Dick Grayson, leader of The Justice League of America’s adventures continue with issue # 46 and part 2 of the epic summer crossover with the JSA Brightest Day banner event. Well, not much to say about this issue Batman related wise, as really this is pretty much a filler issue essentially waiting for the current JSA story to wrap up and join this one with July’s issue # 41.
Dick and the flying Batmobile do get a nice moment at the beginning of the issue as Dick officially recruits Supergirl to the team, after Supergirl had been going wonkers thanks to the Starheart in the previous issue. But again this issue is a complete wheel spinning issue with everyone trying to figure out what to do about the Starheart that carried Jade back to Earth from Oa and to rescue Green Lantern Alan Scott and Obsidian from its clutches.
There still is something off about Mark Bagley’s art, especially with Dick Grayson’s costume and it is just as bad as it was when Bagley was on the Batman title last year. It is a bit jarring to see such a difference in the Dick Grayson Batman, in these pages and the Dick Grayson Batman in Batman, Detective, Batman & Robin and any other issue Grayson is appearing in. For example, he puts in a cameo in this month’s issue of Justice League: Generation Lost and looks how he is supposed to look; but Bagley seems to be going for some sort of combination of Bob Kane and David Mazzucchelli (Year One’s artist). That would be fine if that was the look everyone else drawing Dick’s second run as Batman did, but it’s not; and the brownish hue to the costume isn’t helping the matter.
In any event, the July JLA and JSA books should pick up the pace of this story, especially since it ends with Starman’s power source literally ripped out of his chest by Alan Scott. There is also still the notion about the “Magnificent Seven” (Superman, Bruce Wayne, Wonder Woman, Barry Allen, Hal Jordan (sorry Wally & Kyle fans, but DC considers them to be the iconic versions of Flash and GL), Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter) returning to the title. When exactly, and how is starting to be a good question as this book seems to have been a bit of a disjointed mess for quite some time.
Justice League of America #46:
Reviewed by SteveJRogers
