Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path Ineffectively Puts The Spotlight On A Second-String Hero.

The Good: Decent character study, Good artwork, Overall decent plot
The Bad: Unfortunately typical comic book plot, Narrative technique jumbles the b-plot in unfortunate ways.
The Basics: With Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman figuring out the fate of the Justice League Of America, Red Tornado’s soul is able to take a human body, which complicates the lives of the heroes when an old nemesis returns.


The Justice League of America has undergone many iterations. Before the Final Crisis (reviewed here!), the JLA reassembled with an eclectic mix of new and old characters. The process by which the new Justice League was formed was chronicled in Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path. The story is split between the voting process by which Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman chose the new membership of the League and a story focused on one of the second-string heroes of the DC Universe, Red Tornado.

I have no problem with stories that focus on the second-stringers. In fact two of my favorite graphic novels - Justice (reviewed here!) and Identity Crisis (reviewed here!) – are preoccupied with what happens when the main heroes are taken out or the second string heroes make questionable choices. So, if anything, I was biased toward Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path and its pretty simple premise of focusing on red Tornado in a way that humanizes him and makes him a much more vital character. Unfortunately, though, Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path did not wow me.

While Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman go through photographs and discuss the superheroes who are alive and eligible for membership into the Justice League of America, Kathy – the wife of Red Tornado – sits at the laboratory of Will Magnus, holding the hand of Red Tornado’s insensate body. Alarmed that his soul has not re-entered his mechanical body, Kathy and her daughter Traya begin to lose hope that he will return. But Deadman and John have managed to find a body ready for John to occupy and when he does, a chain of events is started that shakes the entire roster of superheroes.

No sooner is John reunited with Kathy than it is reported that Red Tornado’s body has been stolen. The theft comes at pretty much the same time that Gold and Platinum are decapitated, Geo-Force undergoes a strange transformation, Vixen’s totem is stolen and Black Lightning discovers that Parasite is being used by supervillains to dampen their powers to give them access to places they otherwise could not go. But as the Justice League members hunt the source of the irregularities to Dr. Ivo, they discover the mad scientist’s quest is one that puts them all in danger. With an army of Red Tornado-style robots and Amazo attacking, Black Canary, Red Arrow, Green Lantern and Red Tornado must uncover the true culprit and undo their sinister agenda!

Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path works, when it does, by providing engaging characters in complicated situations. Unfortunately, it is diluted with distracting b-plots, like the Big Three picking out the newest members of the Justice League and Red Tornado choosing his path, which is not as compelling for those who have not followed the character’s long arc from heroine addict to successor to Green Arrow. While the Vixen subplot does have relevance, it is a long, circuitous journey for the character to come back into an important part of the story. In other words, a distressing amount of space in Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path reads like filler.

But then there is the Red Tornado plot. John Sutton is an interesting enough character in these pages, though I only actually become fully invested in his story when the true villain of the book was finally revealed. John’s story is the pretty typical Pinocchio-style story. Red Tornado is a machine with a human soul and he now has the opportunity to be fully human. Okay, it’s pretty familiar. But while it is interesting, Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path fails to have real roots because the characters are, paradoxically enough, too good. Kathy Sutton loves John in his mechanical body or his human one. It does not seem to matter to her, just so long as he is alive. The same is true of their daughter, Traya. So, it is hard to get fully invested in John’s struggle to get an organic body and keep it just for the sensations he is suddenly privy to. If he dies, Kathy will lose everything, sure. But given that he is surrounded by people who can put him back in an inorganic body and the army of alternate-Tornados is revealed pretty early on, it is hard for readers not to see a cop-out like Star Trek: Nemesis’s B-4 coming from a mile away.

That said, I enjoyed the building to the villains in Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path. Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path is my first experience with Starro and Amazo. I don’t recall reading any books with Dr. Ivo, either. But the interplay between Dr. Ivo and Solomon Grundy makes for an intense and intriguing latter half of the book. That the two have surprisingly reasonable agendas for supervillains makes the climax of the book enjoyable, at the very least.

The artwork in Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path is homogenously good. All of the characters are distinct and easily recognizable, making it fun to leaf through the pages of the book. The coloring is up to current standards, so the fact that Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path looks good helps the occasionally mediocre story flow better. While I usually applaud ambition, Justice League Of America: The Tornado’s Path sometimes has a little too much going on for its own good, making it a book that is just above true average and only worth reading, not adding to one’s permanent library.

For other Justice League books, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Justice League: Secret Origins
Justice League: Generation Lost – Volume 1
Justice League: Generation Lost – Volume 2
The Lightning Saga
Justice League Of America: The Injustice League
Sanctuary
Second Coming
Justice League Of America: Dark Things
JLA: Terror Incognita

6.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Near The Top Of The Average Field, JLA: The Lightning Saga Offers A Fairly Intriguing Team-Up!

The Good: Overall story, Moments of character, Decent plot, Interesting character development in the side stories
The Bad: Very fractured narrative technique, Relies upon some other stories for maximum emotional impact.
The Basics: Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer might once again tie together the DC Universe well with JLA: The Lightning Saga, but it reads as a very average superhero team-up story.


Sometimes, there is something exciting about reading graphic novels and getting an unexpected surprise. In the case of JLA: The Lightning Saga, the surprise is one that relates to my Flash Year, but I cannot reveal, lest it spoil the book for those who have not yet read it. Sufficed to say, there is an important Flash component of JLA: The Lightning Saga that I was not aware of until it came up in the book. It made for a pleasant surprise and is just enough to make an otherwise very average graphic novel worth picking up to read.

At its core, though, JLA: The Lightning Saga is a very simple superhero team-up story that unites the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America. Added to the mix for the bulk of the book are members of the Legion Of The Superheroes from the 31rst Century and that is where the book almost lost me. I have no familiarity with the stories that involve Superman being launched into the 31rst Century and joining the Legion Of The Superheroes. I couldn’t even tell you what era of DC comics that was from (though, from context, I suspect it was from right before Crisis On Infinite Earths). In many ways, JLA: The Lightning Saga is a transition story and the reliance upon this, apparently very old, chapter of Superman’s history was very offputting to me as one who is not exactly a Superman fan.

Following the main story in JLA: The Lightning Saga, there are two one-shot stories that are somewhat less thrilling. Even so, the book has its moments and the artwork in one of the two stories is pretty incredible.

Following up leads that place two apparently insane people on Earth in our time from the 31rst Century, Batman, Superman and the Justice League of America quickly learn that members of the Legion Of The Superheroes have been deposited in the (for them) past. With apparently no memory of who they are or how they arrived there, Mr. Terrific and Batman determine that Starman and a new arrival may actually need their help. By scanning the planet for the Legionnaires distinctive rings, Superman and the members of the Justice Society of America begin a search for the remaining members of the Legion who have been teleported back to the past.

Of course, things are never that simple. While the team-up between the Justice League Of America and the Justice Society Of America goes with an uncharacteristic smoothness, neither organization quite trusts the Legion Of The Superheroes. Their plan is obscured, but seems to have something to do with drawing lightning to futuristic devices in order to attempt to resurrect a fallen comrade. The cost will be the death of one of them, a price that the JLA and JSA members are not willing to let them pay!

Outside a pretty much all-consuming lack of emotional resonance, JLA: The Lightning Saga suffers because up until the very end of the primary story, the motives of the Legion members are entirely obscured. While I can live with knowing that the methods of the impending lightning storm have a problematic undertone, the focus of the impending sacrifice leaves much to be desired. Because so much of the story focuses on the potential that a character I do not know will die to resurrect another character whom I was unfamiliar with, JLA: The Lightning Saga is a tough sell. In fact, writers Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer seem to realize this frequently throughout the book. As a result, the recognizable characters in JLA: The Lightning Saga often try to rebrand the book as a crossover between the Justice League and the Justice Society with the characters gushing over one another.

Sadly for the writers of JLA: The Lightning Saga, the readers are not fooled by this attempt at rebranding!

The artwork in the main portion of JLA: The Lightning Saga is good, but not great. The panels have vivid coloring and very recognizable characters – even the ones who are not instantly recognizable. But they do not have a terribly good sense of movement to them within or between the panels (one notable exception when Superman realizes he has been duped). Regardless, the quality of the artwork does not negate the fact that this is a very plot-driven story that does not truly develop any of the characters readers are likely to care about.

Following the main story in JLA: The Lightning Saga is a one-shot called “Walls.” In “Walls,” Red Arrow and Vixen find themselves trapped in the dark in a collapsed building that they soon learn is trapped underwater. In this story, the two prepare for what seems to be an inevitable death and Red Arrow determines that he is not going to go out without a fight. This is when Vixen, who has been without her ability to take on the properties of different animals, is forced to confess to him that she no longer has her powers and cannot save him . . . or herself.

“Walls” is an intimate story that is actually surprisingly engaging. The character story is a compelling one and it continues to advance Vixen’s character through what appears to be a very long arc (it has come up in several of the other Justice League books I have read). The artwork in this story is phenomenal and helps set the very dark mood. It is like a rougher series of paintings than the classic images used in Kingdom Come (reviewed here!). This story is actually the true gem of JLA: The Lightning Saga and might be the real reason to pick the book up.

Unfortunately, JLA: The Lightning Saga is capped off by a surprisingly poorly written story. Jumbled throughout time and different eras in the DC Universe, the story mashes together the yearly attempts by Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman to come together to pick the current roster of the Justice League Of America. The less I can say about this story the better; the artwork is fine, but the narrative technique is annoying and it fractures the story in a way that is utterly incomprehensible. This story alone almost robs the book of whatever points it gained for the inclusion of “Walls.” Moreover, this story – which is utterly lacking in character development – is entirely reliant upon a pretty comprehensive knowledge of events (mostly major, to be fair) in the DC Universe to be even remotely understandable. It is not worth the time to try to unravel it.

In the end, JLA: The Lightning Saga is little more than it initially appears. It is a mostly-plot based trade paperback anthology that has a wonderful cover gallery at the back, but lacks enough substance to really land it with serious readers.

For other Justice League books, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Justice
Identity Crisis
Justice League: Secret Origins
Justice League: Generation Lost – Volume 1
Justice League: Generation Lost – Volume 2
JLA: Terror Incognita
Justice League Of America: The Injustice League
Sanctuary
Second Coming
Justice League Of America: Dark Things

5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Endgame Is Revealed With A Cool Concept (Until The End) With Twilight, The Penultimate Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Graphic Novel!

The Good: Decent concept, Moments of character, Side stories
The Bad: Artwork, Resolution.
The Basics: The story of the villain Twilight comes to a head in Twilight with high conceptual marks until it completely sells out to conclude the book.


As I speed toward the end of the Buffy graphic novels in my wife's collection - which I have gotten her for various giftgiving occasions over the past two and a half years we have been married - I find myself thinking that I ought to go back and reread the Eighth Season from the beginning. On one hand, I think it would be good for me to get all of the facts and sequences straight before checking out the final act. On the other hand, I think it might make me more disappointed with Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Volume 7: Twilight. I wanted to like Twilight, if for no other reason than I prefer Angel to Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And I was doing quite well enjoying Twilight until about the last five pages.

Twilight actually has a very Star Trek feel to it, outside one of the side episodes that resolves the Xander and Buffy storyline. What I mean by that is that the story seems to be building for a big fight and instead, it becomes something much more philosophical and original. I like that idea and that is why I was so disappointed when all of that potential went to waste with the story reverting to something less than. Sure, Joss Whedon seemed ready to close the Buffyverse for good, but the story was decent enough that I, at the very least, made peace with that. But between the resolution - which sets up the final "episode" in Season Eight - and the artwork, Twilight is easily robbed of anything close to perfection.

Starting with "Turbulence," Twilight resolves the major and minor problems left from Retreat before moving on. With three goddesses on the rampage, Buffy sets Willow on that problem while she awaits the return of her powers. When her powers come back, she is surprised to have exceptional powers and she and Xander square off. Buffy begins to come on to Xander and Xander reveals to her that he is now involved with Dawn and that is wrestled with before she goes to resolve the goddess situation with Willow.

The three-part "Twilight" story finally reveals the nature of the villain Twilight and, because the cover gives it away, it's Angel. While Xander and Buffy figure out the limits of Buffy's new superpowers - superspeed, superstrength, the ability to understand magic language - Willow goes in search of Giles, Andrew and Faith, who have been captured by Twilight. In the process, Twilight is revealed to Buffy as Angel when she storms his citadel and the grand plan for the love between Buffy and Angel is revealed.

The volume also includes the standalone "Willow: Goddesses And Monsters," wherein Willow goes back to the magical realms for a training journey that she had, until this point, neglected. She hallucinates a journey with a trickster goddess before coming to understand the true nature of the test and chooses her own guide.

Twilight's three stories are for the most part serialized, despite the Willow divergence. Having to resolve the cliffhanger from Retreat, Joss Whedon closes the one story which feels slightly cheap. Why "Turbulence" was not a part of the last graphic novel makes little sense. Regardless, Whedon of course knows his characters and he gets the voices of Xander, Buffy and Willow perfectly right, so much of Twilight reads as consistent. Brad Meltzer, who writes the actual "Twilight" arc gets saddled with a lot of explanation of exactly what is going on with Angel and Buffy.

So, what's the problem? First Angel and Buffy - the relationship - was not built on much in the actual television show. If one goes back and watches the first three seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (reviewed here!), the relationship between Buffy and Angel is talked up, but not very substantive. In the first season, they flirt awkwardly, in the second season, they make love but spend most of the season as enemies. The third season has Buffy mending the feral Angel before he decides he has to leave. On-screen, there is not actually much in the way of real, actual romance. My point with this is pretty simple: especially considering that Buffy moved on with Spike and Angel moved on with Cordelia, the Buffy and Angel relationship is hardly the epic love story of science fiction/fantasy that fans frequently want to believe it to be. As a result, the cosmic plan for Buffy and Angel seems a bit forced.

At least on par with how unfortunate that is is the way Meltzer is forced to give a ton of exposition to both Giles and Angel oscillating between over-explanation and repetition. The book stops being informative or entertaining and just continues to repeat itself as if the concept wasn't entirely clear. Sadly, the concept is not entirely clear and when it becomes clear enough to be at least a strong enough allusion for readers to piece together, the result is repeated ad nauseam and is then trashed entirely. In other words, Whedon's vision for Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight has been leading to this. And when it gets there, reveals what it is and what the point of the whole franchise was with Buffy and Angel making a miraculous transformation, Whedon via Meltzer steps back from the plan and undoes it all.

So, like the Angel: After The Fall Saga, the reader is ultimately jerked around and left feeling like they have invested a whole lot in something that is not paying off. And that, to be frank, sucks.

As for the artwork, Georges Jeanty varies in his artwork between precise images that look just like the characters and sketches of the characters. Unfortunately, the large sequences between Buffy and Angel that define much of the "Twilight" portion are undermined by the fact that they look little like David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Gellar. The result, sadly, is a book that too frequently forces the reader to guess at who they are looking at as opposed to knowing instantly from the images.

In other words, this is not the best use of the medium, though it is far from the worst. Instead, Twilight does what it is supposed to in that it provides a reason for the journey and sets up a finale we can only hope does something with the characters that is not undone by the final panel.

For the other volumes in Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight, please check out my reviews of:
The Long Way Home
No Future For You
Wolves At The Gate
Time Of Your Life
Predators And Prey
Retreat

7/10

For other book reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Start Of Infinite Crisis, Identity Crisis Is An Engaging Read!

The Good: Wonderful story, Decent character work, Good artwork, Bodycount
The Bad: Some confusing threads which seem tangential.
The Basics: A strong, character-centered graphic novel, Identity Crisis starts with a murder and evolves into story of how a secret strains a community of heroes and empowers the villains they fight.


In immersing myself in graphic novels pertaining to Wonder Woman, my Wonder Woman year took a significant turn when I learned that one of the most significant character developments in the Wonder Woman storyline actually happened in a non-Wonder Woman volume. Instead, Wonder Woman's big character moment, which drastically changed her relationship with Superman and Batman came in Superman: Sacrifice and as part of The OMAC Project. But in reading those volumes, the superhero community was already strained and it was strained because of Identity Crisis.

Great literature can be said to be the result of an execution of a story so well that even when one knows what is going to happen, they find themselves engaged and excited anyway. I knew the essentials of Identity Crisis going into the book, largely because the prelude to The OMAC Project revealed it. But, the process of actually reading this graphic novel was so engaging that I forgot I knew the secret until it was actually revealed. Identity Crisis may not be great literature, but it comes surprisingly close by creating a super hero story which is engaging, sufficiently complex and deeply human. In other words, many of the best aspects of great literature are present in this story and it is so well done that I found myself so captivated that I forgot it was a murder mystery that I already knew the culprit to. Indeed, as the minutia which were glossed over in the summaries played out, I found myself surprised, engaged and thinking.

Elongated Man, one of the heroes who was part of the Justice League Of America, is sitting on a stakeout on his birthday which he suspects is part of his wife's annual attempt to surprise him for his birthday. But as the bust he is on goes terribly wrong, he and Firehawk are recalled by Ralph's wife, Sue, who is being attacked in their home. The pair arrives too late and Sue Dibny is killed, her body incinerated almost beyond recognition with no trace evidence left. After her funeral, the groups of super heroes begin to fan out to try to find every teleporter and flamethrower they know of.

But Ralph, Hawkman, Zatanna, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and the Atom stay behind. They are guardians of a secret, which leads them to hunt down Dr. Light. In the process, the Flash and Green Lantern overhear the secret, which is that the group altered Dr. Light's memories in order to protect Sue in the past after he assaulted her once. This fundamentally altered Dr. Light's personality and when another hero discovered this, the seven League members voted to wipe his mind as well. As the heroes scramble to protect their families, villains and heroes wrestle with the ramifications of the long-buried secret.

It seems like whenever these crossovers happen, there are events which shake fundamental characters. While Elongated Man is seldom considered one of the great DC characters, as Joss Whedon notes in his foreword, the murder of his wife is horrifying and makes him instantly empathetic. While I know so little about the DC characters that I was surprised at the brazen way in which Firestorm is dispatched (was this a permanent thing? It sure looked it!) and the fundamental change to Robin's character came as an equally big shock.

But more than being about insular reversals within the DC universe, Identity Crisis is a volume which asks the fundamental questions "What makes heroes heroes?" and "What lengths may heroes go to before their actions become villainous?" Sue Dibny was raped by Dr. Light and the solution the Justice League came up with fell within their moral code of not killing the villain. But, in the process, they did something which placed them in a morally gray area, at the very least.

Heroes like the Elongated Man rise above their mediocrity to become truly human in these pages. Identity Crisis is arguably the result of trying to reconcile various writers attempting to write the same characters and having different interpretations. Dr. Light is treated as a laughable villain by the Teen Titans in this story and to explain how he went from being a true menace to a dimwit, the mindwipe is used and this is a clever concept that is exceptionally well-executed. And the only thing that is truly missing for readers just picking this volume up "blind" is knowledge about how one of the less obvious superheroes actually works. Readers who do not know the specific superpowers of characters - i.e. those who derive their power from a ring vs. the son or those who operate only on their intelligence and extraordinary budgets - will not be able to figure out who the killer is before it is revealed.

Interwoven with the story of villains like Deathstroke kicking the crap out of recognizable heroes and the reuniting of Boomerang with his illegitimate son, the attacks on heroes and their families continue. Jean Loring, the ex-wife of the Atom, is nearly hanged and Superman becomes exceptionally concerned about Ma and Pa Kent. Tim Drake and his father, who has only recently learned his son is Robin, struggle with the idea that Jack Drake now might be a target of a villain. The realism of these character developments is compelling and makes for a surprisingly good story.

More than a murder mystery, Identity Crisis is a story about how death has a way of unearthing secrets and how those secrets shake those who have lived with them as well as those who have lived in ignorance of them. Detective characters like Elongated Man and Green Arrow rise to their own in this volume and their sense of loss is palpable on each page; this is the type of graphic novel which has surprisingly good writing which pushes a psychological agenda that works to make the characters deeply empathetic. Long before Batman gets around to asking "Who benefits" in relation to the killing of family members to super heroes, the reader is wrestling with that same question.

Identity Crisis is not perfect, though. In the search for which villain is responsible, author Brad Meltzer goes off on some difficult-to-follow tangents about various minor villains. As well, the Boomerang and Boomerang's son storyline seems like an obvious red herring and one which distracts from the tighter, human narrative of what the superheroes are going through.

That said, the artwork is consistently wonderful. Identity Crisis is well-drawn by Rags Morales and expertly colored by Michael Bair. Every page looks good with characters looking recognizable, vibrant colors and a decent sense of movement throughout the book. There is an adult level of graphicness to the book, though. When Deathstroke chops Zatanna in the gut, the panel is painful to look at. Similarly, despite making Sue Dibny's rape implicit by having most of it out of frame for the panels, the artwork is quite clear and it is tough for the reader's stomach to not turn.

In the graphic novel form, the book includes notes by Meltzer and Morales on their favorite moments to write and/or draw, as well as a partial cover gallery for the original comic books. As well, there is a decent foreword by Joss Whedon and most readers will get a kick out of that.

But, ultimately, what those not traditionally drawn to graphic novels or superhero stories will appreciate about Identity Crisis is how the book is not a traditional superhero story. Instead, it is a character study about the risks of standing up against evil and how heroes mortgage their families in order to rise above the common. This may be a difficult concept for some readers, but it is well-executed and clear. Regardless of the themes, the story is compelling and it looks great in this book.

For other D.C. graphic novels, please check out my reviews of:
Blackest Night
Justice
Kingdom Come

9/10

For other book reviews, visit my index page by clicking here, that will take you to an organized listing of all the books I have reviewed!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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