Justice League #12 – Review

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By: Too many to list—or even talk about.  Check out the review.

The Story: Cue the violins—love is in the air for the League!

The Review: Warning—mild rant ahead.  A lot of people like to blame the media for our social problems today, but it’d be more accurate to say it’s not so much the media but the media hype.  Chalk it up to the relentless 24-hour news cycle or our human need to make every story a little more colorful.  If we as a society are strident, misinformed, distracted, or ignorant, blame it on the media’s tendency to make a big deal over non-issues, to incite excitement over nothing.

This brings us to the obvious question.  Did we really need to have so much controversy and brouhaha over Wonder Woman and Superman’s romantic entanglement?  Was the tabloid-style plastering of their illicit embrace and kiss all over the internet valuable in any way?  The answer, of course, is no.  I’ll refer you to a very perceptive article on the subject, and add on my two cents by saying: frankly, it’d surprise me if the two most powerful and attractive people in the world didn’t even consider a fling at some point.

On the other hand, Geoff Johns had to make an effort to get our two icons to the point where they would actually give in to temptation.  I won’t go into details as to how it happens, but I will say it requires a bit of character re-engineering to make it work.  You have to believe that, in contrast to the confident, relatively well-adjusted heroes we know in their individual books, Clark and Diana get angsty and morose enough to turn to each other for solace.  Johns makes a somewhat convincing case for it, but the timing and the chemistry feels distinctly off.

In fact, this feels very much like one of those network-moves a TV series would make for more ratings.  Meanwhile, this issue sports plenty of other, more substantive shortcomings.  The insane public blame-gaming against the League (particularly from Steve Trevor’s increasingly irritating sister) is unsold and unconvincing.  You would think a population so consistently indebted to the League would give them more of a benefit of the doubt, but—what am I thinking?  Of course they turn on their saviors; this is the general public we’re talking about!

Unfortunately, our heroes actually buy into that nonsense.  Of all people, Green Lantern alone has the most sensible and accurate assessment of the situation: “The fact is, the Justice League can save the Earth every day, but we can’t save everybody on it every day.”  This, while Aquaman tries to cast the team’s problems as a leadership issue, which only looks like a craven power-play on his part.  And we haven’t even gotten to the total degradation of Steve Trevor or the whimpering, melodramatic way Graves goes out.

In cases like this, sometimes it’s better to look to better times ahead.  Johns offers a glimpse of storylines to come: Aquaman declaring war on behalf of Atlantis, Captain Marvel’s first tussle with Superman, new members and potential traitors, and the biggie, a whole ‘nother set of Leaguers who have the potential to become the second bananas that the International and Dark versions of the team failed to be.

The artistic integrity of this series has grown erratic within the last few issues, what with Jim Lee slipping out of his usually tight, fine etchings, and delivering some watery-eyed, chubby cheeked characters (a la Andy Kubert) instead.  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it looks like two different artists drew this issue.  After all, with a veritable army of inkers (nine) and colorists (five), how could it hope to maintain any kind of consistency?

Conclusion: While I don’t know how many Superman-Wonder Woman shippers there are in the Justice League audience, I do know that by now people will talk about hardly anything else.  It may even be enough for them to overlook the larger problems with this series.

Grade: C

- Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: - Yay, Stargirl is back!  Good to know not every trace of the Justice Society will be wiped from the DCU prime.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.