Review: JSA #1
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Art: Diego Olortegui
Colors: Luis Guerrero
Letters: Steve Wands
Reviewed by: Matthew B. Lloyd
Summary
The elder statesmen of the JSA have disappeared. It’s up to second generation from Infinity, Inc. to find out what happened.
Positives
Jeff Lemire clearly has an affinity for the history of the Justice Society of America. He makes good use of it with call backs to the team’s legacy. He emphasizes the importance of the team in the first few pages in order to set up the conflict for this first issue. Lemire shows the readers multiple eras from the Golden Age, the Infinity, Inc. era and the Johns/Goyer/Robinson period from the turn of the millennium. The overall sense of history lets the reader know that Lemire will be employing this in this series.
Lemire has some good interplay between the elder statesman, Green Lantern, Flash, Dr. Fate, the Hawks and Wildcat and there is an interesting mystery afoot with their disappearance. Their place of incarceration is also interesting, and should prove to be a fun and difficult escape/ rescue.
Negatives
There’s a lot of internal conflict in JSA #1. It is reminiscent of the infighting from the post-Crisis days of Infinity, Inc. In those stories, Roy Thomas had lots of turmoil in the ranks over numerous reasons. They grew out of the trauma that the team was facing losing the pre-Crisis history and coming to terms with it. It felt organic and part of the character work. It was a difficult time for the Infinitors and JSA. Unfortunately, what Lemire gives us in this issue is too much to start with. It’s jarring. It’s uninviting. Plus, there’s no sense that it has built or that it fits with where the characters are now.
Lemire tries to connect it to things in Absolute Power, but if one didn’t read that or like it, it’s just a reminder of a story that wasn’t that good to begin with and leaves one wondering how did Rick and Jesse get to this point? There is the possibility that it is all part of the villain plot. It feels a lot like the Psycho-Pirate at work. This makes sense, but it doesn’t set the right tone for a first issue, one comes off feeling pushed away from the team instead of drawn in. If I wasn’t such a fan of the JSA and the Golden Age and their legacies, it would be a quick turnoff, as it it makes me wary that this will be a team that doesn’t get along and feels on the verge of breaking up.
While Lemire gets a lot of the history, there are points that clearly seem to have either been retconned or they just aren’t referenced clearly. The Justice Society of America have a TON of history and it’s important that if you’re referencing the past, it’s important to indicate exactly what’s going on. This goes along with the strange use of Kendra Saunders as Hawkgirl since the most recent events in her life has broken her off from Hawkman and the reincarnation cycle. Robert Venditti’s Hawkman series got Carter and Shiera/ Shayera together for eternity, so it seems odd that we wouldn’t get Shiera/ Shayera. There’s a lot of history to deal with, but it seems like editorial dropped the ball and forgot to tell Lemire what the current status quo for Kendra is.
Verdict
JSA #1 is mixed bag. I want to love it, but half the issue focuses on inner conflict that seems to come from nowhere and isn’t set up effectively if it is all part of the villain plot. Olortegui does a nice job with the storytelling and Lemire references a whole lot of history. It’s not hard to see the multiple specific eras he is referencing. I hope this issue can be reassessed as this first arc unfolds.
