Two comic books for the price of one review this month as we continue the JLA/JSA The Dark Things crossover Brightest Day tie-in event.
We start in JSA #41 where we see that a Starheart controlled Obsidian and Dr. Fate have taken out the Shade and Faust, and capture Wildcat and Jay Garrick Flash. And we see the JSA All Stars try to hold their ground while all sorts of chaos is going on. The combined JLA and JSA confer on the ruins of the JLA Watchtower Dick goes into leader mode, splits the teams up in terms of the most susceptible to magic heroes to go back to earth to handle the chaos, while the least susceptible try to save Starman (his gem was ripped out of his chest at the end of the last JLA issue) and save Alan Scott and Obsidian from the control of the Starheart. We end with Dick pulling out a big gun to help out, that of Mister Miracle.
And that brings us to JLA #47. We begin with more exposition explaining scenes of fighting on earth and in the construct that the Starheart has created as Mister Miracle tries to get the team into the center of it to face Alan Scott. While this is going on, there is a bunch of inner dialogue, mostly from Donna Troy and Mister Terrific, praising Dick Grayson’s role as a leader. Gee, I hope the Bat-Team reads this book as I’ve got a bad feeling about Dick’s future after Bruce Wayne returns to the DCU proper. But that is a rant for another day. It should also be noted that Jade can tell Alan Scott is still very much alive through the chaos of the Starheart as the team is fighting various constructs of old Golden Age Green Lantern villains and characters.
We then see that Alan Scott, now calling himself Starheart, I guess having his Parallax moment here, he and Hal Jordan could probably now have a neat discussion about being taken over by the entities that granted them their powers, has Wildcat, Faust and Garrick as prisoners. We close the issue with Jade being confronted by Obsidian in an effort to lure her into the Starheart, when all of a sudden Obsidian is blasted by none other than Jade’s old lover Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. Kyle then bluntly tells everyone that the Guardians sent him to kill Alan Scott, and we’ll continue in JSA #42.
Things do pick up this month as this was a more enjoyable set of books as opposed to the drawn out nature of the last two months worth of issues of this storyline. We do get more of the Dick Grayson as a leader that drew me into covering this series to begin with, which is a good thing, even if it feels like it probably won’t last the year. I’ll say though that it feels like the JLA issue did move the story along better than the JSA one, I’m not entirely sure why though. I know Robinson is the current JLA writer, but why should that affect the JSA side of the storytelling? I’ve seen books tie into event minis written by the same writer that flowed better. Bagley’s art is still missing for me as well, but at this point it isn’t as distracting as it was when the book was creeping along at a very slow pace.
Justice Society of America #41:
Justice League of America #47:
Reviewed by SteveJRogers
