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JLA/HAVEN: ARRIVAL
Mildly Recommended (5/10)
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DC Comics
Writers: Ashley-Jayne Nicolaus & Matthew P. Schuster
Pencils: Ariel Olivetti
Colors: Rob Ro & Alex Bleyaert
Letters: Bill Oakley
Editor: Mike Carlin
Price: $5.95 US/$9.95 CAN |
JLA/Haven brings us a few things that comics (and DC
particularly) need right now, namely two fresh faces in the writing game and an
interesting and original concept that doesn't tie into five-year-old continuity
or whatever the hot new trend is. Then it brings us a few things we don't,
including muddled storytelling, another needless tie-in to the JLA which only
serves to water down the premise and an enormous amount of contrivance to get
the story to go where they want it to go. I really wanted to love this one out
of the gate, but I have such trouble figuring out who's who and I spent every
other page wondering why one of the characters didn't do something that followed
logically from their powers or mindset rather than rolling along in a plot that
didn't make any sense for them. There's still a lot of potential here, there are
some legitimately great scenes in this issue and Olivetti's artwork is pretty,
but this is a weak start, something that new series can ill afford these days.
And something that DC has been turning out a lot of lately.
There are some moments in
this issue that are definite keepers, and they got my attention in just the
right way. The opening three pages are phenomenal, a terrific use of images and
sparse captions that immediately gets the story rolling. The cabinet meeting in
which the National Security Advisor and one of the Joint Chiefs bicker about
whether to offer aid or hostile response is another great scene. And there are
moments with the Justice League, such as Flash's attempt to take the ship's
momentum, that don't make me wish they weren't in the book.
In addition, Olivetti does a
really nice job conveying the "widescreen" action of a massive ship sliding
across Earth towards the ocean. Though I thought he could have shown us more
convincingly early on that it was sliding rather than simply crashing into one
spot, he handles the League, a few factions of aliens and a collapsing city
quite well.
However, for the most part,
this book is weakened by it's Justice League tie-in. Here you have seven of the
world's greatest heroes who can't stop a crashing rocket ship, something Grant
Morrison would have had them doing between panels. Not only that, but their
presence raises numerous questions: Why can't Superman or Wonder Woman stop the
ship from moving? Why can't Green Lantern do more, given the level of power he's
sporting in his own title these days? Why can't the Martian Manhunter translate
the language for the most part? The answers, of course, are that it would take
away focus from the real protagonists, the aliens being introduced in Haven, but
there's no in-story answer and the book is severely lacking as a result.
In addition, having the
League running around doing heroic (but ultimately futile) things takes up page
space that could have been used to distinguish between the various aliens and
give us a little more insight into Haven. As is, I really have very little idea
who the various aliens are, what they do, even what their names are for the most
part. Part of this is down to Olivetti, who has done definitely alien but very
similar designs for all of the cast, but a lot of it is down to not enough space
to fully explore the characters.
Presumably, the goal of this expensive one-shot is to tease the reader, offering up a splashy intro with sketchy information and giving them a taste of the JLA/Haven mini-series to come. It left me instead with
the slightly bitter taste of disappointment.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
