I still have images of Superman comic books stuck in my head from when I was growing up in the 1960s. They were fantastic, a mixture of superhero and science fiction, two of my greatest loves ever at that age. I loved the stories of Lex Luthor (in his traditional gray prison uniform) teaming up with Brainiac (in a pink shirt and shorty-shorts). One of the most prevalent of those images was of Superman shrunken down and trapped in a birdcage.

Ahh, those were the days. But as I grew older, Superman grew more serious and so did his problems. Sadly, so did I. I realized there were worse things for Superman – for anyone —than being trapped in a birdcage. However, I still loved those stories. They were part of my childhood and I won’t feel badly for hanging onto them.

Especially since Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are revisiting Superman with the same love and tenderness I remember from those comic issues. Those plots were innocent and fun in a way that comics haven’t been in a long time. Now, Morrison and Quitely are doing the same thing in the pages of All-Star Superman.

The series exists outside of the traditional Superman universe. From what I’ve seen of this first graphic novel, anything goes. Clark Kent is still something of a boob. Lois Lane is sharp and still doesn’t have a clue that Clark is Superman (until he tells her). Jimmy Olsen is perky and sharp and a geek all at the same time. Luthor is violently opposed to Superman breathing the same air as him, and is brilliantly carrying out multi-layered plans to bring that to an end.

And Superman is quietly heroic throughout it all.

The graphic novel gathers the first six issues of the series. Some of the stories function as stand-alone tales but they all have continuity threads. And they’re all just good fun. This is a Superman book I’m gleefully handing off to my ten-year-old because I know he’s going to have a blast with it too.

The first story shows Morrison’s deviousness. Luthor has a plan to destroy Superman by overexposing him to the sun’s rays. During the initial set-up of the story, Morrison quickly and quietly introduces his readers to the familiar cast of characters, letting everyone know just how he’s going to spin the relationships and at what point in their lives we are. The sequence of Clark entering the newsroom on the double is a long montage that expertly showcases Quitely’s artwork. I loved it.

The first issue leaves us hanging regarding Superman’s fate after the overexposure to the sun. But the second issue is a fan’s dream come true: Lois Lane is given super-powers for a day and becomes Superwoman the way we all imagined she might back in the 1960s. Not only that, but Quitely draws her smoking hot! The two-page spread of the Fortress of Solitude is awesome.

I also loved the calm, every-day way Superman discussed Batman and Robin, and the casual way the Superman robots got introduced. They were a staple of the 1960s as well. The secret of Superman’s key to the Fortress was terrific, and the stuff of science fiction. The way Lois’s paranoia about Superman backfiring was terrific plotting. Instead of being suspicious of Clark being Superman, she starts wondering if Superman has gone insane due to his exposure.

The third issue where Lois tries to make Superman jealous of Atlas and Samson is a hoot. So is the ending where Superman finally gets tired of their constant haranguing.

Issue four concentrates on Jimmy Olsen, and it’s the Jimmy I grew up with. The one that’s still young and naïve, and always in the middle of trouble Superman has to get him out of. This one also contains some of Morrison’s trademark outside-the-box SF.

Lex Luthor takes center stage in issue five. The team-up with Clark Kent was absolutely fantastic. Can’t believe no one ever tried that before. Of course, there’s probably some credit due to the Smallville television series there. “You write like a poet but you move like a landslide,” is a quote from Luthor about Clark Kent that I’ll probably never forget. The resulting adventure as they run from the Parasite (and Clark repeatedly saves Lex) is a series of neat twists. There’s even a cameo of Beppo the Supermonkey that’s hilarious.

Issue 6 hosts a lot of surprises and nostalgia. We get to see Ma and Pa Kent, watch Superman play with Krypto the Super-Dog, and even hang out in the Smallville malt shop with Lana Lang. Seeing the Supermen of the futures was a trip down memory lane as well. You just know Morrison is having fun with the cornucopia he’s laying down. But his is one of the saddest tales Morrison weaves, and it sneaks up on you in the end.

I can’t name a graphic novel I’ve read yet that seems to span the decades and the generations Morrison’s loving tribute does in All-Star Superman. For long-time fans that haven’t read comics in a great many years, this one is a perfect return. Pick this one up and prepare to enjoy the feast.

Greg Pak, the latest writer on The Incredible Hulk and now The Incredible Hercules, evidently ushered in a new period in the life of Bruce Banner, the Hulk with the Planet Hulk storyline. I wasn’t aware of this till my son got me to buy him an issue, then the graphic novel. I’ll be reading that soon because Pak has definitely made me curious.

Evidently in the Planet Hulk storyline, the Hulk was shot into space as a means to get rid of him. He landed on a planet called Sakaar. As it turns out, Sakaar is filled with warring races and violence. Hulk is enslaved, becomes a gladiator, and eventually king. He takes a woman named Caiera as his bride. Just as Hulk’s life seems on an upward turn, the vessel that brought him to the planet explodes and kills most of the populace. Caiera dies and the Hulk goes back to Earth on a killer rampage.

However, as it turns out, the story on Sakaar doesn’t end there. The people who live on that planet are incredibly hard to kill. Caiera manages to give birth to her son even as he lies dying. As one of the Shadow people, the child can run within minutes of being born. He can also survive the lava and other natural disasters that befall the planet. Given that he was half-Hulk, I could believe that.

The story moves quickly through the boy’s life. He grows up in days and becomes a killing machine, a predator that hunts what he needs. Caiera remains to deliver a voice-over for the book, and that insight feels real and natural. Her words are easy to read and create an instant bond with the boy.

I love the violence of the planet as well. It feels like an old Edgar Rice Burroughs novel mixed with Robert E. Howard. An alien Conan the Barbarian alone against the world. I flipped through the pages as anxiously as my son had, waiting for the story to unfold in the brightly colored panels filled with explosions of action. Within minutes, the boy’s plight had won me over.

Somehow Skaar becomes a leader of a bunch of giant ant-like things. I’m sure that bond will be explained later. The full-page splash of them battling a giant serpent thing is intense. Ron Garney’s artwork fits the series to a T.

Pak doesn’t slow the pacing down as he moves the time to a month later and a killing raid against people too weak to protect themselves or get away. Those deaths obviously leave a mark on Skaar, but we don’t know what it means yet.

Then, a year later, the action unfolds again as another group of raiders attacks a community. This group is led by Axeman Bone, who’s destined to become a chief villain in the series judging from the story time he’s given. Axeman Bone kills a young man who must be related to Caiera because he has the same flesh-to-stone power she had. Pak had me at that because at first I thought that was Skaar.

We don’t see Skaar again till the end splash page. By this time he’s fully grown and in a savage berserker rage. I don’t know how intelligent Skaar is because he never speaks in this issue, but there’s plenty of action.

I was definitely intrigued with this first issue. My son and I are going to pick them up for a time and see what develops. Pak’s sense of pacing and Forney’s pencils are worth the cover price investment, and I’m really curious about where they’re going to take the Hulk’s son. Hopefully they won’t take him off-planet for a while. There seem to be plenty of adventures waiting there, and I’d love to see Conan-style adventures for a time.

With the movie out this summer, plenty of attention is being paid to the Hulk. There’s even a new, mysterious red Hulk on the loose in the new volume of the series, and Dr. Bruce Banner is trying to help figure out what that means. I’ve also heard the Hulk is supposed to have a daughter by an old character named Thundra. That story is set in the future.

Peter David was the first writer in a long time to really build an audience for the Hulk, but Greg Pak’s take on the character has obviously done the same. Now we also have Skaar, Son of Hulk to follow, and I’m down for the ride to see what we’re going to be offered.

He still remains as DC Comics’ most radical hero. Mike Grell created The Longbow Hunters and pushed away the trick arrows for a time, getting Ollie back to his roots as a cutting-edge back street brawler, then enjoyed a long run on the strip. Chuck Dixon shortly followed Grell and even killed Ollie off long enough to give us a new Green Arrow in Connor Hawke.

Even though he’d died and gone to Heaven, Ollie come back in issues penned by Kevin (Daredevil, Clerks) Smith. Lately Judd Winnick has married him off to Black Canary and invented a whole new Speedy for this generation.

But Andy Diggle (The Losers) got the green light to pen the adventures of Oliver Queen’s Year One origin while so many longtime DC Comics heroes are getting spotlight treatment. I really enjoyed Diggle’s run on The Losers as well as some of his other forays, but I didn’t know if he was the right guy for Green Arrow. As it turns out, Diggle was just the guy to bring Ollie once more to the masses.

Diggle’s scriptwork is excellent. He moves the story along and finesses the characters and relationship through dialogue and action, and the overall effect is like watching a movie with first-person voiceovers. An added bonus in the graphic novel contains the first few pages of the actual script Diggle turned in to the editor and artist. He didn’t just put the words on the page, he actually planned on where the action would go and how it would be revealed.

In the beginning, Oliver Queen was a playboy with more money than he knew what to do with. He rambled and tried extreme sports to fill the gaps in his life, constantly trying to find his happy. Diggle does a masterful job of portraying that, and even ties in the Robin Hood touchstones of Errol Flynn and Howard Hill’s longbow at a fundraiser where Ollie really makes an idiot of himself.

Jock’s artwork is fantastic. The panels and spreads flow cinematically across the pages. Movement comes alive, tension is as tight as a bowstring, and the sweeping majesty of nature fills the senses so much I could almost smell the grass and the gunpowder. The fact that Diggle and Jock have worked together before shows. They’re a well-oiled machine attuned to turned out powerful stories.

The plot of Green Arrow: Year One is absurdly simple, but it shows off so much of what has become canon for the character. Oliver’s disenchantment of his own prosperity, the dislike of the image of so many of the rich and celebrity, the false platitudes so many hucksters and politicians spout, and his search for real meanings takes shape in these pages.

His inherent survivalist’s nature shines through in the wilderness and the human adversity he faces. Diggle also touches on Ollie’s abhorrence of drugs (which became a major plot point in the 1970s when it was revealed that Roy Harper, Green Arrow’s original sidekick Speedy who has now gone on to become Red Arrow, had a drug problem). Understanding that Ollie got addicted to opium while healing on the island actually shores up Ollie’s overreaction and disappointment in Roy at that time. There’s even a comment made after a drastic injury regarding the potential of Ollie losing his arm that plays off the way Ollie was killed – for a time.

There’s a lot to love about this graphic novel if you’re a Green Arrow fan. I had a blast reading it, then re-reading it. And it’s a great introduction to the character if you’ve never read anything about him. Despite the fact that his series seems to constantly respawn, there’s a resiliency of Oliver Queen that just won’t go away forever. He’s become an icon in the DC Comics universe, and Diggle and Jock reveal here in these pages.

Green Lantern: No Fear is far less technically ambitious than its predecessor, Rebirth. The previous novel in the “new” adventures of Hal Jordan basically had to re-invent the character and discard a decade and more of maltreatment of the character, in my opinion.However, that said, No Fear offers a lot in the way of great character building. Geoff Johns’s first graphic novel in the Green Lantern saga was all about getting back to the basics and skewering missed approaches to Hal Jordan. This volume reintroduces Hal Jordan and Green Lantern to the world as a human being and a hero. It’s about history and family, about dreams and responsibilities, and the fact that there’s precious little wiggle room for anybody trying to balance all those things and live a good life.

I especially loved the first story. The art by Darwyn Cooke was amazingly simple and really underscored the light but deep tale as Hal remembered his relationship with his test pilot father. The fact that Hal and Kyle Rayner (the latest Green Lantern, and the character that really split the polls on favorite Green Lanterns) are shown together and we get a sense of how that relationship is going. Johns could have totally blown off the Rayner character, but he chose to embrace him in the series to offer the readers the best of both possible worlds.

From there, the stories move into more Green Lantern history with the threat of a Manhunter, the androids created by the Guardians to police the spaceways before they created the Green Lantern Corps. The art is pretty cool, shows lots of action, and allows a great pacing for Johns’s story.

I enjoyed the sequences with Hal’s brother a lot too. Johns seems intent on advancing stories as much as he is on introducing back stories that we hadn’t before seen. The story of why Hal got dishonorably discharged from the United States Air Force was especially emotionally compelling.

Johns also broadens his current Green Lantern universe by bringing in other old enemies: Hector Hammond and Black Hand. Both of those characters are far creepier and more dangerous than we’ve ever seen them before.

I have to admit that the scene where Hal pounded away at Hector Hammond when the man couldn’t defend himself made me uncomfortable. On one level, I understood it because Hammond had used his mind-probing powers to assault Green Lantern, but it still just didn’t seem like something Hal would do.

This collection of stories was much lighter than the arc that ran through Rebirth. Since I read them so close together, I’m glad there was such a difference. Rebirth emotionally exhausted me, but No Fear was – mostly – a fun romp.

The scene where Hal busted General Stone in the mouth the way he had all those years ago, and the fact that that clue was what gave away Hal’s secret identity as Green Lantern, was great. I think having a USAF general know that Hal and Green Lantern are the same guy can’t be anything but beneficial. (You still have to wonder how Clark Kent can go missing all the time from the Daily Planet.)

I’ve got two more of the graphic novels lined up to read, and I’m really looking forward to them. Johns is making magic again, and it’s fun to watch.

Hal Jordan has got to be one of the most abused heroes ever created in comics. In the whole history of the field, no other hero – in my opinion – has been through such a mishmash of soap opera wallowing and evil plotting.In the beginning, Hal Jordan was one of the coolest heroes ever in the 1960s. He was the second hero to be brought back to be updated to modern times and given a makeover in Showcase comics (as long as you don’t count Lois Lane). As a test pilot, Jordan was fearless. He was a skirt-chaser and always out for a good time. I loved those intergalactic adventures he had in the early books.Then the 1970s came along and Denny O’Neil paired him with Green Arrow, turning the whole series into a tour through the social issues and growth problems the United States was going through. I enjoyed that run and thought it was great, especially since Denny recreated Green Arrow into the fantastic, opinionated character he now is. However, I didn’t see how showing Hal Jordan having questions about whether or not he was doing the right thing during that era was undermining what Green Lantern was all about.

One of the scenes Denny did that I will take to the grave with me was of an old black man talking to Hal, saying how he’d heard Green Lantern had helped a bunch of purple skins, and orange skins, but why hadn’t Green Lantern ever helped people with black skins? Words to that effect.

At that time, I thought that was powerful writing. And it was. Except for that whole little bitty thing of putting the cracks into Hal Jordan. Later writers came along and made Hal more human. By that, I mean they turned him into a failure. They gave him an alcohol problem that seemed straight out of the pages of Iron Man.

Then they destroyed Coast City, his hometown, on his watch. And they turned him into Parallax, the worst villain EVER in the DC Universe. (Except maybe for Superboy-Prime at this point.) They even had his old friend Green Arrow kill him with an arrow through the heart.

After that, they turned Hal into the Spectre, the spirit of vengeance. The Spectre is another character that’s been all over the place as writers have each tried to put their unique spins on that hero. So you had these two out-of-control entities somehow going to make a better hero together. (Kind of the you-got-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter/you-got-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate thing I suppose.)

The Hal Jordan/Spectre combo didn’t work for me at all. The costume looked dumb. All the personal issues the writers created seemed to come out of left field.

In the end, Hal Jordan had been stripped of everything that had made him unique and likeable as a superhero. When I’d been young, I’d wanted to be Hal when I grew up. (During those times I hadn’t wanted to be Batman, and I have to admit that the Batman thing is still there. I’ve grown more realistic over the years, you see. But if power rings are ever discovered, the Batman thing is subject to change.)

The fans were outraged. They howled for years. They didn’t buy the Hal Jordan/Spectre comic books and the series was cancelled. The universe was without Hal/Green Lantern/Spectre. Then writers started going back in time and meeting the young Hal/Green Lantern. They found excuses to do this. They even brought young Hal/Green Lantern to the present for a while.

Now matter how much Hal Jordan got killed or had his body thrown into the sun to save the world and redeem himself, he wouldn’t go away. Fandom remembered him much too vividly. Then the DC archives started getting published and a lot of people started asking, Where’s this Hal Jordan/Green Lantern?

The decision was made to bring Hal Jordan back and make him Green Lantern again. Wailing and the gnashing of teeth was heard throughout fandom. I was one of the worst.

Even when I heard Geoff Johns was going to be doing the comic book, I wasn’t happy. After everything that had been done, I figured that this was one save, one retcon (one of the most hated words among comic book fans – except when a character or a storyline was so badly butchered nothing else could be done – and don’t even get me started on the “Spider-Man: One More Day” nonsense) no one could pull off.

I snorted in derision. I stamped my feet in annoyance. I bellowed my displeasure for all to hear.

The comics came out and I blew them off. Wasn’t going to read them. I was too busy to read comics at that time anyway.

Then the graphic novel containing the five issues of Green Lantern: Rebirth came out. I was curious, but I resisted. After all, wasn’t I inordinately busy? And then there was that whole doubting thing.

The fans, however, loved what Geoff Johns did. And I have to admit, after reading the graphic novel, I totally have to agree. Geoff Johns is one of the most brilliant writers I know. He pulled a hero out of the burning building that had been made of Hal Jordan’s life. From the tattered fabric of the Green Lantern Corps history, Johns saved the best part of the mythos and made it stronger by making it more detailed and complete.

The writing in the graphic novel is intensely introspective not only for Jordan, but for several other major characters as well. Johns reforged views on Kyle Rayner, the newest Green Lantern who some of the old guard hated from the time he took over Hal’s magazine, Guy Gardner, and even Sinestro, a long time villain of Hal’s who had at one time trained him. Everyone was a part of what had happened to Hal Jordan, and we get to see how Parallax came about.

Johns figured out why the Green Lantern’s rings were vulnerable to yellow, and he told all of us. He was the first among us to notice it when Hal first started to lose it, and why. When we thought Hal had killed Sinestro, Johns knew the true story. He even knew about the deal Sinestro struck with the being known as Parallax while Sinestro was imprisoned within the Power Battery on Oa, the planet of the Guardians.

The answer to what had gone wrong with Hal Jordan as a man and a comic book was simple. Johns’s restitution of the character was elegance.

You truly won’t read a better book about redemption. And if you’re a Hal Jordan/Green Lantern fan, you’ll be cheering by the time you turn to the last page of the book.

There were so many high marks and emotional points in the story that I could make a laundry list of them. But one of the best, one of the most surprising, is when Green Lantern gets tired of Batman’s lip and punches him out!

Of course, for long-time comics geeks like myself, this was just a play on the events Keith Giffen set up in his run on the Justice League when Batman punched out Guy Gardner. But man, I loved that scene! A guy who will punch out the Bat? Now that’s fearless!

I could rave forever about the accompanying art in the book. The space scenes are genuinely cool. The urbanized sprawl of cities is easily recognizable. Each of the dozens of heroes in the book are drawn in unmistakable fashion. Artists Ethan Van Sciver and Prentiss Rollins have drawn one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen, and they did it all while working with a HUGE cast.

If you’re an old Green Lantern fan that has walked away from comics for a time out of disgust, Geoff Johns will strap you back into one of the best adventures you’ll ever take. If you’re a new fan drawn to comics because of all the superhero movies coming out of late, this is definitely a graphic novel you’ll want to pick up. Especially now that a Green Lantern movie has been (pun intended) green-lighted.

I loved this book and it’s one I’m going to read several times. I’ve picked up the other graphic novels in the series and can’t wait to get to them.

Teen Titans: Titans East is the latest graphic novel gathered from the pages of the newest incarnation of the young heroes in the DC universe. Led by Robin (Tim Drake, actually the third person to wear the Robin uniform), the team consists of Wonder Girl, Miss Martian, Kid Devil, Ravager, Cyborg, Raven, and Jericho. They formed the new team after the events of Infinite Crisis (which would take a HUGE column to explain).This volume opens up with an introspective peek into Kid Devil’s life. Since he mysteriously appeared in the pages of the monthly comic series, writer Geoff Johns works his familiar magic in bringing the character to three-dimensional life. I love watching Johns write stories like this, and I knew I was going to be in for a treat when I started in with first-person narrative from Kid Devil.

Johns has got a deft, sure hand with every character he touches. I’ve yet to hear him strike a false note. To be honest, I wasn’t very enamored of the Kid Devil character. He looks kind of neat and is probably fun to draw for the artists, but he just didn’t appear to have much depth. After Johns’s first arc of the Titans East storyline, I can safely report that just isn’t true.

Eddie Bloomberg (Kid Devil) is, literally, a tormented soul. Hero worship was what brought him into the hero biz when he wanted to be the sidekick for Blue Devil. I never much got into Blue Devil either, but he was pretty interesting the way Johns presented him. And, in the end, it was hero worship that boomeranged and trapped Eddie in a situation that could leave him as one of the devil’s own – literally – when he turns twenty in three years. That story detail is left dangling for the time being, but I was good with that.

As the story moved into the next section of the arc, Deathstroke the Terminator attacked the Teen Titans with a group of super-powered kids he’d gathered and called Titans East. Long-time readers of the Teen Titans will remember that Deathstroke has been a main opponent of the Titans since writer Marv Wolfman created him for the reboot of the series he did back in the 1980s.

Johns is very clever about his plotting. He generally is. Sometimes he lays all his cards on the table and lets the readers simply watch him work magic. Other times, he keeps a card hidden or turned over or turned so that it looks one way when it’s really another. That’s what he does in this graphic novel and it makes it a little difficult to talk about much of the plot without giving too much away.

Jericho and Ravager are the son and daughter of Deathstroke. Jericho He tells the Titans that he’s there to reclaim what is his. Of course, a battle to end all battles ensues.

In Deathstroke’s corner there is Batgirl (who we find out later is drugged into listening to Deathstroke), Risk, Sun Girl, Bombshell, Kid Crusader, Match, Inertia, Enigma, and Duela Dent. If you’re not a comic geek, the names aren’t going to mean much and it would take too long to explain. Just let me say that the line-up is impressive and filled with a lot of Teen Titans history.

Johns’s scripts crackle with energy and vitality. The characters, complete with strengths and weaknesses, transcend the page and become real. Wonder Girl is still struggling with the death of Conner, as is Robin, and they’re conflicted about the attraction between the two of them. (If Conner ever resurrects and comes back, that’s going to be a can of worms!)

Tony Daniels’s art matches Geoff Johns’s writing. They are really a good match. Johns provides plenty of room to work and lots of emotion and action to draw. There aren’t any static pages, no filler. It’s all high-action storytelling that keeps readers turning the pages.

I love supergroups because of all the dynamics possible within them. Teen Titans has consistently provided that kind of storytelling, and this current volume delivers again. I had a blast reading the story, even slowing down and re-reading scenes and pages to savor the smart dialogue and the beautifully drawn sequences.

The flip Johns provides at the end of the novel is fantastic. I didn’t see it coming, and I’m used to his kung fu. But his kung fu is mighty. If you like the Teen Titans, you’ll have to pick this one up. Sadly, this is one of the last story arcs Johns will be writing on the book for the foreseeable future. But I continue to enjoy what he’s doing on Justice Society of America and Green Lantern.
 

Geoff Johns is one of the hardest working writers in the DC Comics universe. Especially now that the universe there contains 52 worlds, some of which have yet to be explored. But he’s the guy I’d definitely want taking me on the tour.

Johns has a gift of seeing the iconic heroes, a way of peeling down through decades of stories about them, to strip them to their bare bones. Once he’s hit bedrock, he rebuilds them in exactly the way they were originally created and somehow brings them into our world and our now in ways we haven’t seen before. He can take a hero that’s been around for generations and introduce him or her to today’s readers in a way that makes those readers think the heroes were just created for them now.

I’ve followed his runs on the Flash and Hawkman, and now in the pages of Green Lantern. But the greatest achievement Johns has ever done, in my humble opinion, was bringing the Justice Society of America to pre-eminence to comic book fans everywhere.

I loved his run on the previous volume of the book. I have all the copies in monthly magazine format as well as graphic novels. He’s lately reintroduced the JSA once again in Justice Society of America: The Next Age.

In this latest series, spinning out of the events of the year-long event known as 52, Johns once more brings his considerable talents to the re-envisioning of the JSA. The first graphic novel of the new series contains the first four issues of the new monthly title. We get to see old favorites (the Alan Scott Green Lantern, Jay Garrick Flash, and Wildcat – who has been one of my personal heroes for a long time) as well as get introduced to new heroes/heroines.

Johns revisits the JSA’s history to give us Cyclone, the super-powered granddaughter of Ma Hunkle, the original Red Tornado, a new Wildcat (with surprising twists), and even a new Steel (though we don’t get to see the culmination of that origin story in this graphic novel). All of these heroes fit perfectly with the old favorites Johns has lined up.

I’ve loved the JSA from the first time I saw them crossover from Earth-2 back in the pages of the 1960s Justice League comic book. Not all of those heroes were revamped and reintroduced to the world in what has become known as the Silver Age of comics. Mr. Terrific, Hourman, and Dr. Mid-Nite – as well as others – never found their way to Earth-1 except to visit.

In the early pages of this graphic novel, Batman tells Flash, Green Lantern, and Wildcat that the JLA wants to help the JSA rebuild. As Batman points out, the JLA has always been something of a strike force or weapon, while the JSA has always been about family.

It’s wonderful touches like that simple declaration that keep bringing me back to the JSA and to all of Johns’s work. I’ve never read a comic of his that I didn’t like. Story and character always work well in his scripts, and no one plays more fairly with the history of even the most long-lived heroes.

The plot in this graphic novels focuses on the rebuilding of the JSA with new blood while at the same time learning of the attacks against the families of heroes. The action is fast, violent, and bloody, with a number of deaths within the architecture of the story. Johns doesn’t take any shortcuts, and he makes the violence – so he says – as real as he can because readers want to feel like they’re living in hero worlds.

Johns’s words and Dale Eaglesham’s incredible artwork kept me turning pages, and wanting more when I’d finished. The story switches back and forth among several of the characters, and Johns conveys those different narrators skillfully. But he’s definitely aided and abetted by Eaglesham. The panels are beautiful to look at, and they push the story forward with exquisite pacing. With a book dedicated to introducing new characters to readers, there are a lot of dialogue sequences that could have dragged in the hands of a less skilled artist. Johns trusted Eaglesham enough to make it all work, and he does.

I enjoyed this graphic novel a lot, and I can’t wait for more. I hope that Johns and Eaglesham have a long stay on the title. I can’t wait to see what they do next, because they’ve opened up a ton of possibilities.