Justice League #11 - A Review

Two things have become clear to me, reading Justice League #11. The first is that a good villain requires some definition in order to be truly effective as a character. This issue finally let me pinpoint precisely what is what about the villain Graves which bothers me so much. Namely that it's taken us five issues to find out what the hell he was, what his powers were and precisely why he blamed the Justice League for the deaths of his family. And that knowledge instantly transformed Graves into a much more compelling villain.



The second thing that became clear is that Geoff Johns really should not pair up with artist Jim Lee under any circumstance- their styles are too different. Heaven bless him, Johns has tried to bend his scripts to meet Lee's strengths... but it just doesn't work! Johns is at his best when he is writing conversations between characters and Lee is at his best drawing splash pages. Tellingly, the best bits of this book are when Johns explores the conflict between the various personalities of the Justice League and the best bits of Lee's art are on the pages with no dialogue.



Justice League isn't a bad comic, per say. But it is a troubled one. The artwork is gorgeous, but there's little story to hold it up. The character dialogue is snappy but the good moments are all too brief. Frankly, if it weren't for the promise that next month's issue is going to boast major consequences for the new universe, I'd probably drop it. After next issue, I still might.