Written by Geoff Johns
Illustrated by Jim LeeThe superstar team of writer Geoff Johns and artist Jim Lee continue to make history as they unleash the amazing Amazon, Wonder Woman, who joins the battle against a bizarre threat! And the not-yet World’s Greatest Heroes need all the help they can get!
I’ve got it, guys!
This makes this so much clearer – why didn’t I think of this before?
The New 52 was supposed to be a direct sequel to the mega-blockbuster success of the Green Lantern movie!
It all makes perfect sense. Geoff Johns wrote most of the scripts for the first arc of Justice League, the flagship series of the New 52, before Green Lantern, the movie, tanked at the box office! He must have, as Flashpoint launched in May and in June 1, DC announced the New 52. We all know that Jim Lee draws at a snail’s pace, so Johns must have had at least the first few scripts in to Lee by the time that Green Lantern became a punch line for lame superhero films in 2011.
This really does shed light on a lot. Click the jump for more.
It explains why Justice League reads like an action film: this was supposed to be a continuation of the Green Lantern story. It presents all the characters where they would be approximately 6 months after Green Lantern finishes, with Hal being still new to the GL job, but established enough. The comic would also lead into The Man of Steel nicely, as well as the post-Nolan Batman movies, a Flash feature, the Wonder Woman TV series, and a future Justice League movie. The timeline works exceptionally well – NBC didn’t pass on Wonder Woman unti May 13, 2 days after Flashpoint #1 was released. If all went well, a few weeks after Justice League #1 was released, you could watch the adventures of Wonder Woman on television (it also explains why initial JL promotional materials had Wonder Woman in pants, like on the TV show). And, buy the Green Lantern Blu-Ray.
It shows why Hal Jordan is more of the cocky lothario he’s presented as in the film, as opposed to how he has, traditionally, been shown, which is to say a slightly less cocky lothario. It also explains why people had to be sans-love interests in the New 52 – these comics were supposed to take place in the movie universe, and what’s the fun in an already married Barry Allen or Clark Kent? Chicks want love stories, and this way their bro boyfriends can take them to the movies to see not just some kickass action, but also some romantic stuff.
Now, is this to say that Justice League is as bad of a comic book as Green Lantern was a movie? No – first of all, Green Lantern isn’t as bad as you remember it (it is bad, but not THAT bad), and Justice League, if taken as part of its initial mission statement, is a half-decent action movie, presented as a comic.
So, because we are at issue #3, we should start to see the plot developing – let’s say each comic makes up 20 minutes of screen time, so the first arc of the story should make up the first JL film. This issue begins at minute 41 – 4/7 of the team has been assembled, and the heroes have stopped fighting each other, and started to work as a unit. And, like an action movie, the plot is pretty predictable. Pretty girl shows up, boy swoons. The action moves to the water, the aquatic hero joins in. Etc, etc. And I have to admit, if this was the way hour one of a movie ended, I would be satisfied with my $12 bucks to see it.
Continued belowHowever, as a comic reader, who has spent $12 to see only half of this story, I’m not quite so thrilled.
That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed this comic; I have. Jim Lee has been Jim Lee on pencils, and that is a pretty remarkable thing. The detail he brings to Dr. Stone’s lab, Jordan’s constructs, the streets of Washington, DC; each panel bursts forth with detail, and the action sequences are some of the best work of his career. These are the best storyboards for Die Hard 6: This Time, It’s Meta Powered I’ve ever seen.
And, despite never being a professional screenwriter, Johns has this action movie thing down pat. He has introduced a few scenes of comic relief (LOL, Wonder Woman loves ice cream), he has teased villains for the sequel (T.O. Morrow, Dr. Ivo, Mr. Orr), sowed seeds for a love story (the classic cop guarding a witness, inverted here as a Pentagon liaison guarding an Amazon), a familial struggle (The Stones), and all the buddy cop magic you could ever want!
Which is to say that the pages fly by – there is a lot of fun stuff happening in this comic. However, as I have bitched about before, this is priced as an oversized comic, but there are only 20 pages of illustrated content. The movie will be 30 minutes shorter than it is supposed to be as it is advertised on the poster. In addition to that, the story just isn’t all that engaging on a re-readability level. The fun has been in seeing how this iconic team comes together; that should be part of it, but it should also be an exciting to read story.
And this story, so far, just isn’t that exciting. Part of that is that there aren’t real stakes yet, and part of that is because of the decision to set this story in the past, each character (besides Cyborg) has their own ongoing book, so we know Batman doesn’t lose an arm here, or Aquaman get choked out by his collar – this is an origin story where we already know the outcome. Because of that, the story itself should be engrossing and thrilling. Johns can do this; Superman: Secret Origin, while not perfect, was an example of how to do this properly. Ditto Green Lantern: Secret Origin. For a film audience (unfamiliar with the characters), this would be a perfectly feasible story but for a comic, it falls short.
But instead, we are left with a very readable, well drawn comic that doesn’t have all that much to do. I hope that the second half of this movie proves me wrong and makes me want to own the film to show it to my kids one day, but so far, this is, at best, a rental.
Final Verdict: 6.0 – Browse
