I love the Justice Society. DC's Golden Age super-hero characters are of great interest to me, as I've been fascinated by them since I was a kid. All-Star Squadron was one of my favorite titles when I was growing up, and I was pleased to learn that DC was releasing a new limited series featuring its classic characters in a Second World War setting. My only qualm was the writer; I haven't enjoyed his previous efforts in the industry. However, those were sci-fi books with no familiar figures; this is a super-hero book filled with colorful characters I've followed for years. Unfortunately, the plotting here is rather generic, predictable and lacking in a clear sense of direction.
Publishers of science-fiction digests are facing a huge problem. Though the genre has grabbed imaginations of a population hungry for entertainment, circulation is on the decline. People aren't buying as much anymore because they can get adventure and fantasy in the newspaper accounts of the Justice Society's exploits. Fortunately for one publisher, JSA member Johnny Thunder's been sending in his (poorly written) tales of JSA cases and battles. Meanwhile, Green Lantern and Starman pit their powers against a newly arrived villain and his minions.
I've been a fan of Barry Kitson's work for some time now, and he handles the expansive cast of characters here with seeming ease. The thing is that the art on this book seems to lack the crisp quality I usually enjoy in the penciller's work. The shortcoming isn't the result of Gary Erskine's inks either; their recent collaboration on Avengers/Thunderbolts was just fine. The artists don't capture the boyishness that's called for in the depiction of Johnny Thunder either, and the design for Lord Dynamo isn't exactly memorable.
OK, I get the appeal of having some fun at Johnny Thunder's expense. He's a bad writer; I get it. But the notion that the publisher of fantastic fiction would ignore a Justice Society member's accounts of the heroes' adventures for years just doesn't make sense. It's also painfully clear that Johnny's writing and his exaggerations are going to cause problems of some sort for the JSA.
There's a playful tone in the script' Anderson doesn't take these characters too seriously, and that's fine by me. The rivalry between the Atom and Wildcat is a lot of fun, for example. But there's a key element missing here: tension. Placing the heroes in harm's way doesn't cut it, because the reader knows these characters survive into the next century. The super-hero action is thoroughly generic, and the sci-fi writing plotline is clumsy.
