5 Reasons I Hated "Justice League: Cry for Justice"

Normally, I don't like blogging about bad comics - in fact, I tend to avoid doing it. I mean, who wants to read me - or anyone - vent about bad comics. (OK, maybe they want to read Chris Sims' dissection, because he's so darn good at it).

But I'm breaking tradition - and performing a public service - to bring you this dissection of Justice League: Cry for Justice, taking my cue from another, better blog.

Here are five reasons you should avoid this book like the plague:

1. James Robinson can do better - I loved his Starman, and his Superman work is starting to grow on me...but here, every one of his characters (including Mikaal Thomas) acts in a very non-heroic way. It's almost as if Robinson is parodying his own writing. Let me put it this way - I was reading the trade collection of All-Star Batman & Robin, and compared to this issue, ASBAR is a paragon of restraint, meaning that I owe Mike Sterling a huge apology.
2. The art is...well, ugly. I'm sorry, but the painted art does not work. It's just as overwrought as the writing. It was almost painful to look at....and although I'm trying to be fair, this book just didn't work on an art level.
   
3. Characters don't act heroic -This is the kind of behavior I would expect in a comic from the 90's - Green Lantern claiming that the League needs to be proactive (which has been the premise of many a DC comic in the past)....the Atom threatening torture by shrinking down and messing around with a guy's brain....even Congorilla, whom you might expect to be a little out-of-character (given his long history) seems out of place here. These aren't heroes - they're petulant adolescents.
   
4. This book has the whiff of editorial influence - given the fact that, well, the last writer of Justice League left under admittedly questionable circumstances (admittedly, of his own making)- and with Robinson named the new League scribe....makes one wonder....
5. The whole premise of proactive heroes is rather self-defeating - The get-the-bad-guys-before-they-get-us premise...well, if we use superheroes as policemen/firemen analogues, both policemen and firemen engage in prevention not by force, but by education. So, in other words, "cry for justice" means that they're going to go to supervillians and be warm and fuzzy? Or go into troubled communities to avoid new supervillains from happening?

Granted, I may be taking this too seriously - and in all honesty, maybe its fannish burnout - but this is one comic where not only can I not recommend it, but feel obligated to turn people away.

And no, I won't be buying issue two, why do you ask?