2010 Reading #25: Justice League of America, Volume 1
Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
21. And Now We are Going to Have a Party by Nicola Griffith.
22. A Black Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson.
23. Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley.
24. Killdozer!: Volume III: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, by Theodore Sturgeon.
25. Justice League of America, Volume 1 by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, et al. So . . . this is not very good, overall. I mean, say what you will about what's happened with the personalities of, say, Hal Jordan in recent years (I'm a mass murderer! Whoops, sorry; I got better) or the grim "my-parents-are-dead!" Batman that we can't escape, but at least those are personalities. In these stories it's difficult to tell J'onn J'onzz from Wonder Woman; the heroes are for the most part interchangeable except for their powers (and their weaknesses; the Martian Manhunter's vulnerability to fire is just as tiresome as Superman's kryptonite troubles), and ditto the villains. Some of the plotting is wackily imaginative, though--Fox was also an SF writer, and you can see that in some of the story premises. They don't make sense, but they're occasionally marvelous in their elaborate implausibility. The highlight of the book, for me, has got to be the two-part introduction of Felix Faust and the Demons Three, Abnegazar, Rath and Ghast. When I was a kid I had a comic with the Demons Three in them, where they took over the JLA satellite or something . . . the point is, it was awesome. And probably I'd have thought that about this volume too, back then.
Books 11-20.
21. And Now We are Going to Have a Party by Nicola Griffith.
22. A Black Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson.
23. Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley.
24. Killdozer!: Volume III: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, by Theodore Sturgeon.
25. Justice League of America, Volume 1 by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, et al. So . . . this is not very good, overall. I mean, say what you will about what's happened with the personalities of, say, Hal Jordan in recent years (I'm a mass murderer! Whoops, sorry; I got better) or the grim "my-parents-are-dead!" Batman that we can't escape, but at least those are personalities. In these stories it's difficult to tell J'onn J'onzz from Wonder Woman; the heroes are for the most part interchangeable except for their powers (and their weaknesses; the Martian Manhunter's vulnerability to fire is just as tiresome as Superman's kryptonite troubles), and ditto the villains. Some of the plotting is wackily imaginative, though--Fox was also an SF writer, and you can see that in some of the story premises. They don't make sense, but they're occasionally marvelous in their elaborate implausibility. The highlight of the book, for me, has got to be the two-part introduction of Felix Faust and the Demons Three, Abnegazar, Rath and Ghast. When I was a kid I had a comic with the Demons Three in them, where they took over the JLA satellite or something . . . the point is, it was awesome. And probably I'd have thought that about this volume too, back then.