Top Ten Comics Pt. 2

OK, following up with the next comic on my top ten list...

4) JSA - I have been a big fan of these guys for years but for some reason no one ever seemed to be able to craft a book about them that would sell. I still remember the old Len Strazewski (was that how you spelled it?) title from the late 80s and early 90s fondly, but for whatever reason it just didn't click with people. Maybe Geoff Johns just came about at the right time, but I prefer to think that his writing had a pretty strong influence on sales.

Johns has done a really superb job of combining the classic with the contemporary here. All the JSA members are either actual members of the original team, relatives of those members, or carrying on the name of an original member in a very respectful and continuity conscience way. It really works well. The team does have that all important family feel to it; they do bicker but at the bottom of it all each member loves the JSA and what it stands for and would go to the mat for each other. Most of the stories have a strongly personal dimension (the "Darkness Falls" storyline that had Sentinal dealing with the corruption of his son Obsidian and the cousin of the murdered Yolanda Montez assuming the mantle of Eclipso just so he could have revenge on her murderer) that makes each fight scene relevant and meaningful. And the whole book just crackles with history that serves to further reveal character; the new Dr. Fate and his byzantine history that really became a story about the emergence and maturity of the man currently wearing his mantle, and the story of the Hawks tortured complicated relationship down through the centuries became a story of fate and identity.

Yet somehow all this history never seems to bog the stories down or overcomplicate things. I am not totally familar with a lot of the histories of these characters, yet I can follow them quite easily with a few prompts from Johns. What is more important to me than the history is the way in which Johns uses it to advance the stories and develop and reveal his characters. Without that added dimension, all the precisioned crossing of "t"s and dotting of "i"s in regard to continuity wouldn't mean much. It's this human dimension that John does so well with.

Johns is not afraid to make changes with the characters either. I have forgotten how many times Black Adam has switched back and forth from being a good guy to a bad guy, and Atom Smasher is easily one of the most morally complex and conflicted heroes I've ever followed. Johns has also done some fairly major reworking of the origins of heroes like Hawkman, Dr. Fate and Sandman. None of it is done gratuitously; he's not interested in shock value but again, in more fully fleshing out characters that have in many cases been either neglected or cursed with sloppy, contradictory histories.

I would highly recommend to book to anyone who loves a good story and remind all that you don't need to be a DC historian to enjoy it.


More tomorrow...