As pleased as we were to see the JSA Omnibus Vol. 1 on DC Comics's 2014 release schedule, a big sticking point was that the book would collect only issues #6-28 of the original series, skipping issues #1-5 that were written by James Robinson and David Goyer rather than Geoff Johns, who joined the title with #6.

DC Comics has apparently heard your cries, because as commenter David Raid points out, the contents for JSA Omnibus have now changed on Amazon. This isn't definite, but it's a pretty good sign that we're getting what we want.

The original contents were JSA #6-28, JSA Annual #1, JSA Secret Files #2, JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice, JSA: Our Worlds at War #1, JLA/JSA Secret Files #1, Secret Origins of Super-Villains 80-page Giant #1 and JSA All Stars #1-8.

Amazon reports the new contents are JSA #1-25, JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice, JSA All-Stars #1-8, JSA Our Worlds at War #1, JLA/JSA Secret Files #1, JSA Secret Files #1, All-Star Comics #1-2, All-American Comics #1, Adventure Comics #1, National Comics #1, Sensation Comics #1, Smash Comics #1, Star Spangled Comics #1 and Thrilling Comics #1.

These new contents would encompass the JSA collections Justice Be Done, Darkness Falls, and Return of Hawkman, issues #1-25. We lose the Secret Origins of Super-Villains 80-page Giant, JSA All Stars, and maybe a Secret Files, though on my DC Trade Paperback Timeline, I show All-Stars as taking place during issue #40-something of JSA, so this is no big deal; they can get it in the next volume (my mistake; JSA All-Stars is in there). And, DC has added to the collection the various stories that made up the "Justice Society Returns" storyline, a set of specials set in the original Justice Society's heyday that included a Starman story by James Robinson, Star-Spangled Kid by Geoff Johns, Wildcat by Chuck Dixon, and Green Lantern by Ron Marz, among others.

For those of us who've been waiting for the JSA Omnibus for a while, I know this is welcome news.

Writer Eric Wallace's Mr. Terrific: Mind Games represents a first for DC Comics's New 52 line -- it is one of the first New 52 titles to be cancelled. As such, Mr. Terrific Volume One is actually "volume one and only," and the trade collects all eight issues of the series.

Despite its cancellation, Wallace does a nice job here -- Mr. Terrific is a science-based superhero, and Mind Games has science in spades. The book suffers however from a rough start, uneven artwork, and occasional clumsy writing on Wallace's part; a second collection of Mr. Terrific would have been welcome, but it's not hard to see why the book was cancelled. It's a shame, both for the loss of the title and character, and for the way Wallace addresses race (and fans address race back) that would have been interesting to watch had the book continued.

[Review contains spoilers]

The "old" DC Universe's Mr. Terrific Michael Holt was a member of the Justice Society, was a major figure in Checkmate, dated Sasha Bordeaux, was friends with Dr. Mid-Nite, and so on. Wallace's Terrific is none of these things, and counter-intuitively it makes the reader want to follow him. Holt is the world's third smartest man, as we're both told and Wallace demonstrates, but his personal life is a mess -- his employees don't trust his judgment, he neglects his company, and he won't let any of the women in his life close to him.

Holt comes by it honestly, having cut himself off from most people after the death of his wife, and his combination of prowess and well-meaning ignorance makes him a likeable protagonist. There's marked similarity between Holt and the New 52 Green Arrow Oliver Queen, only Queen is something of a playboy and showboat and Holt is not; when Holt brushes off the advances of his colleague Aleeka, the reader's heart goes out to them because Holt's standoffishness comes from his own pain.

Wallace leaves no doubt that the root of the Mr. Terrific book is science, both because of Holt's avowed preference for all things scientific and for how much science pseudo-fact Wallace packs into each page. In the penultimate chapter, Terrific fights a militia group made invisible via gamma frequencies and creates an "inverse compton scattering wave pulse" to make them visible; at another point he relies on molecular chemistry to defeat the matter-shifting Tomorrow Thief. Wallace includes material like this on almost every single page, and it makes for interesting reading if also a considerable amount of verbiage.

The initial three issues of Mind Games see Holt investigating a mysterious sound that makes the citizens of Los Angeles quite suddenly psychotic. The first two parts of the story proceed well -- Holt himself is affected and must stop an earthquake of his own deranged making. In the third part, however, Holt faces new villain Brainstorm, who ingests the minds of the crazed victims; though the New 52 must necessarily introduce new villains, Brainstorm is silly in attitude and appearance, and he doesn't present a "cool" threat for Terrific. Wallace gets points for the unexpected revelation that Brainstorm might have caused Holt's wife's death, but this too is lessened by how ridiculous Brainstorm seems.

The artwork in these chapters is problematic. Gianluca Gugliotta, for the first two issues, has a unique style -- bodies somewhat large, faces somewhat gnarled -- that is appealing but far from traditional superheroic imagery. Scott Clark's art in the third chapter, however, is plain and blocky, and lacks the storytelling aspects that comics require (at one point Terrific and Brainstorm have a conversation at the same time Terrific is punching Brainstorm in the stomach). The third chapter is meant to be the culmination of Mr. Terrific's first arc, the real selling point for the title, and the difficulty of both story and art in this issue, even despite some surprises, must necessarily have sealed this book's fate.

Despite many aspects worthy of praise in Wallace's further stories -- the additional romantic plotline that precedes Terrific's battle with the Tomorrow Thief, and the depiction of Holt Industries' corporate dealings around Digitus's attack -- the same problems recur. Neither the Thief nor Digitus are engaging villains, visually nor story-wise, and the art remains rough throughout. Wallace also has a tendency to overnarrate, both with Terrific's inner scientific monologue and in "telling" Terrific's origins and about his past conflict with the Blackhawks, for instance, rather than letting the background play out naturally through the story.

A specific bright spot -- and there are quite a few -- is Terrific's trip to space in the fourth and fifth issues. Kidnapped from his trans-dimensional headquarters, Terrific leads a band of aliens in revolt against cosmic slavers. The space setting is unusual for Mr. Terrific as readers knew him in the "old" DC Universe, but in the end Wallace uses the multi-gendered alien Py'lothia to parallel the plight of LGBT teenagers and Terrific's own emotional confusion. It's a rare bit of relevance, the kind that the New 52 likely needs to be relevant (and that, again, Green Arrow: The Midas Touch tries for and fails), that distinguishes this book and would have portended good thing for Mr. Terrific had it continued.

Though there are a predominant amount of African American characters here (most of the Holt Industries staff, compared again to Oliver Queen's Q-Core staff, who are all white), the book is not much about race; Wallace, who is African American, even told IGN before the series's release that he did not necessarily intend to make Holt's race a large factor. The most overt undertaking of race is in the first issue when Holt's girlfriend Karen Starr (nee Power Girl) asks if Aleeka objects to her dating Holt because Karen is white; also in the first issue, Terrific chides some bystanders for complaining about his rescue, suggesting they should have said instead, "Thanks black man for saving us" (with the emphasis meant to be on the save, not necessarily on Terrific's race).

The latter item, certainly the milder of the two, has garnered its share of controversy. Comments about Terrific's statement on IGN's review of Mr. Terrific #1 border on the offensive; however, read/RANT!, Too Dangerous for a Girl, and Weekly Comic Book Review all more reasonably object to the sentence as well, suggesting it represents a forced emphasis on race in the story.

This is surprising because it doesn't appear Wallace intends to create controversy here. There is not significant difference between what Terrific says and the giant Atom Smasher saying, for instance, "Thanks big guy for saving us," except that Wallace's line addresses a taboo. It would not, as a matter of fact, be polite for someone to say to Terrific "thanks black guy," but yet neither ought the reader expect Terrific to be agnostic of his own race. Terrific (via Wallace, the reader extrapolates) lives his race every day, and as such he might use it to describe himself just the same as Atom Smasher might do the same with his height.

Whether the comics market will support a title with a minority protagonist -- whether Terrific's race, in essence, contributed to the cancellation of the title -- is endlessly debatable, but to suggest a title like Mr. Terrific has a greater responsibility to ignore the main character's race than to address it seems even more unreasonable.

How all of this might have played out had the series continued can't be known, unfortunately. But Mr. Terrific: Mind Games represents an interesting one-shot; Eric Wallace may not have been the writer to carry this series long-term, but he does satisfactory work for one book. Mr. Terrific ends on a cliffhanger that leads into James Robinson's Earth 2 series -- this appears to be how many cancelled DC New 52 series end, with the characters carrying on into other titles, something that makes the cancellation seem not so severe. Mr. Terrific came and went, but it's nice to think this single collection still matters in the greater DC Universe overall.

[Includes original covers, sketchbook section and penciled pages.]

Later this week, the Collected Editions review of another cancelled DC New 52 title, Static Shock.  See you then!

[Our look this week at the last pre-New 52 days of the Justice Society continues today with a trip back to the early days of JSA, with this guest review by Doug Glassman]

I was singing the praises of JSA: Darkness Falls all the way back in 2005 when I wrote for Comixfan . . . a position I originally left because I felt like the only DC reader on a Marvel-centric site. Oh, how the times have changed, although my opinion about the book certainly hasn’t. Perhaps my greatest disappointment with the New 52 is how much of Darkness Falls was written out of continuity, even on Earth-2.

In retrospect, it’s amazing how nearly every story in Geoff Johns’ run on the pre-relaunch title began in this trade. It chronicles Obsidian’s turn to evil, the revamped Injustice Society and the beginning of the fall of Atom Smasher, which would eventually lead to the reintroduction of Black Adam as a major force in the DC Universe. The only major villain missing is Mordru, who was the villain in the previous trade. Like Busiek’s Avengers, Goyer and Johns kept a number of storylines running consecutively, switching between them as new opportunities arise.

This volume sees the classic roster still under construction. Green Lantern Alan Scott, Flash Jay Garrick, Wildcat, Black Canary, Atom Smasher, Star-Spangled Kid, Hawkgirl and Sand are present, but Mr. Terrific and Dr. Mid-Nite are only introduced to the team in this volume. The team already feels more like a family than a team, with Alan as the stern father, Jay as the kindly uncle, and Ted as the feisty grandfather. It’s still strange seeing Jack Knight as an active, almost eager Starman, and his departure from the superhero game is catalogued in his own title. I also lamented the departure of Hippolyta from the title; the team would lack a physically powerful woman until Power Girl joined a few years later.

I consider Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. to be one of the greatest books about a teenage superhero protagonist. Courtney was an absolute brat in the title, but she was sympathetic to some degree as a fish out of water California girl who started trolling her stepfather by dressing up as his dead partner. One of her greatest stresses in life in her series was getting braces, and it’s a character quirk that’s stayed with her. Visually, her costume is actually somewhat conservative for a modern superheroine despite showing off her stomach.

Paul Levitz may have laid on the “heart of the team” role too thickly in JSA: Ghost Stories, but she really is the team’s moral center. The JSA has her around both to train her and, subconsciously, to keep them in check. Despite being based on Johns’ deceased sister, she never comes across as a Mary Sue; instead, she’s kept in check by her flaws.

So now we get to the main reason why I love this trade: Atom Smasher. As a fellow tall, awkward Jewish guy with issues over a lost parent, I identify with him a lot. I lost my father about two years before I read this book for the first time, and when Al loses his mother, I felt his rage. If I could somehow put a heart attack on a crashing plane, I would too, and while I have my own issues with morality in comic book universes, I feel that the team’s mixed feelings over Al’s actions against Extant are well-presented. They know that any murder is morally wrong . . . but why not get rid of an omnicidal maniac instead of a colleague’s mother?

When Al confronts Kobra, the mastermind of the bombing, he nearly crushes him to death, and while, again, I would understand going through with it, Jack Knight talks him down in a fantastic sequence. It becomes stronger if you’ve read Starman and know about the times Jack has killed someone.

Over the course of JSA, Al’s murder of Extant and the reactions to it drive him over the edge, eventually crossing to Black Adam’s side and going to prison voluntarily. He didn’t do this under a magic spell, either. While Brainwave may have ramped up his violent side in Black Reign, his choices up to that point were his own. There’s also his relationship with Stargirl; despite the age disparity, their feelings ring true, and Al’s age would be easy to retcon . . . if either of them still existed.

The art for the titular story is provided by Stephen Sadowski, who has the unenviable task of working with a lot of black ink. He’s a strong enough craftsman to make the action visible, which can be difficult to do; it’s why, as much as I enjoy Peter Snejbjerg’s art, I had some issues with his work on the second half of Starman with the Shade. Sadowski also draws the fun Wildcat-centric “Wild Hunt,” well-known for how an octogenarian superhero defeats the entire Injustice Society. Sadowski’s energy escapes through the page thanks to Wildcat’s excitement.

However, the star of the show is Buzz, who draws “The Hunt for Extant” and provides perhaps the greatest image of Atom Smasher ever drawn. You’ve probably seen it: he’s holding Kobra’s plane aloft, about to crush it, screaming beneath his mask. It’s the main piece of artwork in Atom Smasher’s entries in the DC Comics Encyclopedia and other guidebooks; it’s even on the Atom Smasher Wikipedia page. I don’t even like when he’s drawn with features under his mask, and yet this one image conveys the immense pain he’s feeling. JSA also has a fun little running artistic gag: Atom Smasher’s mask breaks at the exact same point in nearly every battle, letting a little tuft of hair poke out. See if you can spot it when you read the book.

Essentially, JSA: Darkness Falls serves as the title’s Marvel Epic, setting up the future stories and redefining the team. Goyer and Johns provide all of the characters with a strong voice, the plotting moves swiftly, the art is solid and, well, it’s got Atom Smasher and Stargirl, two of DC’s best characters, in starring roles. I may have to draft a petition to secure their return.

[Thanks Doug! Tomorrow we finish Last Days of the Justice Society Week with our review of Power Girl: Old Friends. See you then!]

Writer Marc Guggenheim once took one of the worst eras in Flash history and crafted from it five issues of pure genius that not only redeemed the series, but remain eminently re-readable even after the fact. This is an important fact to establish when approaching Guggenheim's Justice Society of America: Monument Point, the final pre-Flashpoint Justice Society collection, which sadly falls short of Guggenheim's earlier DC Comics work.

Though the circumstances seem the same -- Guggenheim gets to write the end of a cancelled series -- they are not the same necessarily. If anything, Guggenheim had a greater lead-time on Justice Society, such that reader expectations must be necessarily higher; at the same time, there's no telling just how close to the DC New 52 premiere that Guggenheim was told he had to wrap things up.

Where Guggenheim fumbles a bit, consciously and on-screen, he can be entirely forgiven -- matter of fact, in the chaotic run-up to the New 52, Guggenheim can be forgiven entirely. But it remains that Monument Point is filled with dull and even uncomfortable moments, surely not the pre-Flashpoint send-off that most readers would want for the Justice Society. A reader might as well stop with Bill Willingham's Justice Society: Axis of Evil or Geoff Johns's Black Adam and Isis than continue on to where the title, essentially, peters out.

[Contains spoilers]

Monument Point starts with a great fiftieth issue for Justice Society, complete with a story drawn by George Perez about the Justice Society's influence on the Justice League, and a detailed story of the Justice Society versus McCarthyism with Howard Chaykin. The book begins well, and possibly if Guggenheim had been able to actually write his story of Flash Jay Garrick as mayor of Monument Point, this would be a different review.

Monument Point has its problems by the second issue, however. Most of this is taken up by Blue Devil, Dr. Fate, and Green Lantern journeying to another dimension to save Lightning's soul -- which they do. Suspense is nonexistent here -- Lightning's life is not narratively important enough to matter either way, and the conflict is entirely removed from the struggles of the rest of the Society; this could be the Shadowpact rescuing a comrade just as easily as members of the Society. Flash's political dealings are the more important of the chapter, but they're the B-plot against a lackluster A-plot.

The book's final three issues involve the Society seeking out the ancient city buried under Monument Point. This, again, isn't necessarily specific to the Justice Society, aside from warnings of disaster from time-traveling foe Per Degaton. At one point in Guggenheim's previous Justice Society volume, Supertown, one character strongly suggested that Monument Point's secret had to do with Flash and Green Lantern's actions during World War II, including their dilemma over killing a super-powered German infant; this portended fascinating things for Monument Point, but ultimately the "secret" is simply a giant "god" who feeds on the heroes' powers and rampages through the town.

Perhaps the book's biggest missed opportunity is that Guggenheim doesn't send the Society off to Valhalla to fight the god D'arken for eternity, just the same as writers did for the Society around Crisis on Infinite Earths. Guggenheim's Flash: Full Throttle was so suffused with shout-outs to DC continuity, it's a greater surprise that he didn't do this than if he had.

Throughout the book, there's aspects that just seem off. Jesse Quick fares poorly, as Guggenheim gives her one stupid decision after another that ends up freeing D'arken. Guggenheim uses the villain Scythe again, a poorly-defined stereotypical "terrorist"; that Guggenheim suggests prejudice among some of the older Society members would be an interesting long-term story, but in one or two scenes it just makes the heroes seem creepy. As well, Guggenheim offers an intriguing plot where Mr. Terrific is targeted because his skin color differs from the original Mr. Terrific. In a video message, however, Terrific's tormentor comes off as such a buffoon -- and artist Tom Derenick's art is far too cartoony both here and in much of the book -- that it steals away a lot of the story's impact; the plot seems dumb, not devastating.

When at the end of the book Guggenheim abanons the story and just has Terrific reappear, his fleeting-intelligence problems solved -- with a wink and a nod to the audience that he just "got better" -- I cheered; in the swift run up to the New 52, there's nothing wrong with Guggenheim cutting corners for the story's conclusion especially since he acknowledges it.

There's a nice couple of moments toward the end, especially a scene with former Checkmate allies Green Lantern and Mr. Terrific, and some of the art's more distorted aspects go away when Jerry Ordway takes over (though sadly we lose the sketchy, pencilled tone that Scott Kolins and Derenick had both used on the book). Unfortunately, however, Justice Society of America: Monument Point just lacks verve -- it is not much of a Justice Society story and certainly not much of a concluding one.

Justice Society (and its JSA predecessor) has at times been one of the best series DC Comics has been publishing, and certainly at times on the top of my reading list. Unfortunately, however, as with other top series (Catwoman, Checkmate, and JLA all come to mind). it probably should have been put to pasture much earlier than it was. We'll let this iteration of the Justice Society go now, and hopefully a return to greatness is on its way with James Robinson's New 52 Earth 2.

[Includes original and variant covers]

Our look at the last days of the pre-Flashpoint Justice Society continues later in the week with our review of the final Power Girl collection, Old Friends, before our review of the first (and only) DC New 52 Mr. Terrific collection next week. Don't touch that dial!

Writer Matt Sturges's JSA All-Stars: Glory Days both confirms and rejects my assertion, after reading the previous volume Constellations, that JSA All-Stars is really just a new iteration of the classic Infinity, Inc. team. Plot-wise, there isn't much remarkable in Glory Days, but fans of the team's roots will find a bit to enjoy nonetheless.

[Contains spoilers]

It isn't just that members of the JSA All-Stars team reminisce about their Infinity, Inc. days. It's isn't just that the book cameos another former Infinity, Inc. member, or that it picks up the threads of an Infinity, Inc. story. It's about the time that members of the JSA All-Stars actually drive by the old Infinity, Inc. headquarters and stop to take a look that it becomes impossible to deny how much the ghosts of that former team drive this book. Sturges begins the "Glory Days" story in Infinity, Inc.'s home base, Los Angeles as the team helps out former Infinity, Inc. supporting cast member Chief Bracken; this leads Infinitors Hourman and Atom Smasher to joke about the old days, all in the first six pages of the story. The connections grow exponentially from there.

The stated message of "Glory Days," however, is that one can't regain the past. A group of telepathic children transformed into gods remain these gods in the end; the All-Stars can stop their rampage, but can't turn back the changes of time. Just so, the old Infinity, Inc. headquarters has been condemned and is demolished in the end; to defeat the gods, the All-Stars have to let go of an element of their past, including Atom Smasher acknowledging that Infinity, Inc. is "history."

To take Glory Days at face value, perhaps Sturges does mean to bury the connections between the All-Stars and Infinity, Inc. Between Atom Smasher letting his past go, the final image of the demolition of the old headquarters, and Infinitor Brainwave turning down membership in the All-Stars, there's no knowing wink at the end of the book that suggests an ironic valuation of the past; rather, Sturges seems to suggest, the past is past. Perhaps this benefits Sturges; if despite having four former Infinitors in lead roles in All-Stars (making this the Justice Society equivalent of Cyborg leading the Infinite Crisis-era Teen Titans), Sturges meant to separate his All-Stars from Infinity, Inc., then making those ties explicit and subsequently putting them to rest might be the way to do it.

I can't, however, entirely believe it. It would seem to me there's plenty of potential in Sturges's Infinity, Inc. sequel, including guest-appearances by the newly resurrected Jade (who gets a mention in this book) and her brother Obsidian, another appearance by Brainwave, maybe more about Fury and Silver Scarab (the modern Justice Society's long-time Dr. Fate) who died toward the end of the JSA title. Much as I'd like to evaluate Glory Days on its own merits, whether Sturges is serious about jettisoning this book's Infinity connections could best be determined by the amount of Infinity material in the book that followed; sadly, DC cancelled the JSA All-Stars: The Puzzle Men trade and solicits for the subsequent issues reveal few clues.

Sturges sandwiches the four-issue "Glory Days" between a single issue spotlighting the character Damage, and two issues on the character Cyclone. Damage, one of my favorite teen heroes from the 1990s, gained a heavy dose of attitude under writer Geoff Johns; I've long been torn between happiness that Johns used the character and disappointment at what an angst-ridden grouch he made Damage. Damage's romance with Judomaster never quite made sense (he liked her, it seemed, for her body, and why she responded to him I'm not sure); in the memorial issue, Sturges both forwards their relationship a bit and tweaks things such that the usually-mute Judomaster can talk about it. These are obvious narrative devices both, but I liked that Sturges gave Damage some due respect and even revealed the characters' face, and all-in-all I was satisfied.

The Cyclone issues ("Yon Twelve-Winded Sky," with art by JLA's Howard Porter) were interesting, though I wished for just a little bit more. Sturges does well with a heavy science-fiction vibe in the story, both in fascinating presentations of nanobytes and cloning in regards to Cyclone, and his blink-and-you'll-miss-it cut scenes as the All-Stars fight in an alien revolution (I was reminded, if you can believe it, of the New Titans's "Siege of the Zi Charam*"). But I've understood for a while that Cyclone Maxine Hunkel was actually a robot -- maybe I misunderstood something Red Tornado said once -- and I was hoping we'd get into her origins in depth in this story. Instead, "Twelve" puts everything essentially back where it started; it is a good enough story to "end" JSA All-Stars, at least for collections fans, but didn't quite live up to my (perhaps erroneous) expectations.

There and elsewhere, it's true not much happens in Glory Days. The memorial issue is mostly reflective, "Twelve" doesn't change much, and "Glory Days" is not really about the All-Stars -- they have to face their pasts, sure, but the bad guys have no real ties to the All-Stars specifically, unlike in Constellations. Indeed, Sturges never quite explains how the Paradorian dictator actually turns the telepathic children into gods, for instance; the plot here is less important than the characters' interactions. There's nothing wrong with that, per se -- at times it's even welcome -- but if you don't have a soft spot for these particular characters' "glory days," you may very well feel like JSA All-Stars: Glory Days doesn't do enough to distinguish itself.

In the end, between Constellations and Glory Days, I enjoyed the two volumes of JSA All-Stars more than I thought I would, and the series has certainly cemented my appreciation for Matt Sturges -- an obvious Infinity, Inc. fan, to this extent, is not to be overlooked. Had I to choose between JSA All-Stars and other similarly cancelled series for resurrection, like Doom Patrol and REBELS, I think I'd still side with Doom Patrol, but JSA All-Stars has plenty going for it, too.

[Includes original covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

Later this week ... Collected Editions's Best Trades of 2011 List, and the Green Lanterns go to war. Be here!

* I miss Jarras Minion. Does anyone else miss Jarras Minion?

I have not read what is probably writer Matt Sturges seminal work, Jack of Fables, or his equally popular House of Mystery. I've encountered Sturges's writing just a few times, most notably on the heels of Bill Willingham on Shadowpact, but those few times I've enjoyed myself (Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! being a single exception). So it was, following up on some continuity notes, watching the last hurrah of some favorite characters, and also in a conscious attempt to read more of Sturges's work, I came to JSA All-Stars: Constellations.

The second opportunity afforded to me by Constellations was to study Freddie Williams's artwork further. I liked Williams's art on Robin, but was less satisfied with the more cartoony aspects in the aforementioned Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! (Sturges and Williams re-teaming on JSA All-Stars was one reason I was slow to pick up this book, until interest in a variety of characters brought me in). Since Run!, I have struggled to enjoy Williams's art again -- "Why should I like it?" I ask, and DC Comics replies, "He draws it all digital!" "Yes," I repeat, "but why should I like it?" "It's digital!" OK, I think; maybe there's something to that.

With an open mind but some trepidation, I ventured in to JSA All-Stars.

[Contains spoilers]

I had not been in favor of the Justice Society team splitting nor DC publishing two JSA books. I didn't think the market would support it (and indeed JSA All-Stars was later cancelled, the final issues uncollected). The split essentially separated into two titles the "stodgier" (forgive me) and "hipper" parts of the Society, a combination I thought necessary to make the initial book work; the "hipper" characters, whom I'd prefer to read about, were under a creative team I disfavored; the "stodgier" characters, whom I found more interesting, were under the creative team I was more likely to try. I maintain that the Justice Society franchise is poorer for this split; I have liked a number of the Justice Society books since then, including Axis of Evil and Supertown, but not so much as I liked the original books by Geoff Johns.

But a few pages in to the second chapter of Constellations, it clicked for me where the JSA All-Stars title fit in the overall DC Universe, and this largely informed my enjoyment of the book. There is, indeed, some precedent for all of this. Though the two teams did not exist in the same time period, there was a time when All-Star Squadron presented the adventures of the classic Justice Society, while another title offered the "hipper" exploits of the Society's descendents. When Stargirl Courtney Whitmore talks about missing the JSAers on the other team, and Hourman Rick Tyler commiserates that he, too, misses his old teammates, I realized: "All-Stars," nothing; this is a new incarnation of Tyler's old team, Infinity, Inc.

In that mindset, that All-Stars is not some lesser, substitute version of my favored Justice Society, but rather a young team of legacy heroes a la Infinity Inc., I found I could let go of my expectations and enjoy the story. And Sturges makes this easy. Constellations quickly fills up with my favorite aspects of Justice Society -- Power Girl as team leader, former JSA chairman Sand and Infinity, Inc.-er Atom Smasher nee Nuklon gain membership, and the Injustice Society shows up (even as I decried their ubiquity the other day in my Supertown review, Sturges uses the Injustice Society's appearance to pick up on elements from one of my favorite JSA stories, Stealing Thunder).

I can even forgive some of the annoying bickering between characters Tomcat, Damage, and others as "youthful enthusiasm," given that this is not Justice Society but rather Justice Society by way of Teen Titans (or rather, by way of some of the better "twentysomething" teams of the past couple decades, like Devin Grayson's Titans or Judd Winick's Outsiders). As a story in which the JSA All-Stars fight the Injustice Society, Johnny Sorrow, and the King of Tears, Justice Society fans might be justified in stating they've seen it all before. But I felt Sturges successfully channeled the tone of the best of Geoff Johns's work on the original JSA in a number of the cutaway scenes with Sand and Atom Smasher, and in Sorrow's secret scheme revealed in the final pages.

I also adored the conflicts of leadership between Power Girl and Magog and their differing philosophies of battle (and capital punishment). It's a shame that Magog has to exit the title early on; I did note the similarity between Magog chiding Power Girl for saving the life of one villain, even if that villain would kill hundreds later, and new character Anna Fortune warning Power Girl that if Fortune used a spell to save the single life of King Chimera then, she couldn't use the spell to save hundreds later. Sturges seems to set up Power Girl to have to justify her "needs of one outweigh needs of many" philosophy later on down the road, and I'm hopeful he can get to it before cancellation and cancelled collections end the book.

In the end, if I thought JSA All-Stars: Constellations would be silly, campy, irreverent, or gratuitously violent (all attributes I'd ascribe to Final Crisis Aftermath: Run!), it was none of these things. I finished the book quite pleased with Matt Sturges's writing and interested to read the next book in the series.

I can't claim, however, to feel much more comfortable about Freddie Williams's art than I did before. I did not dislike it as much as I did in Run!; as I noted in my review of Run!, Williams likely tries to achieve some ugliness and distortion in that book befitting the tone of the story, that he did not in Constellations. His depiction of Power Girl, talking to Sand in the sixth issue, is downright pretty, and his supernatural Anna Fortune resembles the best costume design of Humberto Ramos. I can even forgive some distorted figures as "stylistic" (see Stargirl with pointy noggin on page three); I'm a long-time Duncan Rouleau fan, and you hardly find figures more distorted than his..

But much as I studied Williams's sketchbook at the end of the book, I couldn't quite see what advantage his digital art brought to the page; it's quite interesting, for instance, that Williams creates digital "sets" for the book's various locations, but I didn't see many unusual perspectives or panels come out of it. Perhaps when considering "digital art," I'm imagining something more like Brainiac-13 from the "Superman Y2K" storyline (Superman: Endgame); if I didn't know Williams's art was completed on computer, I'd never think so. To that end, while I can deal with a little distortion, I was disappointed by Williams re-using the same panel three times in the third chapter, or Power Girl's costume losing a certain famous element for a part of the same chapter. Williams's work in Constellations improves my previous opinion of his art, but does not necessarily make me a fan.

All in all, however, JSA All-Stars: Constellations came as a pleasant surprise, and writer Matt Sturges has much to be proud of; more's the pity that, so far, he seems to have found no place in the DC New 52. The next book, Glory Days, is the one that really has my interest, as it deals with the death of a team member and one of my favorite characters. We'll have that review here some time coming up.

[Includes original and variant covers; sketchbook section by Freddie Williams]

Barring any breaking news, this is the last Collected Editions review for 2011. Come Monday, we'll have a special guest review by Wayne Brooks, whose take on Aquaman: Death of the Prince you enjoyed; and then at the end of the week, the Collected Editions review of the long-awaited Chase collection, including all of Dan Curtis Johnson and J.H. Williams's issues, back-up stories, and more. Happy new year, and see you soon!

In its last two volumes before the DC New 52 relaunch, Justice Society of America gets a new writer, Marc Guggenheim, and a new direction -- the signs of a series popular enough that fans have clamored for its inclusion in DC's new line, but not so steady as to have warranted a number of recent creative changes. Justice Society: Supertown is still a little rough around the edges, not exactly at the level where one might hope this book would be, but the finale is quite interesting and definitely left me eager for the next volume.

[Contains spoilers]

Just as Bill Willingham's Justice Society: Axis of Evil was largely a Mr. Terrific story guest-starring the Justice Society, Guggenheim's is really a Golden Age Flash story (Guggenheim also wrote, to much acclaim, the best issues of the otherwise abysmal Flash: The Fastest Man Alive), the story finds Flash Jay Garrick announcing his retirement (fitting, on the eve of the New DC Universe); by the end, however, he gains new purpose as the savior and incoming mayor of new DC locale Monument Point. Jay's journey from irrelevancy to ultimately setting an example of "responsible heroism," plus the upcoming political drama that the ending portends, are all quite engaging and speak good things for the book.

I also appreciated that the master villain in Supertown is one of the senators who forced the Justice Society to retire rather than reveal their identities in the 1950s. Though that story is often referenced, I've never seen it addressed as a plot point even though it's conceivable the government players might still be alive. Supertown also turns on a World War II fight between the Flash and the Golden Age Green Lantern over whether to murder a super-powered Nazi baby, a conflict that has consequences in the present day. Both of these elements make Supertown a story about the Justice Society, rather than just an adventure the Society goes on, and the story is better for it.

Unfortunately, Guggenheim lost me early on with a key element, and it shadows the book just a bit. The Society arrives in Monument Point because of "terrorist" threats made by the villain Scythe (though we never hear these threats nor does Scythe even speak all that much). Teen hero Lightning asks "Terrorists? Like, real terrorists? Like Al Qaeda-type terrorists?" Wildcat retorts, "Are there any other kind?" and Mr. Terrific says, "Actually, yes. But that's not what's important right now."

Fair enough -- the kid is ignorant, Wildcat is characteristically uncouth, and Mr. Terrific corrects them.  But then a page later, Green Lantern makes reference to Scythe's "politics" (quotes Guggenheim's) and adds "and I'm being extremely generous there, I know" -- and mind you, Scythe hasn't said a word yet. After Scythe disables Green Lantern, leaving Wildcat and Lightning to the fight, Wildcat says, "We'll take care of Bin Laden."

Now, it's comics. And I grant that Wildcat is supposed to say insensitive things as part of his "came up before political correctness" ethos. But without the villain of the scene saying a word, Guggenheim implies through jokes and innuendo (and the fact that Scythe, off-screen, apparently makes a statement on Al Jazeera television, though how he does so from Monument Point is tough to say) that Scythe is a Muslim extremest -- in fact, other parts of the story would suggest he's a Nazi, if anything -- when neither has much to do with his goals or character and Scythe might otherwise just be an angry behemoth. It's sloppy writing of the worst kind, in my opinion, because it uses stereotypes instead of characterization, and makes the Justice Society seem old and out of touch at the book's outset.

Guggenheim sets a nice ticking clock in the middle of the story when the Justice Society races (and fails) to prevent Monument Point's mayor's murder, but the villain here, too, is rather ill-defined. Guggenheim makes Dr. Chaos plenty scary, but also somewhat ludicrous. This old man fights the heaviest hitters of the Justice Society -- Hourman and Citizen Steel, for instance -- to a standstill, and Guggenheim never offers a reason why. I appreciate that Guggenheim creates new foes for the Society (I don't need to see the Society fight Icicle or Johnny Sorrow again), but I appreciate the villains making sense (even comic book sense); else it just seems Guggenheim arbitrarily twists the story for the needs of the moment.

Artists Scott Kolins and Mike Norton are each perfectly suited for the Justice Society title, their art more on the sedate side of the spectrum than an Ed Benes or Jim Lee. (Though Kolins offers a butt-shot of Manhunter that I thought there must have been another way to present). Like in the recent Superman/Batman: Worship, both Kolins and Norton's pencils are colored un-inked, giving the book a painted quality that again seems just right for the Golden Age Justice Society. I was glad, however, that Supertown is the penultimate Justice Society book when I saw Kolins's new Green Lantern costume -- it is meant as a shell for the paraplegic Lantern, but he comes off looking more like a Lantern baseball mascot than a superhero.

All of this contributes to Supertown's less than stellar rating; it is good, but I would not call it great. Guggenheim's implied criticism in the book that superheroes never clean up their messes (as the Society prepares, initially, to abandon a decimated Monument Point) is an old chestnut addressed before (and if anyone wouldn't be guilty of it, I'd think it would be the Golden Age heroes), but I like the action it spurs the Flash to, if not the impetus itself.

My hope for the next volume, Monument Point, is an Ex Machina-type political story; to see the Justice Society set themselves up as a real society, with a town of their own, sounds like a fitting closing arc to me.

[Contains original covers. Printed on glossy paper]

Later this week, guest poster Zach King Hulks out with a new review. Don't miss it!

I didn't like the story choice to split up the Justice Society into two titles, nor was I enthusiastic about either creative team set to take over the books. Justice Society of America: Axis of Evil, however, is fantastic, far exceeding my expectations. It's a Mr. Terrific story, mainly, with less emphasis on the entire team, but this is eminently forgivable since it turns out to be writer Bill Willingham's both first and only solo outing on the book. Whether read as a Mr. Terrific miniseries or a Justice Society special, Axis of Evil is exciting and moving, a sleeper hit -- the best kind.

[Contains spoilers]

The rather run-of-the-mill Nazi-themed villains the Fourth Reich attack the Justice Society, the Justice Society beats them back -- and suddenly, Willingham sends us twenty years into the future, where superheroes live in concentration camps and Mr. Terrific spies for the resistance. The difference between the two eras is striking -- Willingham's villain team in the present are laughable caricatures (like "Doctor Murder"), whereas Willingham and artist Jesus Marino achieve a real atmosphere of horror in placing DC Comics's heroes essentially against the background of the Holocaust.

Willingham's success in this book is all in the details. The five issues of the "Fatherland" storyline give Willingham a lot of space to flesh out Terrific, his Nazi guard Karla Lander, the other captured heroes (many from outside the Justice Society), and this new Reich-controlled world. In a terrible situation, the de-powered heroes are even more heroic -- Batman, and then Blue Beetle both sacrifice their lives without hesitation for the benefit of small gains; in a twisted splash page, true to the characters, Willingham has Batman and the Joker die side-by-side.

The Nazi brutality is shocking -- as when fuhrer "Kid" Karnevil swiftly shoots Karla -- and the compassion Willingham has the characters show all the more touching -- as when afterward Terrific and Obsidian discuss living with the terrible memories of that future, or when Terrific goes to visit young Karla in the present.

Aside from Obsidian's role in the end, "Fatherland" is mostly Mr. Terrific's story. The fantastic cameo-filled escape sequence name-checks scores of DC heroes, but those who get the most screen time include Superman and Batman -- Dr. Mid-Nite, Terrific's best friend, barely even gets a nod in the future. I didn't mind this so much, perhaps because this is the end of Willingham's Justice Society stint -- no danger that the other heroes will always be behind the scenes, just a spotlight on Terrific this time, taking his place in the DC Universe pantheon.

And I like Terrific as a character, liked him in Checkmate (wish we might've seen some Checkmate characters), liked his nobility here with Karla and with Obsidian and in the beating he has to appear to take from Blue Beetle. Though I've balked at Green Lantern and Flash stealing the spotlight from Superman in DC's crossover events, I loved watching Mr. Terrific, essentially, save the entire universe and every other DC hero -- it's not all that often that Terrific gets the spotlight, and I found all of this entirely appropriate for the Justice Society title.

Axis of Evil leads off with a two-part tale of the Justice Society against Legion of Super-Heroes villain Mordru. That story is rather dull, emphasizing the likable new Dr. Fate but not offering much intrigue or suspense. It was, with apologies to Willingham (whose Fables I adore), about what I expected -- even with Shadowpact, Willingham sometimes has a tendency to over-narrate, pit the heroes against repetitive parallel dangers, and drown out the story with too much supernatural verbiage. I found the bland gang of villains in Willingham's previous Justice Society: The Bad Seed too much like his bland gang of villains in Robin: Days of Fire and Madness, and I thought that's where we were headed at the beginning of "Fatherland." Be patient, however, because Willingham's expansive story of the dystopian Fourth Reich future is worth the wait.

Justice Society: Axis of Evil's tale of alternate realities, time travel, and DC heroes coming back from the brink contains shades of JSA: Stealing Thunder and JLA: Rock of Ages, two of my favorite volumes from those two series. I would have, without question, read another Justice Society book by Bill Willingham, and I'm unexpectedly sorry to see him go so soon. This makes Axis of Evil all the more notable of a volume; this is a book I can see myself picking up again for a great go-to, self-contained Justice Society story.

[Contains full covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

We'll follow the Justice Society now over into their Justice League crossover with Dark Things, coming up next.

We've discussed on occasion whether it's fair to say some series might be "unnecessary." I understand giving every writer and artist a chance to make their mark, but some series seem rather unlikely to succeed, and to me Magog was one of those. As a matter of fact, publishing a Magog series -- a series about a character created as a one-note villain meant to represent everything wrong about superhero comics -- seemed like such crass opportunism on DC Comics's part that I decided this was one I was going to skip.

Except for two things.

One, my local comics shop had a President's Day sale where Magog: Lethal Force was very cheap, and two, DC let it be known that Magog had some ties to their upcoming Flashpoint crossover (an old ploy; see the low-selling Breach's "tie" to Infinite Crisis). Well, that was enough to bend my weak will. Not to mention that I'm still high enough on writer Keith Giffen from his work on the first Doom Patrol trade to give his most unlikely book a shot.

What we end up with is an interesting experiment by Giffen as to how to run a book with a truly unlikable narrator. It is not as interesting, mind you, as just about anything else you can find on the market; I say that not to be snide, but to make clear that I don't consider Lethal Force an important buy, though your results may vary. Rather, if you have Magog: Lethal Force in your hands and an hour to kill, I do think Giffen makes some attempts worthy of study.

The Flashpoint tie-in aspect, however, is quite nearly non-existent. Characters do bandy around the word "Flashpoint," specifically in reference to an underground group of arms dealers, and it must have some relation to the DC crossover since I can't believe editor Mike Carlin would let Giffen name this title's main antagonists "Flashpoint" just by coincidence. However, Magog's Flashpoint has nothing to do, at least as far as this book is concerned, with time or time travel, alternate realities, running fast, nor anything else that I believe -- in albeit limited understanding -- the Flashpoint crossover has to do with. Again, I don't intend to put down this book necessarily, but one ought not set aside Giffen's Doom Patrol, for instance, for Magog thinking you'll get the first hints of Flashpoint; if there's hints, they're cryptic indeed.

In Lethal Force's first chapter, in a way I found somewhat heavy-handed, Giffen demonstrates the two sides of Magog David Reid. On one side, Magog tracks a group of weapons dealers through Sudan; even despite that the bad guys have dismembered and enslaved Sudanese villagers, Magog's defeat of them is startlingly brutal -- this super-powered behemoth "hero" murders every one of his non-powered enemies. On the other side, Giffen shows Reid in a cafe, seemingly flirting with a married waitress and making plans for a tryst; it turns out instead that Reid has been helping train the woman in hand-to-hand combat so she might one day defend herself against her husband.

Giffen's point here seems pretty standard among anti-heroes -- Magog is hard on the bad guys, but soft on the innocent. We see this again later on when Magog takes as his sidekick the disfigured Miasma; when Miasma's zombies attack Magog, he fights, but when Flashpoint takes Miasma prisoner, Magog defends him. Giffen, come to think of it, has written anti-heroes harder than this -- Lobo, the Main Main himself. In contrast, Magog comes off as something of a softie.

There's other aspects of Magog worthy of study, perhaps if Giffen had longer on this title. Toward the end of the book, as Magog is caught in a battle between Miasma and Flashpoint's forces, the Flashpoint soldiers refer to Magog as a JSA operative on site, when through most of the book Magog has bucked his JSA credentials; this difficulty of being considered a hero even when he's trying not to be a hero would have been something I might have enjoyed seeing Magog negotiate. Also, as henchwoman Chelsea tortures the imprisoned Magog, she notes he always finds ways of avoiding her questions without actually lying; indeed, we're told, Magog doesn't lie. Much of Magog's "tough guy" persona by way of Giffen is just plain silly, really, but I admired the fact that Magog doesn't lie even to the bad guys; I think Giffen even intends that Magog is a "noble soldier" to the point of absurdity, but I thought this was a nice twist.

Ultimately, however, there's a way in which Magog challenges my overall sense of comic book suspension of belief that convinced me I couldn't follow this character long-term. Magog, for one, really dislikes Green Lantern Alan Scott, and indeed much of the Justice Society. I get that Alan is supposed to be stuffy, but if you really believe Alan is stuffy, you wouldn't enjoy the Justice Society, and I do; I'm not sure you can be a Magog fan and a Justice Society fan, and I was a Justice Society fan first. Second, at one point when Miasma reveals his scheme, Magog thinks about how boring it all is. Now, super-villains revealing their schemes might be boring, but if Superman thought that way every time Lex Luthor opined, I'd have trouble following Superman into danger -- it challenges my suspension of belief that there is danger. For Magog to be this irreverent -- and not in a comedic Lobo way but in a kind of mean-spirited way -- spoils my fun.

Now, no doubt Keith Giffen is a savvy enough writer that he could be presenting an irreverent anti-hero Magog now, with plans to find Magog as a "traditional hero" at the end of the arc. To an extent, this could be like saying "I don't like Jack Knight because he's a jerk, so I won't read Starman" -- a true example of missing of the point. But, we know as is that the Magog title doesn't last (Scott Kolins takes over before cancellation); even "anti-hero turns good" seems a rather played out arc to me at this point; and to an extent I wouldn't want to read a "good" Magog -- that's not who the character was created to be.

I want Magog to remain exactly who he is ... I just wouldn't necessarily have kept picking up his series.

[Contains full covers. Printed on glossy paper]

As always, I'm open to other opinions; if you really dug Magog: Lethal Force, please be sure to chime in and let me know what you enjoyed.

It's been a little more than a year since the last time I read Justice Society, which is surprising given that in its JSA incarnation, at least, this was one of my favorite titles (JSA: Stealing Thunder remains a classic -- and hey, DC, how about a JSA by Geoff Johns omnibus?). But the book's quality lessened in my opinion in Johns's switch from JSA to Justice Society, and my experience with writers Matt Sturges and Bill Willingham's work (Fables notwithstanding) and tepid early reviews of their run on this book made me slow to pick up this newest volume.

[Contains spoilers]

I finally read Justice Society of America: The Bad Seed in the lead-up to the Justice League/Justice Society crossover The Dark Things, and what I found is that I liked Bad Seed better than I thought I would. That Justice Society splits into two titles at the end of this story still seems like one Justice Society title more than DC Comics needs, but the reason for the split actually makes a lot of sense. Willingham and Sturges manage to create warring factions with the Justice Society without making any of the team members caricatures of themselves. I felt Willingham's writerly persona came through perhaps a bit too much, but otherwise Bad Seed is surprisingly compelling.

Where Bad Seed works is in the conspiratorial attack against the Justice Society. The team is targeted by mysterious villains far earlier in the book than they realize, and the true intentions of the bad guys kept me guessing throughout. Mid-way through the book, there's a great sense of locked-room paranoia as the team interrogates one another to find the traitor among them (the tone is good, even if the traitor is obvious). Power Girl, Flash Jay Garrick, Jesse Quick, and others at moments do seem frightened, as if panicked, and this is a great shift for a team that starts the book almost overly self-assured.

Though there are plenty of ways in which the Justice Society fractures in this book, Willingham and Sturges represent the two sides most directly in the conflict between Wildcat and Magog. Magog is a relatively new (and therefore somewhat outcast) militaristic Society member, and Wildcat is the tough-as-nails, often gruff, former-heavyweight senior member -- in short, they're a lot alike. One could argue that Magog is a 1990s comics caricature, and the writers present Wildcat as overzealous in his attacking Magog, but it worked for me; they are enough the same as to convincingly show the Society turning against itself, whereas I didn't think the writers could convince me.

Especially when JSA became Justice Society, Geoff Johns injected a certain Normal Rockwell ethos to the stories; we saw the team help out at a fire station, for instance, and go with Stargirl to the dentist. This is well and good and different from other DC Universe titles, but it seems to stretch suspension of disbelief that an "actual" superhero team could get away with it for long. In that way, the Justice Society's split in this book feels rather natural; Magog expresses the audiences own misgivings about the direction of the Justice Society, and I do appreciate the way this plot puts focus on the title's incongruity.

The writers also consistently remembered that Power Girl is the Justice Society's chairwoman and presented her as in charge, which is a plus; as well, I liked their use of the new Dr. Fate (maybe hearkening to both writers' considerable work writing supernatural characters), and their portrayal of him as an inexperienced but ultra-powerful sorcerer learning the ropes.

Bad Seed's let-down, perhaps, is the villains themselves. The Justice Society fights a random assortment of villains from the silly, like Willingham's Tape Worm, to the powerful Eclipso whom the writers unfortunately also write as silly and cowardly. This "villain blitz" plot seemed cribbed whole cloth from a similar story Willingham wrote in Robin: Days of Fire and Madness, using many of the same villains, and one character even identifies Tape Worm as the villain "who fought Robin." Anyone who read Willingham's Shadowpact: The Pentacle Plot will recognize the team's traitor right away, and Kid Karnevil plus Tape Worm is a bit too much.

I like when writers use reoccurring characters amongst their work -- Greg Rucka does it to good effect between his Huntress, 52, and Question stories -- but Willingham's here seems gratuitous. There's so many more Justice Society-specific villains that this team can fight than Tape Worm, and Kid Karnevil is a rather incongruous choice; as compared to Rucka, Willingham does not seem to be telling large-canvas stories so much as plugging (or reusing) his earlier work, and the instances were so glaring as to take me out of the story.

That aside, however, I liked Justice Society: The Bad Seed. It has not the scope of Geoff Johns's JSA: Stealing Thunder, but there's nothing specifically embarrassing, for instance, to be found in this book; artist Jesus Merino remains consistent throughout, with some heavier inks toward the end that makes his work look like Howard Chaykin's (if you like that kind of thing). It might be a while before I pick up this title's spin-off book, JSA: All-Stars, as I'm not a big fan of Freddie Williams's art, but I'm in for Justice Society: Axis of Evil -- in part again because of Justice League: The Dark Things, but I'm looking forward to it more than I thought I would.

[Contains full covers]

What do you think of the new direction for Justice Society? Like it or hate it? Going to keep reading?

There's a number of ways in which JSA vs. Kobra marks a return. It is the return of artist Don Kramer to the JSA characters that he drew under writer Geoff Johns. The art gives the miniseries an authenticity that in my opinion the current "split" Justice Society lacks, suggesting the return of the original (JSA-era) Justice Society as well. And it's also the return of Eric Trautmann to the Checkmate characters, tying up some loose ends and addressing some long-simmering issues. All in all, despite some rough patches, that adds up for to me to a book worthy of taking a look.

[Contains spoilers]

Eric Trautmann's work on Checkmate and The Shield has given him a reputation, to me at least, of being a writer whose stories contain political or global undertones. In JSA vs. Kobra, Trautmann examines the underpinnings of terrorism; as he writes through Mr. Terrific in the end, "Suicide bombings, terror weapons, assassinations -- it's all about kicking down the underpinnings of society." Far from costumed goons robbing a bank in Gotham City, Trautmann posits this new iteration of Kobra as the DC Universe's ultimate terrorist cell -- seemingly regular people who might suddenly cause destruction without warning. Worst of all is the Kobra members unwavering faith to their cause, unmatched by the generally agnostic DC heroes and specifically the traditionally atheist Mr. Terrific.

Trautmann wisely builds upon the issues of faith that Terrific faced in JSA: Lost and elsewhere, enhancing just how much this story feels like an original JSA tale. While Terrific and Power Girl take up most of the action, there's scenes for Sand, Jakeem Thunder, and Stargirl, among others. I'm hopeful for good things from Marc Guggenheim's forthcoming Justice Society run, but it seems Eric Trautmann could do a fair job on the title, too.

Mr. Terrific and Kobra Jason Burr are obviously pitted here as foils. Both are brilliant; both came to their current lives from the brink of death; and both are chess-players, planning their moves well in advance -- only Burr represents the faithful, and Mr. Terrific represents the faithless. Burr succeeds through most of the story due to his single-minded devotion to his cause, while Terrific flounders for some time because he can't trust his friends. Burr, as a matter of fact, spends much of the miniseries killing off those who followed his brother's Kobra cult; indeed it's Burr's luxury that the only person he has to have faith in is himself. While Trautmann has a tendency to over-narrate here, letting Burr or Terrific describe the action on almost every page, certainly he believably sets up the two as life-long DC Universe nemeses.

At one point in the story, Terrific prevents the hero Damage from severely beating a suspect, reaffirming "that's not how we do things." While no less true, this sentiment that "heroes don't torture" becomes somewhat old hat at this point, reaffirmed as it's been any number of places including Justice League: Cry for Justice. Whereas Cry ends on a somewhat uncertain note as to whether torture or murder might sometimes be justified, Trautmann here is nicely unequivocal, in that Terrific decides that trust in his friends, reason, and love will guide him against Kobra. If not the most complicated conclusion, it is well in-character for Mr. Terrific and the JSA.

JSA vs. Kobra feels almost pleasantly inevitable, like the intended last chapter of both JSA and Checkmate, in that for a long time Mr. Terrific served as a member of both organizations; some tension regarding this was bound to arise. Indeed, in that the arc of the Checkmate series was always Checkmate's growing acceptance by the superhero community (from Shadowpact to the Outsiders and Nightwing, and finally to DC's Big Three), this final equalizing -- Mr. Terrific learning which side to trust when -- seems perfectly natural. Further, JSA vs. Kobra hinges squarely on Final Crisis: Resist (from the Final Crisis Companion), making the story all the more relevant; for fans, this is really the next volume of the Checkmate series.

Inasmuch as I've sometimes decried DC Comics's miniseries-with-a-purpose, feeling they lead too much into something else without meaning something on their own, JSA vs. Kobra might be too far the other way. This is seemingly the concluding Checkmate story, and all I want is more -- some indication that the Checkmate characters will appear elsewhere, or that Kobra will continue to be a threat, that we'll learn more about Jason Burr -- something other than "this is it." If you have a chance at conventions, please do ask -- JSA vs. Kobra is a spy thriller of the type that seems rare these days at DC, and I'd be eager to see more of the same.

[Contains full covers]

Coming up ... Collected Editions's look at the new Batgirl!

In light of the DC Comics announcement that Neil Gaiman's Sandman character Death would appear in Action Comics during Paul Cornell's upcoming run, there's been a bunch of great articles about other Death and Sandman-character appearances in the DC Universe - including Once Upon a Geek, and Chris's Invincible Super-Blog, to name a few.

The first one that came to my mind, however, are the Sandman-character appearances in Geoff Johns' first JSA run. Comics Alliance also has a nice run-down, but mentions JSA only briefly and not in as much detail as the appearances by the Sandman Daniel in JLA -- but I found at least twice that Daniel physically appears in JSA.

Remember that in Infinity Inc. #49-51 (when, oh when, will this series be collected?), Hector Hall (Silver Scarab, son of the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman, and later the JSA's Doctor Fate) returned from the dead supposedly as the new Sandman. Gaiman's Sandman revealed Hall's position to be false, but yet the son of Hall and his wife Lyta, named Daniel, was destined to become the Sandman after Gaiman's Morpheus.

Hall dies, but is later resurrected in JSA: Justice Be Done; he's reunited with Lyta in JSA: Black Reign.

The Sandman backstory is ever-present (in continuity, even) throughout Hector and Lyta's appearances in JSA, but Johns also throws in a specific cameo or two.



JSA: Lost, where the Sandman Daniel warns Per Degaton
from harming his parents.



JSA member Sanderson "Sand" Hawkins, now the Sandman, dons Hector Hall's Sandman guise also in JSA: Lost.



Hawkins as Hector's Sandman, with Sandman characters Brute and Glob, from JSA: Lost.



JSA artist Keith Champagne writes the story that puts Hector and Lyta to rest in JSA: Mixed Signals. See the shadowy Sandman Daniel saving Hector and Lyta's lives by drawing them into his dream world.
There you have it -- still more precedent for Sandman characters in the DC Universe!

JSA Presents: Stars and STRIPE is an odd egg, a two-volume collection of the entire run of a good-but-not-critically acclaimed Justice Society lead-in series. Of course we know it's not the series' JSA ties that warranted its collection, nor even its popular appeal (else we'd have a JSA Presents: Hourman collection by now); rather this series ought be called The Geoff Johns Collection: Stars and STRIPE, and therefore the real intention of the collection might be more pronounced.

Regardless, however, of whether you come to this series for the story itself or the role it had in shaping DC Comic's new chief creative officer, Stars and STRIPE is an enjoyable read, hitting the mark of "teen comics" in a way Teen Titans isn't and Supergirl has struggled to, and shows the first hints of thematic depth that we'd later recognize would make a comic "Geoff Johnsian."

Stars and STRIPE has always been about nontraditional legacies; obviously the step-parent/step-daughter relationship between former Stripsey Pat Dugan and new Star-Spangled Kid Courtney Whitmore is one. Most interesting in this second volume, however, is not just the familial relationship, but also that Dugan bucks superhero tradition by formally bestowing the mantle of Star-Spangled Kid on his step-daughter rather than, specifically, his own son Michael who's asking for the legacy. Johns underlines the unusualness of this in the book's first chapter, where the original Star-Spangled Kid Sylvester Pemberton refuses the "Starman" name in favor of Ted Knight giving it to his son Jack.

In both cases, we know the mentor's choice pays off, but I wished Johns had more time with this series to explore the implications of Dugan's choice, specifically regarding the secret reasons Michael has for wanting to be the Star-Spangled Kid. In what's mostly a light-hearted book, the reader cheers for Courtney becoming "official," but at the same time Dugan brushing off his son seems unexpectedly cruel. Perhaps to its benefit, this book about second chances and starting over never had a chance to examine the consequences of past mistakes, but there's an intriguing glance here as to where this title might have gone next.

It's difficult, in a way, to separate Stars and STRIPE from Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory miniseries that came a few years afterward. In the last volume, the heroes re-vanquished the Nebula Man, one of the Soldiers most noted foes; here, former Soldier Shining Knight returns, his cry for help having brought Pat Dugan to Blue Valley in the first place. Johns sets up plotlines involving new iterations of Solders Crimson Avenger and Spider, though those stories end prematurely; Johns would later show the Crimson Avenger in JSA, but both Spider and Shining Knight have subsequently been replaced by Morrison's versions. This volume of Stars and STRIPE is appealing in that it offers a more traditional sequel to the Golden Age Justice League/Seven Soldiers stories, but it's not ultimately take that became most firmly entrenched in current DC Comics continuity.

From the art perspective, it's also notable here that when artist Lee Moder takes a break, Scott Kolins comes on; Kolins would later draw part of the Flash run that would make Johns a household name. With inks by Dan Davis, Kolins' characters are a bit darker and more "squareish" than with Doug Hazelwood on Flash (or, later, Kolins inking his own work), and I think this volume bears examining as a sample of Kolins' work in transition, and not just Johns'.

The second volume of Stars and STRIPE moves past some of the villain-of-the-week and high school antics of the first volume to a prolonged-but-exciting battle between the heroes and the Dragon King, with detailed stops along the way for Seven Soldiers history; in this way, I found it very entertaining. I might not have kept reading this book in monthly issues (in fact, I didn't) because the tone's still a little light for me, but in comparison to a book like Teen Titans that's felt like "no fun" lately, I think Stars and STRIPE hits the right balance.

[Contains full covers, sketchbook by Lee Moder (including revealing who some of the villains in the book were originally intended to be)]

More reviews on their way ... stay tuned!

Unfortunately I was disappointed in Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis. While the concluding chapter of writer Geoff Johns' run on Justice Society (collected in the middle of this volume) represents well what made this series unique, the actual titular story spends too much time setting up future comics to satisfy. I adore that Johns teams with comics legend Jerry Ordway for this Captain Marvel-centered tale, but frankly Black Adam and Isis reads more like issues of Power of Shazam than Justice Society.

[Contains spoilers for Justice Society of America: Black Adam and Isis]

I'm not the first to criticize Geoff Johns for writing stories that amount, ultimately, just to lead-ins to other stories. Certainly this criticism has been leveled at Justice League: The Lightning Saga and Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, each of which lead to Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds -- but I felt these at least were solid stories on their own. The three-part "Black Adam and Isis" story collected here leaves open so many questions, surely to be answered in another comics, as to be almost completely unreadable on its own. From the mysterious stranger on the subway platform, to the Rock of Finality and hints of a greater villain, to the Wizard Shazam's strange anger at the end, Black Adam asks more and more, but provides no answers. This close to the end of Geoff Johns' run on Justice Society, I understand and appreciate his wanting to revisit Black Adam, but not at the cost of making the Justice Society secondary characters in their own series.

Still, Johns continues to make Black Adam a compelling character. In Black Adam: The Dark Age, the reader saw Adam try and fail to resurrect his lost love Isis; now, finally sucessful, Adam must balance his love for Isis with his increasing discomfort in Isis's new, violent ways. Adam once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, and Johns convincingly demonstrates Adam's uncertainty. In his final issues, Johns parallels Adam and Isis's failed relationship with the equally star-crossed Stargirl and Captain Marvel; theirs was an interesting sub-plot early in Justice Society's predecessor, JSA, and I enjoyed that Marvel finally revealed to the Justice Society his secret identity, even if it didn't lead to rejoining the team.

Would that the entire book were more like "Black Adam Ruined My Birthday," Johns' closing Justice Society story. Justice Society, even more than JSA, has been as much about superheroics as about the quiet moments that happen in between world-conquering villains. I mentioned before the Norman Rockwell-esque Justice Society charity event, and we've also seen them sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, and here, celebrate Stargirl's birthday and take a trip to the dentist. There's few superheroes, and especially superhero teams, that can pull off such unironic Americana, and Johns (with artist Dale Eaglesham) deserves considerable credit for it. I don't imagine that we'll see a title with as much hopefulness any time soon.

We all know Johns holds a special place for Stargirl Courtney Whitmore, but indeed Courtney is Johns' legacy in the Justice Society. Over numerous storylines since JSA began in 1999, the character has shown natural growth from a flip teenager to a model for the new young Society members to follow. Fans of this modern incarnation of the Justice Society couldn't imagine the team without Stargirl -- it's simultaneously hard to believe and no suprise that the character is at this point more than ten years old -- and "Black Adam Ruined My Birthday" works because the characters acknowledging Stargirl as a "core" member of the Justice Society feels fitting both within the story and from the readers' perspective as well.

Jerry Ordway both contributes to Johns' revisiting the pages of Ordway's Power of Shazam, and takes over writing and drawing chores in two transitional issues before the new Justice Society team arrives. No doubt it's as much a thrill to see Ordway drawing the Captain Marvel characters again as it is to see him drawing Infinity Inc. in this two-parter, but the story decidedly suffers from repetitious dialogue and silly misunderstandings between the characters. I enjoyed seeing the Justice Society interact with the new Crispus Allen Spectre, but the confusing motivations and overblown speech of the story's villain made the end feel like every bit the (well-illustrated) fill-in it was.

Black Adam and Isis begins and ends with hints of fractures with the Justice Society team. As the Justice Society often appears in idealized situations, it's easy to think of them as a team without problems; on one hand, I appreciate a team that doesn't have bickering infighting like the Teen Titans, but on the other hand, likely that's not "realistic" from a story perspective. In the middle of this book, the Justice Society has twenty members, and certainly it feels like a lot, but I'm not convinced that the solution is to have a both a "gentle" and "extreme" Justice Society as Hawkman suggests in the beginning, a la the Justice League's former Extreme Justice.

I judge, I know, without having read the stories to follow, but as Geoff Johns departs, I may find myself setting this title aside as well. It's hard to believe that more than ten years ago, JSA began in the spirit of Grant Morrison's JLA, written by James Robinson part-way through his acclaimed run on Starman, and Geoff Johns was a relative unknown. Morrison's still around, as is Robinson, though much is different about the landscape of the DC Universe. I'm thankful for the last ten years that cemented the Justice Society's place in the DC Universe, but as when Greg Rucka left Gotham Central, possibly DC should have let Justice Society end rather than fade off poorly like so many other series have when their leading writers leave (Birds of Prey and Teen Titans immediately come to mind); here's hoping the next writers can follow the example that Johns set.

[Contains full and variant covers]