Great news all you Geo-Force fans who also happen to collect DC Direct action figures!

Last week's DC comics included the above house ad announcing a few more figures in the line that DC Direct has been putting out based on Brad Meltzer's terrible, terrible (but thankfully brief) run on Justice League of America.

This part caught my eye:



Ha ha, of course there's never been a Geo-Force collectible action figure before now because hey, no one likes that guy, right?

Actually, someone must like him, and maybe that someone even collects DC Direct action figures. If so, that person is going to be pretty pumped about this particular ad—it was made especially for them!

Poorly organized thoughts on Virgin Comics, the decadence of DC and some links

So, Virgin Comics, huh? Word on the street (and by “street” I mean “Internet”) is that the company’s calling it quits. Here’s a Publishers Weekly story. Here’s retailer and Savage Critic Brian Hibbs on the collapse from his perspective. Here’s Dirk Deppey. And here’s Dirk Deppey again.

From my perspective, I thought Virgin did a very good job of selling their comics, and if they failed to be sell enough of ‘em to keep doing it, it seems to be simply because not enough people wanted to buy them vs. some fault of the publisher’s staff.

When I was writing weekly comics reviews for Las Vegas Weekly, the PR folks at Virgin were all extremely easy to work with, and were always volunteering review copies of all their new series and offering whatever assistance I might need.

The books had the benefit of being extremely easy to write about for a mainstream, outside-of-comics medium, too. There was the initial novelty—Richard Branson, Deepak Chopra, Indian mythology, blah blah blah—and then the matter of the names tied to them. A book “created by” Nicolas Cage or Guy Richie or John Woo might not be any good at all, but it’s something that your average, civilian reader might care to hear more about. “John Woo? Doing a comic with John Woo fan Garth Ennis? Tell me more…”

The production values and the art were also extremely high. The books looked good as serial comics; certainly better than, say, Boom or Dynamite books (just in terms of trade dress and production value). The art was in many cases extraordinary, certainly better than the bulk of DC’s output over the last two years, and in a more comic book-y style than a lot of Marvel’s MU content over that same period of time.

That said, the comics tended to not be very good. I tried the first issues of the bulk of the series Virgin put out, and would usually lose interest by the second or third issue. I lasted maybe five issues of Snake Woman and Seven Brothers, and four of Dan Dare; those were the books I stuck with longest. I liked those series, but I’d inevitably miss an issue or two, realize that I’d forgotten to buy them and didn’t really miss-miss them, and thus never put in the effort to catch back up.

Most of them, however, were just pretty straightforward; nothing I wasn’t already getting from DC or Marvel or Dark Horse or Image or Tokyopop or Viz, with the exception of featuring characters I was less interested in than Batman or Spider-Man or Conan or Empowered, or with less visual snap and aesthetic appeal than in whatever manga series I happened to be reading.

Additionally, I think there was something noticeably “wrong” about a lot of the comics, which was apparent by their peculiar branding. John Woo and Garth Ennis collaborating on a comic sounds like a dream come true, but it wasn’t clear how much Woo was contributing (Seven Brothers sure read like any other Ennis comic, of which there were quite a few available concurrently). What exactly did Nic Cage and his son contribute to Voodoo Child if Mike Carey was credited as the writer?
And so on.

I’m still curious how some of these celebrity-branded comics were created exactly, and if that process had anything to do with Virgin’s overhead. Like, were each of the Cages getting paid as much as Carey for each issue of the book?

I’m also curious why Virgin went down so fast, but Boom and Dynamite Entertainment are both still around; both of those companies did pretty good jobs of getting their books in front of critics, and offering books that folks outside the Direct Market would conceivably be interested in hearing about as well. I think Virgin’s production values tend to be higher, however, the art more polished, and they had bigger name creators—not just the Hollywood folks, but the comic folks as well. Did Virgin just start out bigger than Boom and Dynamite, with a line that wasn’t sustainable unless the comics started doing big numbers right away? (I only single out Boom and Dynamite because they seemed to occupy about the same place in the publisher hierarchy as Virgin, and started making noise around the same time).

I think Deppey’s original sarcastic remark about “the Wednesday Crowd” (hey, that’s me!) not being interested in books not featuring Batman and Wolverine is true to a certain extent; if I’m going to read a book about a caped, masked vigilante crime fighter, I’m definitely going to choose Batman over a brand new Indian Batman (probably a bad example, as I don’t think Virgin had a Batman-like character; a couple of Witchblade-like characters and at least one Constantine-like character, yes, but not really a Batman). I do tend to follow Batman in the same way that my dad follows the Cleveland Browns or grandfather followed Jesses James and Wyatt Earp in Western movies.

Hibbs also had a good point in his original reaction, noting that it was somewhat unclear what exactly Virgin was doing and what the Virgin brand meant. Call it the Wildstorm problem.

But I think there’s a simple explanation for why Virgin Comics has failed that I haven’t heard anyone else suggest yet: Divine retribution for having published Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Huner.


—Speaking of virgins, Nina Stone’s Virgin Read column attempts to explain Achewood, a big chunk of which is now available in hard copy thanks to Dark Horse’s publication of The Great Outdoor Fight.

As someone who’s tried very, very hard to articulate how great a comic Achewood is, I appreciated Stone’s review attempt. By most objective criteria, Achewood doesn’t appear to be good at all, but there’s…something ineffable about it, some weird alchemy that makes it click at a certain point, a line a reader has to cross to get from “What the fuck is up with that cat in the Speedo blogging about his day while wearing a crown?” to laughing one’s ass off and embarking on the seemingly impossible task of explaining the series to others.

I didn’t pick up the trade yet, although I’m anxious to see what Achewood is like on paper rather than on my computer screen. I do plan on getting it though, despite having already read it for free. The book should make Achewood evangelism much easier, as its easier to lend someone a book and say, “Here read this, you’ll love it” than to ask them to go to achewood.com and read 10-30 strips.


—Here’s Jog reviewing Final Crisis: Superman Beyond. It’s a sharply written, dead-on review, which also happens to be full of some pretty funny imagery of the author in his car in a parking lot reading his comic with 3-D glasses.

I just used my 3-D glasses from the League of Extraordinary Gentleman: The Black Dossier graphic novel; is that cheating? Did I miss something by using those instead of the “4-D Overvoid Viewers?” I imagine I would have been more disappointed in Superman Beyond if I had devoted five to ten minutes cutting out and assembling a pair of 3-D glasses just to be able to read it…


—Today was Jack Kirby’s birthday. Several folks have nice tributes up; I really like Tom Spurgeon’s, which is simply a collection of Kirby covers, panels and details, showing the man’s unparalleled visual power and versatility.


—At Eye On Comics, Don MacPherson reviews DC Universe: Last Will and Testament, and posts both of the covers. They’re identical save for one difference; the one on the right has a foreground image of Geo-Force posing behind a giant rock hand. The one on the left is the one that was originally solicited, and it has a big, fat lighting bolt occupying the center of the image. When it was originally solicited, I assumed that space would be filled in with something later; that it was intentionally left empty to keep a surprise a surprise.

Was the surprise simply that this is a Geo-Force-centric comic, and DC didn’t want to tip their hand on its contents too early, assuming it would hurt orders for the issue since no one likes Geo-Force?

I don’t know; that’s what I was thinking when I saw the Geo-Force variant though. They’re both pretty terrible covers; the one with the empty lightning bolt seems too lightning bolt-centric, and the one with Geo-Force crams his figure on top of the other image, which also features Geo-Force.

What a weird cover…


—Colleen Coover draws a naked lady for Eric Reynolds. (Via Blog@Newsarama)


—Tuesday night I mentioned Sean McKeever and company’s introduction of Super Friends’ Wonderdog into DCU comics continuity, as a springboard into a brief discussion about Alan Scott’s wonder dog Streak, and in the comments section for that post, and for yesterday’s weekly haul, several of you mentioned how awful the issue introducing the new Wonderdog actually was.

Well today at Comicsworthreading.com Johanna Draper Carlson has a brief discussion of the issue (in a post entitled “Teen Titans #62—Wonderdog Did What?!?”) that links to scans of the issue’s climax. Between those scans and those at Newsarama.com, you can read 16 of the issue’s 22 pages, including the what the fuck is wrong with you people?! ending.

And man, it is awful. I dropped the book somewhere in the middle of the “Titans Tomorrow” arc because it wasn’t very good then, but it’s gotten much, much worse. On top of just how juvenile and nasty the Wonderdog bit is, it’s also extremely poorly assembled—the dialogue is mostly just references to other books, Eddy Barrows anatomy and costuming are a series of bad choices, and characters appear and disappear from panel to panel, with no sense of visual continuity.

It really makes the blurb in Teen Titans: Year One encouraging readers to check out Titans and Teen Titans for more Titans stories that I made fun of yesterday seem even more tragic. The only things Teen Titans: Year One and Teen Titans seem to have in common is two words in the title; in every other respect, they are completely antithetical to one another.

Anyway, if you didn’t read this week’s Teen Titans but are interested in the state of DC’s animal sidekicks, check out Carlson’s post to see just how far into superhero decadence DC continues to descend. At the rate they’re going, I’m predicting Robin turning tricks on the street for the sheer thrill of it, Wonder Girl joining the pornography industry and Blue Beetle coming out as a cannibal by the 75th issue.

“Comic books suck these days, and this book is a shining example why…”

Well, I haven’t talked about what a bad comic book writer Brad Meltzer is for four whole days now, so I suppose I’m due for another post on the subject, huh?

Actually, I had an image-heavy post planned for today, but I couldn’t get at a scanner for long enough to get the whole thing in. (Hopefully tomorrow.) I did, however, get my hands on Justice League of America: The Lightning Saga.

The cover for this volume is an oddly cropped version of the Alex Ross image that was used as the cover for the second printing of JLoA #12 (For the first printing, one half of the image was run on the cover; if you wanted the full image, you had to buy two issues). To make room for a bar of text on the back cover, 1/4th of it runs on the back cover, half of it is on the cover of the book, and the final 1/4th of the image on the front cover flap. This leaves Batman off the cover. In Ross’ original layout, the Trinity function as the pillars of the pose, with Black Lightning and Hal Jordan behind each of Wonder Woman’s shoulders. With this cropping, Jordan and Lightning seeming quite prominent. It’s not often you see someone trying to sell a Justice League comic book by putting Black Lighting or Black Canary on the cover instead of Batman.


(Behold my photographic skills! Do not adjust your monitor and/or eyes, the writing has been reversed! I could learn how to fix it, as a few have you have pointed out in the past but, well, I'm lazy.)

(And speaking of Ross’ painting, it’s a good thing he doesn’t read Batman and the Outsiders. I’m sure painting some of the characters on this cover, particularly Vixen and Geo-Force, who didn’t debut in any form until after the cut-off point in DCU costume history that he likes—the appearance of Firestorm signaling where things-he-likes-to-paint stops—must have killed him. And now Geo-Force isn’t even on the Justice League? DC made him paint Geo-Force on the cover of JLoA and he was only even on the team for, like, two stories?*)

Image aside, the cover of this volume varies remarkably from the one containing the first half of writer Brad Meltzer’s run. That one was mostly just cover credits and white space, with the Michael Turner image shrunk down about as small as possible. This one is pretty much all image.

On the first volume, Meltzer’s name was huge, and Ed Benes’ was smaller. On this one, Benes’ isn’t even included. Writers Meltzer and Geoff Johns (who only writes of two of the eight issues within) have their names on the cover in nice big yellow font (much, much bigger than the words “Justice League of America”), and no artists are credited, probably because so many were involved (Benes pencils three of the eight issues; Shane Davis, Fernando Pasarin, Gene Ha and Dale Eaglesham pencil one a piece; the final is a jam issue). In fact, looking at the cover or the spine, you’d be forgiven for thinking an artist named Johns drew the whole thing.

Oddly, while no artists are named on the cover, there is a little credit under Johns’ saying, “Introduction by Patton Oswalt.” Is that a strong selling point? Stronger than any of the artists involved? I mean, “Patton Oswalt” isn’t exactly the first, fifteenth or four-hundredth name that comes to mind when I think of “people who know a lot about comics, and who I’d look to for a recommendation on one.”

The only other text on the cover is a blurb from IGN (The videogame site?), which says, simply, “Spectacular.”

Oswalt’s introduction was pretty funny, and I agreed with large parts of it. For example, he writes, “Comic books suck these days, and this book is a shining example why…”

And, “Brad Meltzer threw a flaming monkey wrench into the machinery when he wrote the IDENTITY CRISIS for DC Comics…this, ‘THE LIGHTNING SAGA,’ is a perfect example of why comics suck.”

Why, he even says at one point that Meltzer’s vision of his stories can “make for frustrating, confusing single issues.”

I couldn’t agree more with any of those out-of-context sentiments; in fact, if I had to choose two words to describe these stories, they would probably be “frustrating” and “confusing.”

Now, Oswalt means all of this in a good way. Basically he’s saying that the overall story that Meltzer—and Geoff Johns, and other of the more popular comics writers of the day that get name-dropped—don’t write single issues anymore, but all write for the trade instead. He means it in a good way.

He even compares the books to those of the old days, when you could buy a single issue of “THE FLASH or X-Men or even Richie Rich and be told a zippy story with a beginning, middle and end.” And that, that’s a bad thing.

I think the exact opposite; the best comics can both tell a single-issue story with a beginning, middle and end and still be a chapter in a bigger story. It’s not an either or proposition. And I don’t see any way in which a single issue being frustrating and confusing can be seen as a virtue, particularly if you read comics as single-issues. Basically, Oswalt is articulating an argument against buying comics like JLoA and JSoA, and instead wait for the trades.

(He also compares single issues of “The Lighting Saga” to single episodes of The Wire, Deadwood and Friday Night Lights, as if being like a TV show, and the trade of it like watching those shows on DVD; I don’t know, there’s something kind of depressing about complimenting a comic book story by saying it’s like a TV show. That’s pretty much my definition of “not a great comic book”).

As for the specifics of what Oswalt has to say, well, after having read his intro, I now suspect that Secret Invasion is gonna suck.

“Oh man,” he writes of JLoA #11, “There’s a moment of revelation that will, literally, make you flip…something.” If you’ve read it already, you know that revelation is that Vixen has lost her animal powers and been leeching her fellow Leaguers’ super-powers. I think. You probably won’t flip anything, but think, “Oh, so it wasn’t just one more dumb-ass mistake when she was using cheetah speed to keep pace with The Flash.”

Or wait, he said “literally.” I guess you will flip the book literally, because a few panels are printed upside down. God, I hope that’s not what he’s talking about…

He also singles out the playing capture the flag scene and the non sequitir involving a trio of supervillains that have absolutely nothing to do with anything at all in this story (rather, it was a tease for a plot currently unfolding in Geoff Johns’ Booster Gold) as examples of “wasn’t it cool” scenes.

I don’t really have anything else to say about “The Lightning Saga” that I haven’t said as it was unfolding. It’s just terrible, terrible, terrible stuff. Since it originally ran, we’ve seen that trio of villains reappear in Booster Gold, we’ve seen Johns play around with The Legion some more in Action Comics, and we’ve seen what’s become of Karate Kid and the shadowy figure from the future in Coundown, and even knowing that, these things still seem off as they occur in the trade, just unconnected, random happenings seemingly beyond the writers’ control.

I was also curious to see if DC changed anything that seemed like a mistake—the coloring of Jai’s hair, the fact that Karate Kid said he “ducked” a lightning bolt that clearly strikes him a few pages earlier—but no dice.

I dropped the monthly after “Lightning Saga,” figuring eventually a nearby library would carry the eventual trade (I’m not above reading bad super-comics, but man, I hate to have to pay for the privilege). So this was the first time I read #11 and #12, Meltzer’s second-to-last and last issue of his short 13-issue run.

The second-to-last issue is easily distinguishable from the rest of the series—it’s the nice-looking one. It’s illustrated by Gene Ha, and it’s impossible to read without thinking how much better Meltzer’s run would have been had Ha drawn it instead of Benes, as he does what Benes can’t by drawing figures that look remotely human, distinct from each other, and capable of expressing emotions.

The story itself is a somewhat pretentiously clever one. It reads a lot like a Brian Michael Bendis story, in which BMB experiments with something seemingly just not to get too bored while cranking out forty super-comics a month.

After they’re caught in a collapsing building and terribly wounded, Red Arrow and Vixen are badly injured, buried alive, facing death, and unable to be rescued by “doors” or Superman. (No mention of why Geo-Force, whose whole deal is lifting rocks and shit, can’t come through). They have to fight through their pain and shock and pep talk each other into getting out (think Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, but with Red Arrow and Vixen instead of fireman). And Vixen doesn’t have any superpowers! And she’s been lying about it this whole time! And now she and her teammate could totally die because she lied! I’d say this makes her seem less than heroic, but considering the actions of the “Power Pact” in Identity Crisis, I suppose this is nothing.

Anyway, it’s a dialogue-heavy issue with too-cute presentation of how they came to be in their predicament, and a kinda neat gimmick near the climax.

And that brings us to the twelfth and final issue of Meltzer’s run on the title, which forms a sort of bookend to JLoA #0, which kicked the series off, but is reprinted as if it were #13, following #12 in this trade (So, if this were a book shelf, both bookends are on the same side of the books, which doesn’t really make much sense).

It starts with nice Eric Wight pencil art, and Wight, like Ha, would have been a far better choice to collaborate with Meltzer for the entire series. He’s seemingly been chosen because his style here looks old and simple, but it’s much more complex than Benes’ (or most of the other pencillers here, excepting only Eaglesham). It only looks simple in that it has less lines, but the lines that are there all do something, whereas too many of Benes’ lines are just there to make the drawing look slightly more complex than a generic figure posing infront of a generic background or, more often than not, empty space.

This story is entitled “Monitor Duty,” and the idea is a day in the life type story exploring the characters and relationships of the various Leaguers. It’something of an empty gesture, given that this is the end of Meltzer’s run; he’s taken 13 issues to get this team together, but leaves before he can say anything about any of them beyond, “Here’s a new status quo; have fun making sense of it, successors!”

In the Wight drawn flashback, we see “Year One” era Aquaman and Martian Manhunter chatting about starting the Justice League, while Hal Jordan and Barry Allen do the same, and then we jump to the present. Two shadowy figures talk about the current League line-up from their hidden base in Rhode Island, spying on them using hologram spy-ware of some sort. Near the end we learn that these spies are actually Aquaman and Martian Manhunter.

This presents some problems. Firstly, Aquaman is dead. The Aquaman who was on the Justice League, the one shown in the flashbacks, the one who knows all the players and experienced all the memories he’s talking about, is dead. During the missing year chronicled in 52, he lost his memory and mutated into “The Dweller of the Deep.” He hung out with Aquaman II for a while, but then he died in the pages of his own book.

So the only Aquaman in the DCU at the moment is Aquaman II, also named Arthur Curry, who absorbed some of Aquaman I’s magic and essence during the missing year, but he’s a totally different person.

The dialogue and story construction indicates Aquaman I is the person talking to J’onn J’onnz throughout the story. The art indicates that it’s Aquaman II, who, in addition to not knowing J’onn, obviously doesn’t know the whole history of the Justice League as experienced by Aquaman I.

That’s a pretty big mistake right there, much bigger than having Felix Faust be the off-panel antagonist of this issue (He’s still stuck in Fate’s Tower with Neron at the time this story is occurring). Flipping through this issue in the shop, I thought it was kind of amusing that not only was Meltzer not reading Aquaman, but neither were his editors on JLoA, and I wondered if they’d be able to correct it in the trade. Maybe if they just had Benes redraw Aquaman, the story would work (so long as you don’t read Aquaman, and, at the time, about 70,000 JLoA readers weren’t reading Aquaman, so it’s probably safe to assume most of those who pick up this trade won’t be tracking down back issues of the now-cancelled Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis). Or if they changed some dialogue to make it look like J’onn was talking to Aquaman II for, um, some reason, it would maybe kind of work. A little.

But this, this just doesn’t work.

It doesn’t deserve a “Continuity is for nerds, it’s the story itself that matters!” pass either, since Meltzer is so goddam concerned with continuity that his readers are supposed to have read and internalized early ‘80s New Teen Titans to the point that when Roy says Vixen’s shaking “like Gar after we lost Terra,” they’ll know what the hell he’s talking about.

To say nothing of referring to the Legionnaires by their first names throughout “Lightning Saga.” When characters call Superman and Batman “Clark” and “Bruce,” it’s annoying and unnatural, but at least any reader who picks this book up is going to be reasonably aware of who Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne are. But Jeckie? Luornu? Val? The hell?

This book is nothing but continuity (and continuity errors) so, like Identity Crisis it doesn’t get that pass; you can’t base a story in DC trivia, expecting your readers to know it at least as well as you, and then beg their indulgence when you screw it up.

The trade ends with JLoA #0, which is the first chapter of the first story arc, trade-collected at the end of the run for some reason. Reading it here seems…off, particularly after the exclamation point ending of Meltzer’s final issue, with Martian Manhunter saying things never change over a two-page spread of the whole line-up running straight at the reader.

All of a sudden, we’re back in the Batcave, watching the Trinity sit down and get ready to look at photos for a few months. I kind of liked the way Meltzer redefined the Trinity as a clique within the League in this story, but the story itself is extremely random.

There are a few pages in the present, but most of them flashback to a new version of DCU history (the post-Intinite Crisis/52 version of pre- and post-Crisis (on Infinite Earths version, in which Wonder Woman was being reinserted into League history after having been removed from it for over 20 years). Or flash-forward to events of the future labeled “tomorrow.” Looking at these now, well over a year since the #0 issue first came out, none of the six “tomorrows” have come to pass yet, and most probably never will (the death of Batman and the marriage of Wonder Woman, for example; the marriage of Hal Jordan and the death of Pa Kent are more possible, I suppose, and the Trinity vs. Luthor over Superboy the most likely to occur).

The main virtue of this issue is the art, with Wight again handling the “Year One” stuff, Benes the present day stuff, and a slew of guest-artists each getting a page or so. We get to see Kevin Maguire and Howard Porter drawing pages set in the eras they defined, plus Dick Giordano, Tony Harris, George Perez, J.H. Williams III, Gene Ha, Rags Morales, Ethan Van Sciver, Jim Lee and others.

And I imagine that’s the last post I’ll have complaining about Meltzer for a good long time, as I’ve now read every comic he’s written. All 26 of ‘em. Stop back tomorrow for “Judd Winick: Threat or Menace?” Kidding! Something light and image-heavy for sure tomorrow.



*I’m guessing, here. Was he officially on the team for “Lightning Saga,” or still just kinda hanging around? In #7, he says he’s not on the team. Well, if he is on the League, that means he’s around for “Lighting Saga,” “Monitor Duty” and McDuffie’s fist arc, “Unlimited.” So, two to three stories altogether, right?

Weekly Haul: January 23rd

Blue Bettle #23 (DC Comics) The ongoing conflict between Jaime “Blue Beetle III” Reyes and the alien race known as The Reach that’s been at the heart of this series has been the part of it which interested me the least. Jaime’s relationship with his friends and family, his interaction with the rest of the DCU, and writer John Rogers sharp characterization and sharper dialogue has been the book’s real selling point for me personally.

This issue involves Jaime deciding to finally confront (and hopefully defeat) The Reach once and for all, and I found myself enjoying it much more than I thought I would. It seems our hero doing something he does only really quite rarely—confronting an enemy or problem all on his own. In fact, the first half of the issue deal with him explaining to his friends and family that he has to go this alone, and why he can’t have them or anybody else really helping them. It’s surprisingly touching (Confession: I totally choked up on page 7, panel 5).

While the second half veers into more standard superhero comics territory—the hero, using his amazing powers, combats the evil alien invaders—Rogers’ fairly unique conception of these particular evil alien invaders, and the clever ways in which Jaime uses those powers against them if both fun and fresh.



Teen Titans Go! #51 (DC) I was a big fan of Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans cartoon. Like their Justice League, it started off a little weak, but rapidly got really great. In addition to reinventing the Wolfman/Perez era Titans into cooler, more relevant and sharply realized characters, the show’s writers and artists improved on the most hoary DC character properties, from Speedy and Aqualad to the Doom Patrol and the Brotherhood of Evil, from the Mad Mod and Ding Dong Daddy to Bumblebee and Argent.

I tried to read the comic book adaptation for the first dozen or issues or so, but just couldn’t get into it. It suffered a bit from the adaptation of an adaptation syndrome, and unlike the cartoon itself, seemed to be addressing kids by talking down to them.

This week seemed like a good time to give it another shot though, since it was such a light week for promising looking releases and, what the hell, it’s got the introduction of the TTG! version of Geo-Force.

Now it’s easy to hate on Geo-Force, and Brad Meltzer made it several thousand times easier by kind of sort of including him in his JLoA revamp, having him just kind of appearing in random scenes that never connected with the rest of the story, and seeming like a hanger-on to the team. There’s that stupid green and yellow costume, a color combo that only really works on athletic teams, and the “GF” logo on the chest. Stupid Geo-Force.

Having recently devoured the Showcase Presents: Batman and the Outsiders by Mike Barr, Jim Aparo and others, I’ve come to appreciate G.F. a bit more. Maybe it was the fact that the black and white format meant I didn’t have to look at that green and gold costume (Fun fact: Batman designed that for Geo-Force!), or that Barr and company wrote the guy as something other than an empty costume taking up space in an already decompressed narrative, but it certainly made Brion a little harder to hate. (Or maybe it was just the number of times he said “By my crown!”; characters with catch-phrases are always preferable to those without ‘em).

The old much-missed Young Justice art team of Todd Nauck and Larry Stucker are still on TTG! art duty, and they give Geo-Force a pretty awesome new costume design, by far the best he’s ever worn.

You can see it on the cover there. It has the color scheme of his original one (Which he quit wearing because it reminded him of Terra, I also learned from that Showcase; not sure why he started wearing it in the DCU again, other than the fact that it sucks less than his green and gold one), with the belt, wristbands and “GF” symbol of his second one. However, the “GF” logo is much more stylized, with sharper lines and bigger letters. This one looks more like Superman or Blue Falcon’s symbols than, say something that might appear on the side of a football helmet.

It does feature cargo pants, however. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about them. I kinda like the fact that he’s wearing pants—it gives the costume a sort of military look, and it also covers his modesty.

The DCU version of Geo-Force should totally steal this costume design.

Lame.

Lame.

Lame.

As for the issue, it’s one of the stronger ones I’ve read of the series (although I haven’t been following writer J. Torres’ run on the series, so maybe it’s actually pretty typical). A strange super-powered teenager shows up at the Titans’ tower and starts causing trouble with his powers over rocks and the earth.

When they’re finally able to calm him down, they learn that he’s actually Terra’s older brother and he’s come looking for her, and he blames the Titans for what happened to her. You know, the whole being tricked into working for Slade, going all evil and ultimately turning herself to stone. It was in the cartoons.

It’s a nice done-in-one telling the origins of Geo-Force and Terra, one which convinced me that, as unlikely as it seems, the Markov royal family would actually make for a pretty good shoujo-style manga comic, if DC ever actually starts taking advantage of their characters’ ability to court the legions of manga reading kids out there.



Therefore Repent! (IDW) Writer Jim Munroe and artist Salgood Sam’s “post-Rapture graphic novel” has an appealing hook—a disintegrating romance in a world not unlike that in Left Behind, only with more talking dogs and magic—and a nice, inky black and white look. It took a while to get there, but the conclusion is quite interesting, ultimately redeeming the sometimes too slow journey to get there. It’s a pretty busy book with a lot actually happening, and I’m still processing it. Expect a fuller review next week.



Wonder Woman #16 (DC) Because asking a single art team to draw 22 pages a month is unthinkable, artist Ron Randall comes in to draw the middle of Terry and Rachel Dodson’s story here, which continues to pit Wonder Woman and her mom vs. Nazis on the abandoned Themyscira, and the back story involving a new look at Wonder Woman’s origin story.

I feel like Gail Simone’s take on the character and direction for the title is still coming together—this is only part-three of a four issue arc, after all, and she certainly had her work cut out for her in terms of making sense of the shambles the franchise was left in—and this issue is a third case of a decent Wonder Woman issue, with a trio of pretty good individual threads that don’t really seem to have much of anything to do with one another yet.

I do like the extreme melodrama of the dialogue, and the fact that the super-gorillas have Wondy’s back in her battle—I’ve been spending some more time with the Wonder Woman Archives (still by far the best take on the character), and her ability to turn enemies into friends was an important part of her old mythos, although they were usually evil women becoming heroines, rather than gorilla terrorists becoming Wonder Woman’s gorilla knights, but close enough.

The biggest problem with the book, however, continues to be the damage done to it before Simone got there, and the damage done to the character and the elements of her franchise done around the rest of the DCU.

I believe I mentioned with the last few issues, that there seemed to be two-to-three different versions of Themyscira and Hippolyta in the DCU at the time (I haven’t been reading Green Arrow/Black Canary and Countdown, but they’ve both featured populated Themyscira’s, and this Hippolyta looks nothing like the one in GA/BC).

And the cliffhanger ending is more laughable than dramatic, as Hippolyta is seemingly shot to death. I mean, she was just magically brought to life a couple issues ago; if she does die now, why can’t be magically brought back to life again the following month?

Good, but still not good enough.




World War Hulk Aftersmash: Damage Control #1 (Marvel Comics) This World War Hulk follow-up seems like it took a little too long to arrive—in the Marvel hype cycle, WWH already seems like two event ago—but that may have more to do with the shrinking time frame between tent pole events than anything else.

All but destroyed by the Hulk’s invasion in Grek Pak and John Romita Jr.’s miniseries, New York City is in need of some serious repair, and Dwayne McDuffie and Ernie Colon creation Damage Control has just won the $164 billion contract.

Writer McDuffie’s history with the characters is readily apparent—several characters are introduced who seem to have had prior story arcs, but they’re introduced so thoroughly, one need not have any prior experience with them to know what’s going on (This is the first time I’ve read a McDuffie D.C. story, and I wasn’t the least bit lost).

Most of the issue is devoted to introducing these characters, and McDuffie gets plenty of opportunity to flex his skill at sharp dialogue and verbal witticisms. It reads a bit like a clever TV dramedy plays—and I mean that in a good way. It’s not like trying to turn The Avengers into The Sopranos or JLA into Law and Order: SVU; these civilian characters and their somewhat mundane job in a more fantastic world fit the pilot episode feel of the issues perfectly.

Artist Salva Espin’s art—colored to closely resemble Civil War by Guru EFX—is great. The characters are sharply drawn and act well, and the details are well realized. There are a few panels I was tempted to reach into and grab some fruit from a bowl in the middle of the scene.

As for super-business, there’s the introduction of a new Goliath, who calls himself “Black Goliath” the first time he grows, and a boatload of cameos in one panel, who are confronted in a cliffhanger by the Thunderbolts.

I kinda hope a fight breaks out. It seems like the SHRA conflict between heroes which Marvel EIC said was instituted to bring a level of danger to the Marvel Universe—the second of his three genies—is constantly being swept under the rug. Almost every time the registered and unregistered are in the same panel, the former forgives the latter. Here, for example, black suit Spider-Man, Dr. Srange, Iron Fist and Luke Cage are all milling around with Mr. Fantastic and Yellowjacket.

DC's March previews reveiwed

Is Infinity Inc cancelled yet? Is a new issue of the supposedly not cancelled Manhunter going to come out in March? How overt is the phallic imagery on the cover of Batman Confidential #15? There’s only one place to find out! DC’s March solicitations, which you can see here.

And the only place you can see my pithy comments on them? That would be right here.




One thing I’ve really come to appreciate after spending much of the month scribbling drawings of Batman on index cards is just how awesome his cape is. It’s huge and black and, if you draw it big and billowy enough, it can be used to obscure pretty much any part of his body you’re not particularly good at drawing. I try to use it to cover up everything except maybe a hand or two.

Tony Daniel knows what I’m talking about. Here he uses it to cover up Batman’s crotch, feet and the entire left side of his body. Hey, I’m not ragging on the guy; sure he’s a shitty pencil artist, but he’s a thousand times better than me, and, like I said, I totally appreciate his taking the exact same shortcuts as me.

My only complaint about his cover? I really think Daniel should have used the cape to cover up more of Batman. Particularly his chest. What the hell kind of shape is that supposed to be? An umbrella? It sure doesn’t look like the regular bat-symbol. Was Batman in a hurry to get dressed, and accidentally grabbed the wrong gray shirt on the way out the cave door or what?




BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #5
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Julian Lopez & Bit
Cover by Doug Braithwaite
The Outsiders run into trouble while a recon mission for Batman at a European Space Administration site in North Africa! Meanwhile, tension within the group comes to a head as the Outsiders’ newest member challenges Batman for leadership!

Now with 100% more Geo-Force! I assume he’s the “newsest member” who will challenge Batman for leadership. I also assume he will fail to win leadership. I mean, who on Earth would buy a comic book called Geo-Force and The Outsiders?

I like Doug Braithwaite’s art, and think he makes for a fine cover artist, but I wonder if this is the best team book for him to be working on, given the nature of the team members’ costumes. I think Braithwaite would be better suited to JLoA.





Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!






Yay!




THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #11
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Jerry Ordway
Cover by George Pérez
Superman and Ultraman of the Crime Society…together? What situation could be so dire that it would cause this team-up? Will two men who are the exact opposite of each other be able to work together long enough to save the day? Featuring guest art by Jerry Ordway!

“Guest art?” Noooooooooooo!




COUNTDOWN SPECIAL: ECLIPSO 80-PAGE GIANT
Written by Robert Loren Fleming and John Ostrander
Art by Colleen Doran, Tom Mandrake and Ray Kryssing
Cover by Ryan Sook
Collecting stories from Eclipso #10 Spectre #17-18, shedding light on these pivotal characters from COUNTDOWN!

I already own these comics, so will definitely be passing on this, but I just wanted to point out that the Ostrander/Mandrake Spectre is a great, great, great series (and one that’s almost entirely uncollected in trade), and I really enjoyed the majority of the short-lived Eclispo ongoing.

I’m not sure why DC is bothering to reprint them as part of Countdown, since the current Eclipso kinda breaks the “rules” of Eclipso, but whatever.

I look forward to seeing the Sook cover, too. The one solicited looks like it’s simply a blown up piece of a Mandrake panel.




DC SPECIAL: RAVEN #1
Written by Marv Wolfman
Art and cover by Damion Scott & Robert Campanella
From Marv Wolfman, co-creator of Raven, and maverick penciller Damion Scott (BATGIRL) comes a 5-issue miniseries delving into Raven's past and giving her a new life — but first she must survive the horrors of high school! Can the Titan's empath endure the wave of teen angst at school, especially after someone begins killing students? Emotions are driven sky high thanks to the reappearance of the Psycho Pirate's Medusa mask, and there's no way anyone can contain it once it has fallen into the wrong hands. Titans fans new and old dare not miss this one!

I was super-excited when the Wonder Girl miniseries was announced, as it was being drawn by an artist I really liked and was eager to see more work from, and written by J. Torres, who has a lot of great comics under his belt. And well, I lasted two issues before losing all interest in all the Countdownian, NewGodkillingness of it.

So here's another miniseries featuring a female Titan lead being drawn by an artist I really like and am eager to see more work from, so I would be super-excited, but maybe I should temper that down to an excited.

I love Scott's work, particularly on the later issues of Batgirl (It took him a couple arcs to really find himself, I think). His more recent work on Robin saw his style getting a way from him quite a bit, but I imagine back under Campanella's inks he should be looking good again (The cover's nice). Wolfman's writing, and he knows Raven better than anyone, but I don't know that his old-school writing style is exactly a good match for Scott's new school art style.

There's some more weirdnesses about this book too. Why's it titled with a "DC Special," especially since it's a five issue series? And why's it coming out now? Wouldn't a mini focusing on Raven's new status quo as a teenager have been better in 2004, when Raven was first de-aged to a teenager, staring high school, starring in a popular team title and a well-received cartoon show?




THE FLASH #238
Written by Tom Peyer
Art and cover by Freddie Williams II
“Fast Money” begins! Don’t miss the kickoff of this provocative new storyline by Tom Peyer (HOURMAN), as the Flash is pulled into an intense moral dilemma about superpowers — and Keystone’s plagued by a menace who’s using familiar mind-bending tactics!

Hey, just last week I was wondering why I haven’t seen a credit by Tom Peyer anywhere in a while, and what do you know? He’s taking over—or just filling in on?—The Flash. I haven’t read an issue of this since Infinite Crisis, so bad was the taste left in my mouth by the Flash switch just for switch’s sake, but I’ll probably check this out. Surely the bad taste of the switch will be gone by March, right?




GREEN LANTERN CORPS #22
Written by Chuck Kim
Art and cover by Nelson
Part 2 of CURSE of THE LOST LANTERNS written by HEROES scribe Chuck Kim continues to reveal the missing time between Parallax’s destruction of the Corps and its survivors struggle against the Manhunters and the coming threat of the Sinestro Corps as Boodikka ponders her future as one of the newly anointed Alpha Lanterns. Can her old allies trust her anymore, what secrets does she hold and why does it mean to Hal Jordan?

Chuck Kim? Tomasi just took over the title last week, and they’ve already got another writer coming in? I blame the Hollywood writers’ strike. Pass.




JLA PRESENTS: AZTEK — THE ULTIMATE MAN TP
Written by Grant Morrison & Mark Millar
Art by Stephen Harris, Keith Champagne, Drew Geraci and others
Cover by Howard Porter and John Dell
From writers Grant Morrison (52, BATMAN) and Mark Millar (Ultimates, Civil War) comes Aztek, the visionary hero from the 1990s! In these stories from Aztek: the Ultimate Man #1-10, Aztek fights the forces of evil in Vanity City, where he meets costumed characters including Green Lantern and The Joker!

Well it’s about fucking time. Aztek seems to have come out about a year too early—can you even imagine a Morrison and Millar book being cancelled after a year today?—and I can’t believe it’s taken DC this long to get around to capitalizing on the two writers’ since risen stars. (Morrison was, by that point, already a big name creator, but I think he’s become even more popular since; Millar, meanwhile, went from a guy who wrote really awesome comic books that no one read to really shitty comic books that every one reads).

The series isn’t all that awesome, truth be told. There are a lot of fun concepts at play in it, and Aztek is a really cool hero and a nice addition to the DCU (though he didn’t last all that long), but the art is really rocky, and the storyline is visible flailing through much of the run. Still, I’m all over this. I’ve been looking for the issue guest-starring the JLA since it came out, and I could never find it for less than $10 anywhere.




JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #19
Written by Alan Burnett
Art by Ed Benes & Sandra Hope
Cover by Benes
Don't miss the final chapter of "Salvation," as the JLA turn themselves over to the U.S. government to be sent to prison off-world! What old foe will they have to rely on to save themselves from planet hell?

Hey, remember when DC said Dwayne McDuffie was going to be JLoA's regular writer until he no longer wanted to be? Is McDuffie sick of writing the title already?

Of course, who could blame him, considering JLoA is, by this point, a tie-in to Salvation Run, which is itself a tie-in to Countdown to Final Crisis?

On the plus side, this month's terrible Ed Benes cover is completely ass-less. I'm shocked. Why, by simply showing this exact same image from the opposite direction, like inside the Boom Tube, he could have worked a record-breaking nine asses on a single cover, four of them belonging to females.




JLA BUILD-A-SCENE STATUE: PART 1 Based on the art of Ed Benes. Sculpted by Alterton Bizarre. Ed Benes’ legendary image from the cover of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7 stands tall as it becomes a multi-part statue! Sold in three parts, each features two of the world’s greatest superheroes and includes a piece of a bonus Red Tornado figure. (To fully assemble Red Tornado, all three Build-a-Scene statues are needed.) All of the pieces slide together to make a complete cover scene in striking 3-D!

And speaking of Benes…

I don’t normally comment on the DC Direct toys and statue stuff, because it usually is all worthy of the same amount of denigration, and I don’t want to be at this all night or anything, but I did want to point out that this solicitation refers to Ed Benes’ cover for JLoA #7, which, you’ll recall, was actually only half an image, with the other half available on a second issue of the exact same comic book, is referred to here as “legendary.” Legendary. As in “something commemorated in a legend” or “appropriate for a legend” or “a story told as history in future generations which may or may not be true.”

A legend. This cover—



Man, “legendary” would be hyperbolic for some of the most famous comic book covers ever, but I think you could get away with it if you’re talking, I don’t know, Spider-Man swinging on the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 or Superman with that car over his head and the dude freaking out in the corner, but JLoA #7?

Does anyone even like that cover?





JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #43
Written by Keith Giffen
Art by Christopher Jones & Dan Davis
Cover by Jones
An untold tale of the Justice League by 52’s Keith Giffen! Meet the early Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, who want to join the League — because that’s where the big money is! They have much to learn…

Wow, it’s “Blue and Gold” month, I guess. And check it out—written by Keith Giffen!





Kiichi and the Magic BooksWritten and illustrated by Taka Amano. CMX/FLEX COMIX. With his horned head and pointed ears, young Kiichi resembles a demon. When his mother dies, he is ostracized from his village. Alone and with no clue to his true origin, he meets Mototaro, a traveling “Library Man” who goes from town to town, lending out books. When Kiichi spies some magical creatures literally jumping out of the pages of one of these books, he thinks he may be on the way to finding out where he came from. Mototaro and Hana – his young assistant – agree to let Kiichi accompany them. Together, they will encounter strange creatures and adventures while Kiichi tries to find his place in the world.

Gah! Fuck you, Taka Amano! I was working on something with a similar premise, and now it turns out that there’s a manga series already done on the subject! And, since it’s an English translation being reprinted here in the West, it’s probably years old too! Well, at least mine will be distinguished by vastly inferior art and shoddy hand lettering, likely full of spelling and grammatical errors…

I like the cover image.




NIGHTWING #142
Written by Peter Tomasi
Art and cover by Rags Morales & Michael Bair
Why is another super-powered body, this time the corpse of the KGBeast, being stolen from the Gotham Cemetery — and how is Nightwing going to stop it?
Nightwing starts to piece together the diabolical plans of Dr. Creighton Kendall, a scientist whose twisted mind harbors dark and devious plans that may fit into the far-reaching scheme of Talia al Ghul and her desire to protect herself once and for all from the evil clutches of her father and the world at large.

Aww, when did the KGBeast die? I have no memory of this. But maybe I did read that story and have just forgotten; the deaths really are starting to all blur together in my mind. Anyway, that’s too bad. Sure, he was a lame character, but I kind of liked the goofy Claremont-esque Russian accented dialogue writers like Chuck Dixon would come up with for him, and he had the absolute most awesome ‘80s codename…even better than New Wave.




Ladies and gentleman, we have a new contender for Worst Costume In the DC Universe…




SUPERMAN/BATMAN ANNUAL #2
Written by Joe Kelly
Art and cover by Scott Kolins
Acclaimed writer Joe Kelly joins fan-favorite artist Scott Kolins (THE FLASH) for a reimagining of a classic story from Superman and Batman's Silver Age! In WORLD'S FINEST #178, Superman lost his powers and took on the identity of Nova, the inspiration for 52's Super-Nova. Now, the mysterious Socrates has robbed the world of its Man of Steel forcing Batman and Robin to find a way to replace him!

Joe Kelly's Superman/Batman Annual #1, in which the World's Finest, pre-secret identity reveal, sparred in their alter egos and came into conflict with Ultraman, Owlman, Deatshroke and a stealth guest-starring Deadpool, was by far the single best story to appear under the Superman/Batman name. So seeing Kelly return for a second annual, set during the same time period, is really great news. Not so sure about the art at this point; I usually enjoy Kolins' work, but his Robin on the cover looks a little...off. Is the original Robin really so hard to draw? Ian Churchill similarly butchered the design in Titans East, although Kolins will have to do much, much worse than that to match Churchill's hairy-legged Robin. (Shudder!)

Oh, and the last annual was in 2006; this one's due in 2008, which strains the definition of annual, but whatever—I look forward to seeing a Superman/Batman team-up issue that isn't terrible again.





I like the composition of this cover. Just in case you didn’t notice that the focus of the image were Ravager’s boobs, they’ve included a man’s hand pointing his index finger at her boobs.




Have I mentioned how much I love Karl Kerschl’s Teen Titans: Year One art yet? What’s that? I have? For the last two months now? Well, I still love it.





Man, could I go for a cupcake arrow right now…





TRIALS OF SHAZAM #12
Written by Judd Winick
Art & Cover by Mauro Cascioli
The Trials of Shazam conclude…and win or lose, Freddy Freeman may still need the help of the Justice League to survive the “verdict”!

Woo-hoo! It’s finally over! Now quick, put everything back together the way it was before Trials of Shazam #1!




VARIANTE VOL. 3 Written and illustrated by Iqura Sugimoto. CMX. Agent Sudo tries to uncover the secret behind Aethos, the government linked corporation in charge of investigating the Chimeras. But in doing so, he stumbles upon a secret from his own past—a girl he believed he had killed years ago, but who instead has been a subject of experimentation. As for Aiko, she’s having doubts about what the_Chimeras really are and may be losing the will to fight them.

I wonder if it will have a variante cover? Ha ha ha ha! Get it? Variante cover? Ha ha!




YOUNG LIARS #1 Written by David Lapham. Art and cover by Lapham. Indie comics auteur and SILVERFISH creator David Lapham hasn’t embarked on a monthly series since STRAY BULLETS, his magnum opus that garnered industry awards and international acclaim. Now Lapham’s back with YOUNG LIARS, his first full-color monthly series, about a group of misfits and their desperate attempt to salvage their crushed dreams. “I haven’t had this much fun since my Uncle Chuck took me on a crime spree in the fourth grade.” — David Lapham. At the core of YOUNG LIARS is the disturbing relationship between Danny Noonan, a habitual liar and crap guitar player from Texas, and Sadie Dawkins, the object of his desire. Sadie was a poor little rich girl until a bullet lodged in her brain turned her into an adrenaline junkie who only listens to Danny. But who shot Sadie is only part of the mystery that drives YOUNG LIARS, from the twisted club scene of lower Manhattan to absurdist hijinx on the high seas. And from the hot shores of Ibiza to the haunted castles of Spain, Danny, Sadie and their entourage of losers will run from poorly disguised assassins, demented billionaires, and psychotic midgets — not to mention each other — in an absurd quest to get rich and famous. Or kill each other trying. YOUNG LIARS will provide relentless action, suspense, sex and murder in the way that only David Lapham can deliver.


I like that logo.

Usually what I do with intriguing looking new Vertigo series is read the first issue or two or three, and then switch to trades. I think I may just start with the trades on this one though, as it’s pretty much guaranteed to be good comics.

GEO-FORCE

is lactose intolerant.

Dear Dwayne McDuffie,

Congratulations on your new gig!

Even a few years ago, I probably would have greeted the news that Dwayne McDuffie was going to be writing JL(o)A with a "Who?" instead of "Woo hoo!" (despite having enjoyed so much of your past Milestone work, back when I didn’t pay much attention to the credit boxes).

But is it just me, or have you seriously stepped up your game lately?

As someone who doesn't really pay much attention to the names of television writers on shows I watch (I have no idea if you were the genius who had Flash-in-Luthor's-body not wash his hands after going to the bathroom because he was evil or not, for example), I'm not even referring to any work you may have done on the generally excellent Justice League Unlimited. I mean instead the last few issues of Firestorm (including the sublime Orion vs. Stompa fight), the wonderfully old-school Beyond! (which took a handful of characters I didn't care the least for and weaved a highly entertaining story around them), the tons of fun Fantastic Four and, hell, even last week's Avengers Classic back-up.

Now, from what Dan Didio has said, it sounds like you'll be whittling the cast of JLoA down somewhat, as it's rather large for your (or his?) taste. Which I was surprised to hear, seeing as there are only ten people in the League at the moment, eleven if you count Geo-Force, and the best runs on the team have been those with the largest casts (Giffen/DeMatteis had two teams spread over two books and a quarterly; Morrison’s team swelled to around a dozen).

While everyone has their own ideal League line-ups, I'll try my hardest not to bore you with mine here. I did want to share some advice with you, though. Not that you need it, but rather because if there's one thing we at EDILW like doing, it's sharing advice about Justice League comics that no one ever listens to.

So, regarding that line-up: It's integral to remember that the Justice League formula that works the very best is “The Big Seven” plus a few more. The Leagues that have worked the best financially and critically without that foundation of the Big Seven (i.e. the Giffen/DeMatteis run) did so despite rather than because of the deviation from the Big Seven plus more formula, and they did have the advantage of Batman going for them (If you're only going to use one of the Seven, that's the one you want, especially around the early '90s).

The argument is often made that it's hard to tell League stories with these seven characters because so many of them have their own books, or, in Superman and Batman's cases, whole lines of books, and will thus not only remain static but, if they're to change/develop at all, it will be in those books, not JLoA. To that I say: “So what?” JLoA doesn't need to focus on the superheroes as characters, but rather on the interaction between them. There are a lot of books about Batman, and one about Wonder Woman, but this is the only book about the Batman and Wonder Woman's relationship to one another.

Now, I understand the line-up you'll be inheriting is devoid of three of the traditional Big Seven (again, the fact that this is DC's bestselling book is despite rather than because the variation of the formula; I don't think anyone believes Geo-Force, Roy Harper and Red Tornado are more popular than Flash, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, and the current line-up still has the three biggest of the Big Seven on it). Ideally, you'll want to add the Flash, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter as soon as possible, but that might take a while. We don't know who the Flash will be (Wally's an immediate in; Bart and Barry might want to wait a bit), Aquaman's dead for the moment and Martian Manhunter is more unlikable in his current costume and characterization than he's ever been.

So that gives us the Big Seven Minus Three, meaning you can add at least three. Roy Harper is a must-keep, if only because Meltzer made such a big deal about it, changing his name and costume to get him there. Black Lightning is also a must-keep; some of us have been waiting forever to get him there and, again, he just joined. Hawkgirl and Vixen both seem like good candidates for sticking around, in part because they just re-upped; the former is more iconic, but the latter is more unique. Tough call.

As for trimming, no one would mind if Geo-Force decided he didn't want to stick around after all. Seriously, I can't think of a single person in Internetland who likes Geo-Force, or at least hasn't made fun of him repeatedly. (Here are some of my favorite jokes at Geo-Force's expense).

Red Tornado is similarly annoying, particularly as Meltzer has written him, although he has a larger fan base (that is, he has some fans). I could take or leave him, personally; if he sticks around, I do hope you'll find an interesting way to write him. The whole Pinocchio Syndrome Android-with-human-emotions-who-wishes-he-was-real plotline has been something pretty much anyone who's ever touched Red Tornado and Marvel’s Vision has hammered on over the last, what, 30 years now? That’s kind of…tired.

Black Canary has fans and certainly belongs in the League more than Geo-Force, but, at the same time, I don't think she brings much of anything to the team. If they need someone to beat someone up without using superpowers for some reason, they could just have Batman do it. He loves beating people up. Her upcoming nuptials will give her a good excuse to step down for a while too, or put herself on reserve status, or maybe just be like the Phantom Stranger, and just show up when she feels like it or is really needed.

Which is the advantage of a gigantic line-up. The more people on the League, the better, even if we don't see them all the time. For example, I love Steel and, in a DCU that operates on a sort of logic beyond "That Which the Person Writing Likes Is What Is," I don't know why he would have quit the League after Morrison’s “World War III” or why no one's asked him to rejoin. How many brilliant inventors and super-engineers who can also catch falling jetliners and knock giant robots' heads off with their big ass hammers are there in the talent pool? And while the Trinity are all scientists, I think the League needs a dedicated tech guy. I'd be happy to see Steel on the team, even if he's only there doing tech support, monitor duty and joining them for, like, one out of every fifteen fights. I think that's how a lot of fans feel; they want their favorites in the League, even if those favorites don’t actually star in every single issue.

So big rosters are great, and, barring that, a large number of official reservists who occasionally guest-star and/or just check in is definitely the next best thing.

Other add-ins to consider, beyond Aquaman, a Flash and J'onn? Well, obviously Plastic Man and Captain Marvel, once the Judd Winick experiment is scrapped and things get back to normal with him. I know those two superheroes belong among any gathering of The World's Greatest Heroes just as much as any of the Big Seven, you know they belong among any gathering of the World's Greatest Heroes just as much as any of the Big Seven, so why not finally officially make it so?

Oh hey, and the Green Lantern situation? Who should be the Green Lantern? It's Hal currently, which never made much sense to me. Though a founder, he was on the League less than Kyle and Guy. He was also evil for a long stint, so evil that he actually destroyed the universe temporarily, and even killed Batman temporarily before undoing all of creation (yeah, yeah a space bug did it; whatever) and he was a member of "The Power Pact" which was less than ethical (another strike against Canary, come to think of it), and his coming on seemed a little unnatural. I mean, they were just working with John, who was place-holding for Kyle, when Hal came in. Did they just fire John? Stop returning his calls? Was he so deep undercover as Hunger Dog that he couldn't join the new Meltzer-ized League? It should have been John, as we all know (Kyle's life seems even more complicated now then when he asked John to replace him, and the League needs a Lantern in it's line-up, not an, um, Ion…whatever that is exactly).

Of course, now the problem is that Hal's there, and they'd have to kick him out to make room for John. I'm not sure how to handle this, or how quickly it should happen, but I have faith that you'll find a smart, believable way to do it. John is currently the only book-less Lantern, and JLoA is the ideal place for him now. If Hal gets the monthly, Guy the Corps book and Kyle all the stupid Countdown spin-offs, then let's get John back in the League, huh?

Thanks for your time, and good luck.

Sincerely,
Caleb

P.S. Zauriel! Scott "Mister Miracle" Free! Steel! J'onn! Aquaman! Plastic Man! De-Winick-ified Captain Marvel! Moon Maiden! Janissary! Maybe even Cyborg!