Comic Book Covers: Justice League #7 Review

Justice League #7 is a weird fucking book. On one hand, it gives us a classic superhero team book… one might say that it’s so classic you’ve been reading it for years. And on the other hand, it gives a reimagined and modernized take on a classic hero, updating him by way of making you want to see him die screaming under a city bus. And on both hands, writer Geoff Johns shows us that superheroes are just like us: dicks. Selfish, irritating dicks.

Let’s start with the opening story, which opens with the Justice League in combat with with Isz. Seriously – on the very first page, we’re presented with what looks exactly like a black Isz from The Maxx if Sam Kieth had days upon end to ink them. Which is, in certain ways, a decent enough choice; God knows if I turned a corner and saw a bunch of those bastards swarming, I’d shit my pants. However, this is a comic book, and any comics fan older than 22 is probably gonna open this book and say, “Huh. That’s an Isz,” which started the book on it’s back foot for me right out of the gate.

In short order, we are reintroduced to Colonel Steve Trevor: manly-man soldier and leader of A.R.G.U.S., the Advanced Research Group Uniting Superhumans. This organization appears to be some kind of combination Government-sponsored supervillain armed response agency and liason to the DCU’s superhero community. And Trevor himself is portrayed as an ultra-competent yet cranky former soldier who has learned to kick ass and navigate Congressional committees without compromise. This kind of character is relatively new to the DC Universe, and would be an exciting development if it weren’t an eyepatch and the likeness of Samuel L. Jackson away from a crippling plagiarism lawsuit. Really, guys? Colonel Trevor, Agent of A.R.G.U.S.? What’s his next exciting adventure gonna be, pulling Uncle Sam from the Freedom Fighters out of a fucking iceburg?

When it comes to the Justice League itself, we’re shown a team of heroes who bicker, go off half-cocked, and take actions without supervision or regard for collateral damage. They make arbitrary demands of the United Nations and the United States government, and it is implied that the Earth’s citizens are about ready to let the team, who headquarters themselves in orbit and ominously forbid anyone to visit, take over responsibility for enforcing order for the whole damn planet. This is an interesting and groundbreaking take on a superteam, provided it’s 1999, your name’s Warren Ellis, and the team is The Authority. And considering The Authority was Ellis’s take on the JLA, which is now influenced by The Authority, the whole thing has the weird asynchronous feel of a snake eating its own tail, or a porn star blowing himself.

My point is that everything in the primary story feels retreaded, recycled and derivative. It feels like Johns is trying to make it seem groundbreaking to the ephemeral “new readers” that the New 52 was designed to bring into the world of comics, but that he’s doing it by lifting from earlier groundbreaking books. Which is fine for the rubes who don’t know any better, but it’s offputting to this reader who is intimately familiar with all of these story tropes.

And then we have the much-touted backup story reintroducing Captain Marvel to the DCU. I’ll start this part of the review with the unabashed positive: Gary Frank’s art is fucking beautiful. It is fine-lined and strives for (and reaches) realism. His faces are terribly expressive, his figures are proportioned and realistic (and he goes out of his way to draw people of body types other than the general superhero Adonis or Jenna Jameson), and the only downside to it is that it retroactively makes Gene Ha’s art on the primary story – which is generally solid with interesting visuals and clear, easy-to-follow storytelling – look somewhat abstract by comparison.

And then there’s the story. Johns tweaks around the classic Fawcett Comics story of orphan Billy Batson meeting the wizard Shazam and being granted the power of Shazam in two major ways, the first being that people around the world are reporting being abducted and questioned by Shazam, who is clearly seeking someone worthy for the power.

The second, unfortunately, is that Johns makes Billy Batson a real fucking dick. A treacherous, weaselly, backstabbing prick. A grifter of a child who lies, disrespects people and work angles, and is living proof of why I don’t consider anyone to young to have seen Star Wars in it’s initial theatrical release to be entirely human.

I am willing to accept that being in the foster care system would be more likely to create Macauley Culkin in Party Monster than Macaluey Culkin in… okay; it would create Macauley Culkin. You can’t spend years getting drunk and watching A&E’s Intervention without understanding that. However, opening a story with a petulant, unlikable child is a dicey gambit on a good day. I’m willing to see where it goes, but it’s a little troubling to see an old favorite character reimagined as an irritating ankle-biter who I want to see struck by lightning, magic or not.

So, the $64,000 question: is this book worth reading? Well, for the Justice League story, I gotta say no; the thing is just too Goddamned derivative for a long-time comic book fan to be able to read without seeing the shoulders Johns is standing on. For the Shazam story? Well, it’s a little early too tell. Yeah, Billy Batson is selfish and unlikeable, but then again, so was Peter Parker in Amazing Fantasy #15. And while it is certainly too early to tell if this Shazam origin even deserves to be mentioned in the same paragraph with that book – particularly considering the shaky nature of Johns’s main story – it’s worth hanging in for Gary Frank’s art.

And if the story winds up gobbling the knob, at least you know you’ll see the little prick getting hit with a billion volts.