Remember when Jim Lee took was at the helm of Marvel’s “Heroes Reborn” era? The first six issues of Justice League felt just like that, except this time Geoff Johns is writing and plotting alongside.
Justice League: Volume 1 tells the story of how the Justice League assembled joined together for the very first time. It’s five years in the past with the heroes still fairly new at their super hero career. Unfortunately, they wind up fighting. Pretty much the first two issues are some sort of fight between Green Lantern, Superman and Batman, as they fight what turns out to be the Parademons from Apokolips.
It’s up to those three–plus Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash (who is super pals with Green Lantern since its the Barry Allen version) and the newly debuting Cyborg to team up to stop Darkseid from destroying the planet. This is a lot more serious than the original Justice League of America, who formed fighting what was essentially an enormous alien starfish.
The story is really formulaic; it ends with them saving the planet and everyone vowing to be there to protect the planet. Unfortunately for them, the public doesn’t really trust the super powered beings running around (much like in the Marvel Universe) and there is going to be a secret government agency following them.
Although the plot was very formulaic, it accomplished everything it needed to. The story reminded me a lot of Independence Day. Jim Lee’s art looks great as always. It was decent. If you are looking for something revolutionary and groundbreaking, this book isn’t for you. But if your looking for regular super hero adventures, this does the trick.
Ridiculously Awesome 
Jim Lee left Justice League, and a lot of bloggers think it’s because he’s going to work on an old series DC is planning to relaunch, WildC.A.T.S.. It was him who created this series, exactly 20 years ago.
If you have an A-list artist, you give him an A-list series: WildC.A.T.S. would be a C-list one, so, in a normal situation, Jim Lee working on it is pure nonsense.
But maybe in this case Jim Lee sticked obstinately to this project because he wants to bring his old series back to life, and DC decided to indulge his whim because otherwise their working relationship would have gone really uptight, and it would have ended as soon as possible. Jim Lee on a C-list title is better than Jim Lee on a Marvel title, DC thought.
I hope Jim Lee won’t write WildC.A.T.S.: he’s an awesome penciller and he’s very skilled with creating characters (think about Grifter, for example), but his 90s stories were boring as all hell. Since then he always worked with the most talented writers, so maybe he learned something from them and got better, but I don’t think so: writing well is a talent, not a technique, so you can’t learn it from anybody, no matter how good your teacher is. Good writers are born, not made.
But maybe all this hype about Jim Lee working on WildC.A.T.S. will be proved wrong: perhaps Jim Lee doesn’t want to slip back (especially now that he’s at the top of his career), no matter how fond he is of WildC.A.T.S., and perhaps DC never thought to bring WildC.A.T.S. back to life. Only time will tell.
I’m going to changelle your writing comment. It isn’t just a talent. It is like real art. Everyone has the ability to imagine things and it is their choice if they want to builed on it. You learn more techniques, you pratice them, and you polish your craft. Just like an artist does. A poor writer is someone who doesn’t pratice and doesn’t read. They don’t polish their craft.
You’re right: to write well you must have a natural talent, but you also must refine it. Thank you for your reply! : )
No problem. I always enjoy hearding and talking to you wwayne.
Yeah, I can totally see Jim Lee wanting to do WildCATS stuff as a vanity project. Your completely right about what happens when he both writes and draws something…he should stick to being an awesome artist.
Thank you for your reply! : )
I won’t bother with volume two. It honestly is the shitty of the two arcs and doesn’t make a damn lick of sense. None of the characters are really defined at all, which in was okay to do in the first arc, but the second arc made me annoyed that they didn’t even bother to clearly defined how people feel about each other. I mean, they have been working together for five years. FIVE YEARS. Are they friends? No fucking clue. Relationships? What are those? Characterizations? Why would we need that? Superman comes off as a super power Batman, Which is why my blog had a bit of a freak out when they were like, Superman and Wonder Woman are going to be dating. It came out of no where. Like the only reason that they are dating is because they wear the same colors and punch things hard. Because neither have a defined personality. I was like, they have never even fucking spoken to one another. How the hell are they going to date? Are they going to be standing in rooms and look at each other. It is just upseting because you know Johns can write better than this. Way better than this. If his name wasn’t on the cover, I wouldn’t believe this is his writing.
Sorry, it just makes me mad this series is still around and JLI isn’t. JLI was better written and a lot more fun. And it got cancelled.