Jonathan Edwards 8/30/17 Jonathan Edwards 8/30/17

Review: Justice League of America #13

By Jonathan Edwards

Let's hit the ground running with this review; after finally straightening itself out so that its greatest sin was just being boring last issue, Justice League of America immediately missteps right back into the world of excessive, clunky exposition and underdeveloped concepts. I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm really not. I figure me not being surprised by that is itself not that surprising to anyone who's read at least one or two of my prior JLA reviews. But come on, no shit that wasn't Ray Palmer at the end of the previous issue, and now you're going to start off with multiple pages of exposition, completely forced and contrived conflict between Ryan, Lobo, and Killer Frost, and then you're going to cut away back to Black Canary and Ray fighting Afterthought? Well, at least that last bit was the only cutaway in the whole issue, and it's actually managing to build a slight amount of intrigue. However, the fact remains that it takes until a third of the way into this issue for the main plot to actually start progressing again. But even once it does, more exposition bogs it down, and then the issue is over without much else happening.

Jonathan Edwards 8/10/17 Jonathan Edwards 8/10/17

Review: Justice League of America #12

By Jonathan Edwards

Y'know, there actually is a reason I keep coming back to review this book despite my nigh constant condemnation of it. Actually, if anything, it's because I'm so vocal about how bad Justice League of America is that I want to be among the first to recognize it if I ever end up being wrong and this series does eventually get better. Now, is that the case here? Eh, kind of I guess? Personally, I'd only describe this as the least bad issue in a long time. Issue #10 may have been more substantial, but it still had its glaring problems. Justice League of America #12 on the other hand is bland, but it technically still functions. At least as far as structure is concerned. It's also the first issue of the series to properly follow-up on something that happened in the prequel one-shots. And no, Vanity, Caden, and Ray's mom showing up in the previous two issues don't count. Aside from that being a bad story full of holes in logic and other problems, the Might Beyond the Mirror wasn't introduced as a concept until issue #4 or #5. Anyway, Panic in the Microverse: Part One.

Jonathan Edwards 7/26/17 Jonathan Edwards 7/26/17

Review: Justice League of America #11

By Jonathan Edwards

What a piece of fucking garbage. As much as I've ragged on this series over these last few months, I'm honestly finding it a bit hard to believe just how bad this issue is. There's not a single redeeming factor present. It's an entirely worthless conclusion to a worthless two-part story, and Raymond Terrill is an idiotic dickbag of a character. If we didn't already know by now, this issue definitively shows just how self-righteous and hypocritical he is. He gets up on his soap box to scream about how moralistic he is for "giv[ing] people the chance to be good, instead of assuming they'll be their worst," and then he turns around and refuses to try and listen or empathize with the woman that raised him. Sure, she may have wished for a new family, but how does that hurt Ray? Nadine is right when she said Ray left, and he hadn't ever come back. The only reason he did this time was because the plot needed him to, and now we're supposed to feel bad because she moved on with her life? Fuck that. Ray has every right to have left the way he did. Because, it is true that the way Nadine was raising him was ultimately wrong. However, she also fully acknowledges that here, but that's still not good enough for Ray. No, to appease his narcissism, she needs to wallow in her past mistakes until the day she dies and never be happy again. Yeah, that's giving people the benefit of the doubt. That's justice. Go ahead, Steve Orlando, lecture us again about how paranoid and awful Batman is.

Jonathan Edwards 7/12/17 Jonathan Edwards 7/12/17

Review: Justice League of America #10

By Jonathan Edwards

This is not the worst issue of Justice League of America. In fact, as far as the amount of content goes, this might be the most substantial thus far. And, I would even say that the first couple pages are a promising start. However, it very quickly returns to the same old problems I've been complaining about for months. But what's more, this issue actually gives us a glimpse of the bigger picture. We start to see how things are supposed to tie together and build toward some future payoff. And, this newfound perspective is what makes the reason that none of it works that much clearer. Somehow, the biggest problem with JLA, a book that ships twice monthly, is that none of the plot points, character development, story arcs, etc. are given the time and space necessary to be developed beyond the bare bones concept.

Jonathan Edwards 6/28/17 Jonathan Edwards 6/28/17

Review: Justice League of America #9

By Jonathan Edwards

Would you believe me if I said that this book suddenly got better? No? Good, because it didn't. Justice League of America #9 is a laughably bad issue, a weak ending to a weak story, and it doesn't even feel like Steve Orlando's even trying anymore. Seriously, all of the conflict kind of just gives up halfway through this shit. I mean, I guess Makson does still try and fight the JLA for a page. But come on, he's not going to win. He's a wild man, and they're the fucking Justice League of America. Honestly, I don't even know how he gets in as many hits as he does. It's like Makson was supposed to have super strength for no reason, and then they forgot to ever mention it. Does it seem like I'm just diving right it? Yes? Good, because I am.

Jonathan Edwards 6/15/17 Jonathan Edwards 6/15/17

Review: Justice League of America #8

By Jonathan Edwards

No, this book still isn't any good, and no, I won't leave it alone. This issue feels like a whole new low in the perpetual suck that is this series. On top of characters being dumb, inconsistent, and poorly written, loads of development happening offpanel, a shitton of sloppy exposition telling us about said development, as well as an entirely artificial and manufactured conflict regarding the "hypocrisy" of Batman, Justice League of America #8 has the most convoluted train wreck of a story to date. Makson is a shit-tier villain, an even worse character, and the "twist" is flimsy and contrived at best. The fact that DC currently lists five more issues of JLA, all still written by Orlando, is insanity and could be used as proof for us living in an unfair world.

Jonathan Edwards 5/24/17 Jonathan Edwards 5/24/17

Review: Justice League of America #7

By Jonathan Edwards

How does Steve Orlando suck so bad at writing exposition? Seriously, he routinely has characters suddenly bring up plot elements and character developments that hasn't even been hinted at. Furthermore, he's written every villain in this damn book so far in exactly the same way. Lord Havok, Aegeus, and now Terrorsmith are all far too eager in divulging their entire backstory, philosophy, and subtext to everyone they happen to run into. No joke, the first thing that Terrorsmith does is say his name to security guards that were minding their own business. Admittedly, Orlando is going for a "he's pissed no one remembers him" angle, so him introducing himself outright should work. In theory. However, he fucks it up by drawing it out and, again, devotes too much time to shitty exposition dumps that are really hard to care about when the villain hasn't even done anything yet. It would've been infinitely more pithy if Terrorsmith introduced himself, the guards are confused but tell him he can't enter, Terrorsmith has some follow up one-liner like "remember the name," and then he transforms them into monsters. Boom, we've established our threat and foreshadowed his motivations. Sure, people unfamiliar with the character won't get an exact breakdown of how and why his powers work, but is that important to the story? Certainly not enough to front-load it. The details can always be worked in later if they're really necessary, and with the space saved, we could have actually seen him start to transform the guards. Instead of, y'know, just being told that's what happened.

Jonathan Edwards 5/10/17 Jonathan Edwards 5/10/17

Review: Justice League of America #6

By Jonathan Edwards

So, here we have the second part of a two-issue story called "Heart of the Bastich." If the title wasn't a complete giveaway, the main focus is meant to be Lobo. And from that, one can presume the purpose of this 'arc' would be to further cement him as a member of the JLA and better align him with their goals (as stupid as they may be), as he's easily been the furthest outlying for literally the entire run. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of metaphors would understand that the word "heart" in that title obviously implies that we are going to see the emotional core of the character, and that will likely lead to some kind of genuine growth. However, there are a couple problems with that here. For one, why the hell is Steve Orlando doing that with Lobo of all characters? Were people really clamoring for that type of development for him? Secondly, Orlando fucks it up.

Jonathan Edwards 4/26/17 Jonathan Edwards 4/26/17

Review: Justice League of America #5

By Jonathan Edwards

Welp, I'm back. And if you read my review for the previous issue of JLA, you'll know that means the book has, in fact, gotten worse. But funnily enough, it's not all that rage inducing this time around. It's shit, but it doesn't really feel like much of an effort is being made to convince us otherwise. It's more of a whimper than a bang as T.S. Eliot might say. That being said, shit is still shit, and I'm hard-pressed to let this alone as long as Steve Orlando continues to provide such baffling and stupid content in hopes it'll somehow justify the book's existence. So, here we go: Justice League of America #5.

Jonathan Edwards 4/12/17 Jonathan Edwards 4/12/17

Review: Justice League of America #4

By Jonathan Edwards

This fucking book. I was so close to not even bothering with this and dropping it all together. And then, I realized this was the finale of the first bullshit arc, so why not? I've been reviewing this series since Justice League of America: The Atom Rebirth #1 anyway. One more couldn't hurt. At least not that much. For anyone who might happen to be in suspense over whether or not Justice League of America #4 is any good, the answer is no, of course it isn't. It's not a good issue, and it's definitely not a good conclusion. It doesn't even feel structured properly. Some of the scenes feel like they should, logically, have their order switched, and for some reason, we need just about the whole JLA present for the last fight against Lord Havok, even though Vixen and Batman are still the only two that really do anything substantial. It's clearly meant to be parallel storytelling, but that only works when the separate stories have similar weight to them. And, it's really hard to care at all about most of the fights when Lord Havok is the only member of the Extremists that's been consistently developed. It wasn't good development, but I don't even know what Gorgon's deal is, yet I'm still supposed to give a shit the Black Canary is fighting him. For all I know, Gorgon could be the weakest member of the team.

Jonathan Edwards 4/3/17 Jonathan Edwards 4/3/17

Review: Justice League of America #3

By Jonathan Edwards

Justice League of America #3 is the comic book equivalent of a boat springing a leak, and to fix it, the sailor uses material they got from making two more holes. Then, after a moment of realization, makes four more holes to fix the two they just made. So on and so forth. I honestly have no idea what Steve Orlando is doing anymore, nor why he only seems to be able to bring up themes with same three or four ham-handed phrases. "People need to be inspired." "The world can only be saved through oppression." "People not gods." Yeah, Steve, we get it. How about you give as a sensible plot and/or some honest character development? No? Alright, whatever.