It's always nice when someone remembers that super-hero comics are supposed to be fun. Geoff Johns turned in a delightful one-shot story in last month's JSA that was an entertaining take on how the JSA celebrated Thanksgiving, and this month it's another one-shot focusing on Christmas. However, this isn't a gimmicky holiday story, it's actually a story that fits right in with the JSA's raison d'etre, which is to mine DC's rich past of characters, and Johns pulls out a relatively obscure (but also important, in JSA terms) character for a heartwarming and funny little tale which Kirk, Champagne and Von Grawbadger infuse with heroic action and a nice touch of humanity.
I admit it... I've got a soft spot for comic book stories with Santa Claus in them. He's made memorable appearances in a Spider-Man story by Peter David, a hilarious Hitman story and a touching Starman story, and that's just off the top of my head. So I thought when I opened this book that Johns was going to do something kind of fun with Santa, treating him as a super-hero in his own right and pairing him with the JSA. That would have been, if maybe a little hokey, certainly fun. Instead, Johns uses the Santa character as a bluff, a secret identity that hides a long-time JSA ally, and the result is an even stronger story that ties nicely into the history of these characters while retaining its Christmas theme.
Johns's story has a solid action sequence, and it's clear that Kirk knows how to handle the superpowers well. Green Lantern's holiday-themed ring creations are a particular standout, although Kirk also does a great job on the physical powers of Flash, Wildcat and Hawkman. While the story features some action, however, this is mostly a character piece. Johns has shown an incredible ability to juggle a large cast without losing the individuality of the team members, and this issue has a few revelations about each of its stars, centering around how they react to the holidays but also having a more universal truth to them as well.
The highlight of the story, however, is another Johns tradition, that of bringing in an old and quite possibly forgotten character and breathing new life into them. The character who is the center of this tale is one that most might find too goofy or stupid, and be glad to be rid of, but Johns sees the charm in the character as well, and brings it across with a modern sensibility. Where others might see a goofy costume and forced comic relief, Johns sees a message of doing what you can with what you've got, and infuses this silly, stupid character with heart. Such that the finale, a minor tweak of the supporting cast, is almost guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of any JSA fan.
JSA is one of the few pure super-hero team books going right now, one that doesn't really try to be a modern movie take on the characters or a dark or humorous take, but instead just shows the appeal that super-heroes have to many of us. The stories tend toward the big slugfests and super-hero epic, and while those are usually good, it's these one-off character pieces that tend to be my favorites.
