene so familiar yet ultimately brand new. If you look at it from that perspective, it should put to rest any lingering fears that these characters might not be the same ones you knew and loved as they were a week ago. You'll get that familiar feeling, but without the expectation that you'll be able to predict where the story goes next.
The one real detriment of the book is that it suffers from an extremely slow pace. There's plenty of action to be had, but the centerpiece of this issue is Batman and Green Lantern taking jabs at one another while on a hunt to find the alien in Metropolis known as Superman. It's not dull, but if future installments keep this pace, it could become problematic once the amusement of seeing these characters interacting for the first time wears off. To his credit, Johns recognized this in issue #1 and switched gears just as I grew tired of the back-and-forth between Hal and Bruce. Issue #1 briefly touches upon Cyborg –un-cyborged at this point –and introduces another Leaguer by issue's end that will hopefully kick things into a higher gear come issue #2.
If you're a new reader, curious whether DC is holding their promise of accessibility, worry not. Justice League #1 is entirely competent as an introduction to the DCU, albeit a very small step towards a landscape that will only continue to reveal itself as the New 52 press on.
Jim Lee's return to a monthly book is always exciting, and Justice League #1 looks exactly how you'd expect it to. Lee's layouts give the book a larger visual scope than is implied in the narrative; he often works in widescreen or tall vertical panels, giving the book a cinematic tinge that parallels the theoretical magnitude of what this series represents. His character work is solid and the costume designs look superb "in action," though there are still the common instances of facial identities bleeding together and a limited range of emotion. However, Johns gives Lee plenty of constructs and action sequences to let loose on, and despite the slower pace of the book, the artist gets a chance to concoct some truly awesome stuff (fire truck construct,anyone?). Equally great is the amount of attention that Lee pays to his backgrounds, offering a consistent portrayal of Gotham's rooftops and skyline.
Justice League #1 is fun, no doubt about it. There is a certain sense of feeling underwhelmed after reading it, simply because it's been hammered into our brains that this book represents the ushering of the single biggest comic book industry initiative in years. It's gained a whole lot of external weight. But when you strip all that excess media hype away, you're left with a perfectly entertaining –if somewhat safe –glimpse into a universe we're only just beginning to understand.
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