Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic, dc, geoff johns, jim lee, justice league

Just A Beautifully Structured Comic

Published Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:00:38 -0500

The last time I felt like this about a mainstream superhero comic was the first issue of Wolverine And The X-Men #1 by Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo. It was just a perfectly structured story. That one saw the new school opening with the education board following Wolverine around the school as more and more things were going wrong, but each time the prospect of seeing Hank McCoy was raised and he would sort everything out. Time after time, as the stakes were raised, McCoy was seen as the holy grail. Until finally they meet McCoy and he hasn't got a clue what's going on and in fact makes it worse. Perfection.

Well, this week's Justice League #11 wasn't far off. Now, be warned there are big spoilers here. You okay with that? Good.

Geoff Johns has been setting up Robert Graves as the big bad guy since issue 1, with a few mentions in Aquaman and the like. Last issue he confronted them for the first time, indeed he made them aware of his prescence for the first time. It didn't end well. With the Justice League riven by fears. And that's where we begin, confronting their guilt and pain over the dead.

So over to Steve Trevor's sister, being attacked by Graves, and giving us a glimpse into the new supernatural nature of thee DC Universe and Gracves' role within it.

As Graves goes, the Justice League arrive, but Steve's suster is already being used as a weapon against them. Even if they can't see it.

The game is set. Robert Garves has written so much about this crew, he knows them inside and out, and he knows their differences. Especially how they will react differently to the kidnapping and death threat upon Steve.

Well, the rest of the Justice League can't have that can they. The predictable happens.

And with Green Lantern and Superman going toe to toe with Wonder Woman causing considerable damge and risk to human life, Graves takes advantage of that as well, in his battle to bring the League down.

At every stage, Graves is literally a step ahead of them, even Batman, and events play out to his advantage. So the League again go on the hunt.

Tracking him down to his lair, we learn something rather chilling about Cyborg, a technological man with what seems to be a supernatural flaw.

And then we're back with a reprise to the beginning of the issue as the League are confronted with, basically, the reality of what they were originally confronted with, the dead that mean so much to them. And Cyborg's status underlined without room for equivocation.

And then the very purpose of this quest, the reason for the Justice League fighting with each other in the open, the MacGuffin that had been pulling the Justice League along the path Graves has set for them…

Graves did it thirty-five minutes ago.

In a comic industry when the arc is all, when the individual issue has been sacrificed on the altar of the trade paperback, this is a comic that has double page splashes, which has a focus on funky Jim Lee artwork and poses, where editorial decides direction, which is part of a much longer story, which is full of exposition and what seems to be a pointless fight or two.. but beat for beat, it is a perfectly structured superhero comic.

I thought it was worth sharing that observation, that's all.

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