Justice Society of America #51

Doctor Fate searches for the soul of Lightning in order to bring her back from the dead. Jay Garrick steps into office as the Mayor of Monument Point and the flow of the story is ruined by a 12 page comic book format ad for the upcoming movie Super 8... Thanks DC.

The Good

Ever since Geoff Johns left this book, it's had a tough time getting back on track. It's gone through a slew of creative teams, including Bill Willingham writing it, which I still think is an incredibly under-rated run, but now we're into a few issues with Marc Guggenheim behind the wheel, and Justice Society of America finally seems to be getting back on track. The team is a bit spread out now, since after their last giant battle, and we finally get a bit more of Doctor Fate, who is sometimes pushed aside for other characters. There seems to be a great deal of character set-up (well-done at that), so I'm hoping this book will start to become a bit more Fate-focused. Although Jay Garrick is now Mayor and not fighting the "good fight," there's plenty of interesting things happening in that side-story, a side-story that looks like it's going to become the focus of the next few issues. Sometimes being Mayor is more than it's cracked up to be.

Tom Derenick takes over on art, and while I am a big fan of Scott Kolins, Derenick's art reminds me a bit of Kolins, mostly in the colors department, but his line work is a bit more fluid, which helps create a stronger flow from panel-to-panel. This guy loves drawing Doctor Fate, and you can tell because Doctor Fate has never looked this cool.

The Bad

I'm a huge HUGE Alan Scott fan, and I must say that his current costume is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in my life. It's a guy half-inside a giant green lantern suit. Alan has gone through many costume changes, and aside from his costume in Kingdom Come, ALL of his costume changes have been terrible. His original one works best. The oldies are certainly goodies.

It almost looks like the creator of said costume liked the Kingdom Come costume and wanted to do a new spin on that, but make it look incredibly terrible at the same time. All-in-all, I feel like Alan Scott is getting the shaft in this book now. He's been paralyzed and put into a terrible new suit. I'm surprised he hasn't been killed off yet to be honest.

12 page ad for a comic about the Super 8 film smack dab in the middle of the issue. It completely breaks the flow of the book, and I'm not going to read it simply because I don't care. Put it in the back of the book DC, not the front. Then, maybe, I'll read it.

The Verdict

It may look like I hated a buttload of stuff about this book, but don't worry. I didn't. I'm not a fan of the dumb 12 page ad in the middle of the issue, and I loathe Alan Scott's costume, but that's about it. I really like Guggenheim and Derenick as a creative team on JSA, and I think it's finally getting back to the point where it should be: an interesting team book. The JSA is finally being done some justice again. New readers will get the gist of what's going on pretty quickly in this issue, and although it wraps up a few things from the last story arc, you should have no problem jumping onto this book and understanding what's going on. I highly recommend this issue... It is my favorite team book after all...