@SmashBrawler said:
@xybernauts: Meh, I feel JL is a very shallow and mindless book (and this is from a longtime Geoff Johns fan). Origin was the arc I liked the least, specially because it never told me why each of these characters is in the team and the last issues had a ridiculous amount of splash pages.
Wasn't it obvious?
Basically it's a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" type scenario.
The various superheroes were fighting the same enemy, which was Darksied and the army from Apoklypse, but they were being overwhelmed (not just whelmed). They had to get together if they wanted to stand a chance. In the story Batman was the voice of reason that illustrated this to the group.
It's not like they were eager to get together. Yes, the gathering was a little random, but I say why not? People are drawn together during times of tragedy (i.e. 9/11, Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, Tuscan, Arizona shooting).
After some wanted to go their own separate ways, but all the positive publicity they were getting forced them to stay together. They felt they had a moral obligation to stay together because the rest of the world needed the positive PR they were getting. They became a positive symbol that inadvertently boosted the world's morale. The Justice League didn't want to take that symbol away from the world. They understood how important it was. They knew breaking up would hurt the positive image they were projecting. It was an image of god like perfection that inspired confidence, like the Presidency or a monarchy or even angels. (The idea of the public worshiping a group of benign super-powered beings like they were saints isn't entirely unrealistic). Their image was so strong that even Congress was afraid to go against them publicly because the politicians didn't want to hurt own image; as seen in some of the early panels with Colonel Trevor. In fact, there was a whole Graves arc was about a disillusioned victim's quest to discredit the League in the eyes of the public and shine a light on the team's fallibility. I mean Grave's literally expected the League to come and miraculously cure his illness, which obviously they couldn't do even if they wanted to. Green Lantern chose to leave the team after the arc in order to take the flack for the negative PR that ensued due to an incident during the arc. So PR was a big incentive and may be the main reason. There was also the fact that alot of the superheroes were outlaw vigilantes, so the positive PR helped give them more freedom to fight crime and protect the public.
Also most of them were outlaw vigilantes so the positive PR helped them to get the public on their side making there ability to fight evil and protect the public alittle easier.
And there is the fact that one day they might need each other to tackle another overwhelming threat.
Simply, they were brought together by circumstance and stayed together for PR. It's true that it'd be nice if the book explored each individual characters' motives, but I think the failure to illustrate each characters' individual reasoning doesn't hurt the book that much.
Another plus for the Justice League book, there is a Billy Bastion aka Captain Marvel aka Shazaam origin mini story in the book as well and it's really good. Arguably better then many of the other comics in the New 52.
Log in to comment