An Ill Wind: Review of Justice League America volume 1 The Tornado's Path

 

Review:

The 2006 Brad Meltzer reboot of Justice League of America resulted in a team with a nice diversity of heroes. It included heavy-hitters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern; with a mix of lighter-powered characters with other expertise like Black Canary, Vixen and Red Arrow. And of course the Red Tornado.

Red Tornado debuted in 1968 and was a frequent member of the Justice Society of America in their annual cross-overs with the JLA. He eventually moved permanently between dimensions, landing on Earth-1 and joining the Justice League.

In his history, the sentient android/elemental fusion has seen his body badly damaged or destroyed countless times, followed by a reanimation /resurrection story. The years have seen a dozen reboots and retcons of his story.

It has all left DC readers in three camps - some who find the character compelling and who crave more; a second group (this reviewer included) who find the repetitiveness of the destruction and reanimation tales annoying and overdone; and a larger third group for whom Reddy is a trivial minor character who deserves little more than the occasional non-speaking cameo.

Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes, in this reboot of the whole JLA, take their turn resurrecting and rewriting Red Tornado. How did their version do on this well-trodden path?

In this book, the soul of Red Tornado aka John Smith longs to be human. With the help of Felix Faust, disguised as Deadman, and a schema ultimately masterminded by Solomon Grundy, that soul is successfully transplanted into a flesh-and-blood human body.The bad guys then steal the empty android shell for their own nefarious purposes.

But the human body is intentionally more flawed than Reddy was led to believe, and he must fight for his life and ultimately (spoiler alert) sacrifice for his loved ones. While Meltzer's writing gives us a few genuinely moving moments, the arc is prone to lapsing into melodrama and over-sentimentality.

Much stronger is the ongoing voting among the big three of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, as they discuss the pros and cons of other heroes and decide whom to invite into their newly reformed club.

Or the spotlight on Black Canary's immense courage and ferocity in combat. Or the Vixen arc as she struggles with her sanity after the loss of her totem. Putting Red Tornado at the centre of this whole narrative feels out of place and produces somewhat predictable plot twists.

The powerful images Ed Benes gives us with his art do a lot of the heavy lifting in the parts of the story where Tornado's involvement actually works. I love the cute nods to the four-colour newsprint days of the Silver Age in the Tornado flashback sequences. While Benes gives us some intense action framing and combat sequences, the poses and expressions become as repetitive as the Tornado destruction / reanimation cycles. The one exception is Black Canary, who has seldom looked better in hand-to-hand combat scenes than in these pages.

Description:

New York Times best-selling novelist Brad Meltzer teams with artist Ed Benes to redefine the Justice League for today...and tomorrow! After the darkest hour in the DC Universe, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman meet to once again choose who among Earth's greatest heroes will comprise the new Justice League of America. But while they meet in secret to decide the fate of the team, dark forces move against their friends and allies.

Collects: Justice League of America (2006) #1-6

Authors:  Brad Meltzer
Artists:  Ed Benes
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  June 7, 2007
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401213497
Pages:  226 pages

Training Raw Recruits - Review of Green Lantern Corps - To Be a Lantern (Eaglemoss Collection volume 103)

Review:

With the mythology of a Corps of Green Lanterns - a small army (numbering in the low thousands) policing the many sectors of space - dating back to the Silver Age of comics, the possibilities for stories and adventures of this team are nearly infinite.

This hardcover book, volume 103 of the massive Eaglemoss DC Comics Graphic Novel collection, brings together two starting points of the Corps.

The title tale comes from issues #1-6 of the 2006 ongoing Green Lantern Corps series. These characters and stories were not occurring in a vacuum, other than that of space, and the book helpfully sets the table of the Geoff Johns tales of Rebirth and Recharge work in the Green Lantern universe. This new series emerged from those plot lines, with writing duties going to longtime Green Lantern penciller Dave Gibbons.

Why did Eaglemoss choose this story for its larger collection of key stories from DC Comics history? It's because these pages set in motion elements that will ultimately lead to and culminate in the War of the Green Lanterns and Blackest Night. I will have to take their word for this long-term impact and importance of these stories as, on their own, they are not very interesting or satisfying.

Guy Gardner, sick of training raw recruits, tries for some Rest & Relaxation, only to be interrupted by the bounty hunter Bolphunga the Unrelenting. This is the comic-relief arc, I suppose, with Guy's lecherous resort getaway and running battle, sometimes while missing his power ring.

Soranik Natu and partner Myrrt are put through the emotional wringer with death and devastation, the execution of a prince of the ruling dynasty, elements of self-doubt, naked racism and the death of a Lantern.

Elsewhere, Vath Sarn and partner Isamot Kol, who should be enemies based on the interplanetary war between their peoples, work through their sometimes-tense interpersonal differences and fend off a surprise assault from a third force.

The story jumps to other settings, too, such as Kilowog's boot-camp for new recruits and a battle against kidnappers hiding in a sentient city. As I said, infinite possibilities. And yet somehow the result is a dull and uninteresting read. The scattered Corps has no unity, their powers are all identical, and the jumps between scenes ultimately fail to make us care about these heroes. Some character depth does emerge for Soranik Natu but the others are forgettable and one-dimensional.

Art duties switch from Patrick Gleason to Dave Gibbons after the first three issues. The difference is immediately noticeable, with Gleason's darkly inked and brutal images yielding to the more goofy and bright style of Gibbons, showing his deep familiarity with the Green Lantern concepts.

Eaglemoss books almost always include one much older chapter as well, and in this volume it is Green Lantern Corps #201 from the mid-1980s. It is an important pivot point in Green Lantern history, moving from a focus on in individual Lantern in its first 200 issues to a team book. The events of the major DC crossover event Millenium triggered this switch. Some highlights in this one packed issue include the first appearance of Kilowog, new and varied uniforms, and Earth becoming the new base of operations for the team. It is a tale packed with new beginnings, new villains and schemes. Still not a terribly interesting read, 40 years later, but it serves as a fascinating counterpoint - this old group is a much more integrated and cooperative team than the scattered pairs shown in the rest of the book.

Description:

Eaglemoss Collections volume 103

The beacon of hope that was the Green Lantern Corps shines brightly once more. Following its destruction at the hands of an insane Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern Corps has been resurrected as a force for peace in a chaotic universe. Now veteran ring-wielders like Guy Gardner must hep raw recruits learn what it means to wear the emerald insignia...

and

With the powerful Guardians of the Universe departing for parts unknown, it falls to Hal Jordan and a band of extraterrestrial Green Lanterns to defend the Earth from any and all threats.

Collects: Green Lantern Corps (2006) #1-6 & Green Lantern Corps (1986) #201

Authors:  Dave Gibbons (1-6), Steve Englehart (201)
Artists:  Patrick Gleason (1-3), Dave Gibbons (4-6), Joe Staton (201)
Published By:  IDW Eaglemoss
Published When:  July 18, 2019
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  9772054373515
Pages:  170 pages