September 2011

A schedule of all 52 debut issues due from DC Comics this month. Click through for a full-size version.

This month DC Comics is relaunching their entire line of comics – 52 issues #1s in a single month!

Not only is every series starting fresh, but the relaunch also represents a “soft reboot” of the DC comics universe. That means characters could have a new set of history as they re-debut, including breaking up iconic relationships or being suddenly de-aged back to a more-relatable 20-something.

I am not a DC comics fan, and have never been a regular reader of any of their titles aside than Wonder Woman – so why not try to read and review as many of their new 52 as I can in one month?

Sounds like a plan! The month starts with DC’s biggest gun – Justice League #1, with DC co-publisher and debateably best-penciler in the industry Jim Lee on art, and DC superstar Geoff Johns scripting.

DC Comics Justice League #1, released August 31, 2011.

Justice League #1

Rating: 2.5 of 5 – Okay.

In a line: “You’re not just some guy in a BAT COSTUME, are you?”

140char Review: Justice League #1 – Solid art and interactions between Bats & GL, but the quick-to-read debut kinda falls flat. Not the big gun you’d expect

Plot & Script

DC’s reimagined Justice League are … The X-Men? The issue starts five years in the past when Green Lantern shows up to save Batman from a superhero kill squad in hot pursuit, and you’re hoping against hope the explanation will be something more deft than “because they hate and fear us.”

Yet there we are.

Yes, I suppose hating and fearing people with super-powers makes a lot of sense, but that schtick has been cornered and bludgeoned to death by Marvel. Also, it’s annoyingly dissonant to see these classic characters in that position. Sure, Batman is a wacko vigilante and Aquaman might have a bestiality problem, but is the government really going to chase after The Flash?

The conceit is that five years ago in the new DC universe was effectively year zero, with heroes meeting each other for the first time. Apparently they weren’t too popular with law enforcement (or, at least, Batman wasn’t). We’re treated to Batman’s introduction to and subsequent chafing at Green Lantern, who is as brash as Bats is brooding. GL gets one funny line after another. It’s clear that John’s is used to writing him, and that they’re playing up the Ryan Reynolds aspect of him as much as possible.

Both Batman and Green Lantern art scripted well, and the trickle of exposition from them is just enough to capture the imagination of a new fan. Yet, there is just barely enough plot here to call it an issue. Jim Lee isn’t exactly the fastest penciler in the world, you’d think Johns would write a little more script.

Instead, we get a brief tussle and several episodes of exposition, followed by a blah four pages with kid Cyborg. Also, note that the cast of characters are cynically the two heroes with the most recent movie, plus Superman – because, well… you know.

Artwork

Lee’s action is bold but always easy to follow. What is unexpected (for me, at least), is the wild sketchiness of his shadows. Maybe it’s the doing of inker Scott Williams leaving more of Lee’s original pencil work intact, but the effect reminds me of 70s comics (a good thing).

Lee relentlessly knocks the opening Batman scramble out of the park from the first, deliberately un-iconic shot of Batman. Note all of the random insanity he has Green Lantern creating – a fire truck and giant bats!?

The single page of Superman is intriguing. He’s definitely boyish, but not as much as on the cover. And, though he is lacking his red underpants, the underpants are still sketched on – just colored the same as his legs.

The primary Jim Lee cover is expected, if not classic. Unsurprisingly, his Batman is outstanding (he’s penciled him before). I immediately am annoyed whenever GL wields a gun. Lee’s posing of Superman is strange, so that his eyes are obscured and he looks very boyish. (The Finch alternate is creepy – Superman looks like he should be wielding puppet strings, and Wonder Woman’s head is too big for her shoulders.)

CK Says: Consider it.

Justice League #1 is too quick a read with too little happening along the way.

I don’t mean to grade a comic merely on expectations, but when the words “Justice League” and “Jim Lee” are connected you can’t help but hope for something on the scale of 1991’s all-time best-seller X-Men #1.

Instead, we’re building up the origin of the Justice League from square one – and you could do a lot worse than that! I’d argue that the first issue of your flagship team should either introduce everyone, be a huge blowout, or do both. This sort of expository story belongs in the individual character books, or – at least – explored after you’ve got your hooks in new readers.

When I hatched one of my typically insane musical project ideas – to record 30 songs from the 30 years of my life for my 30th birthday (maybe in the 30 days of September?) – I was working from the assumption it would stay an idea due to my perfectionism. The concept would be safely tucked away as an iTunes playlist with all of the other covers projects that I’d never started.

"Endless Love" by Diana Ross & Lionel Richie was the number one record in America the day I was born. While I won't say that I'll NEVER cover it, you definitely won't be hearing it later today as my pick from 1981.

Then, August happened. I kept posting every day, and really enjoying it. I finally found a blogging rhythm, eleven years into my experiment. I thought, maybe the idea isn’t so crazy after all. Maybe I should do it.

The issue is that I haven’t recorded any new solo music since we moved into the house last June. I have hatched half a dozen cool projects in my head, but I haven’t launched a single one.

This seems paradoxical. I have a studio now. Space to set up and stay set up without having to drape suit jackets over my microphone poles and check email from within a lattice of quarter-inch cables.

I mean that literally. At the old house my studio was my office was my dressing room. It was common to find a discarded microphone atop a pile of wireframe sketches and freshly laundered underwear. Gear shared a walk-in closet with board games and old copies of Rolling Stone. Switching to a different guitar meant risking sending up a tinker-tape parade of brightly colored Monopoly money in my hallway if I moved a box the wrong way.

And you know what? It didn’t stop me. I recorded two seasons of Trio, four Arcati Crisis Live @ Rehearsals, and over a dozen solo demos that became my Brown Bag Demos, Vol. 1. Now I have an entire attic committed solely to recording, and the well has suddenly run dry.

Actually, the well is quite wet. I have the best intentions. The new wrinkle is that with space to set up a perfect signal chain the issue is no longer my willingness, but my perfection. Everything has to be perfect. Perfectly planned, perfectly rehearsed, perfectly executed.

The Rolling Stones' 18th American LP, Tattoo You, held the top album spot when I was born. I won't be playing "Start Me Up" at any point in this project.

Perfect makes things hard. Bobbling that one chord change? Delay it. Tickle in my throat? Cancel it.

30 for 30 is different. I am not promising perfection. I am not promising that I’m going to get it done in 30 days. I am not promising you will know all the songs. I am not promising polished studio cuts. I am not promising all of the covers will be perfectly played.

And, I am certainly not representing it as a collection of my favorite, most-cherished songs.

No. All of that leads to perfectionism paralysis.

What I am promising is a single take video play-through of a song from every year from 1981 to 2010, with some commentary along the way. No cherished favorites. No multi-track demos. No perfection.

Just me and the music.

30 for 30 starts later today, in 1981.