Brian Bendis is methodically destroying my favorite old school superhero team comic, so I was in the market for a new one. As if by magic, Kurt Busiek is the new regular writer on JLA, and very few modern writers do old school superheroes better. The first issue merely hints at what might be coming up, with references to the JLA/Avengers series, but the tone of the book is just what I was looking for. The story specifics so far are a little more questionable, with Busiek treating the Flash in a way that seems more in-line with his animated counterpart than his DC Universe version, and the actual plot reading a little like a by-the-numbers first issue, but it's a fun look at a day in the life of the JLA and serves as a pretty good mission statement of the kind of thing we'll be seeing during Busiek's run. My big question mark was actually Garney's artwork, but as it turns out, I'm also pretty happy with the style he's using here. The new JLA isn't a home run out of the gate, but it is a solid superhero outing that bears watching.
The plot here is a familiar one, the kind of thing we've seen in establishing issues of any number of team comic runs. That familiarity makes it a little bit tired... the banter of the impatient team member who wants action versus the experienced member who realizes that all aspects of the League's duties are important, the check-in on minor foes and problems, the look at what the team does when it's not facing super-crises, it's all stuff we've been before. However, it's an undeniably good structure, and Busiek does some fun stuff with it. In the course of this issue, he gives a few heads-ups in the dialogue to solo title continuity like Martian Manhunter's many identities or Flash's hockey fandom, and he also serves notice that he's going to be focusing as much on how the team focuses in normal situations as how it does in a crisis, which is a deliberate shift from the style of story that JLA has been doing since Morrison's relaunch.
Busiek's take on Flash here kind of sticks in my craw, because in the Flash title, he has very much matured into the role, and he's a loving husband and established hero. In this issue, he's an overgrown 12-year-old whining about having to do his chores and miss his hockey game. It's not unrealistic that someone could be different in different situations, but it's a bit too radical of a shift, and I hope that annoying jerk Flash is toned down a bit in future issues. However, Busiek's take on Martian Manhunter, as the consummate professional and father-figure of the JLA, is right in line with how I see the character, and that balances things out. I also enjoy that this is old school superhero stuff, supervillains and world-beating computers and cosmic phenomena, and nobody gets raped, tortured or brutally murdered anywhere in these 22 pages. Instead, there's a Gardner Fox-esque thinking problem and some nice Wolfman/Thomas style character interaction, which is more in line with what I want out of the JLA in general.
Though I have enjoyed Ron Garney's work in the past, notably on Captain America, I've been disappointed by a lot of his more recent work, and I wasn't sure he'd be the ideal choice for Busiek's JLA. I'm still not sure he's the ideal choice, but he certainly does a nice job on this issue, working with Dan Green and tightening up his style so that it looks something like a cross between Norm Breyfogle and Scott Kolins. Since I am a fan of the unusual styles of both of these artists, I was quite pleased to see a similar stylized look at work here. Busiek's script doesn't really give Garney a chance to open up and do cool splashy superhero visuals for the most part, but Garney does a nice job in conveying the camaraderie between JLA members as well as the foreboding presence of the Crime Syndicate or Krona's universal energy egg.
JLA doesn't rocket out of the gate with a ton of excitement and flash, but instead it sets up a foundation based on classic superhero values and a mixture of characterization and elements of the superhero genre. It's a pretty big difference from the '90s shock tactic style that is once again taking over superhero comics, but it's also not really like the widescreen action style that Morrison used to rejuvenate the book a few years back. A little more flash wouldn't hurt the book, but it's got solid fundamentals and a strong creative team. 7/10
