Book of Doom: Justice League of America #12

Some writers write for themselves. They try to figure out what they, as a reader, would want to read about. Or they might just try to push themselves as writers.

Some writers write for the fans. They try to figure out what the fans want, and they try to give it to them.

And then some writers write at the fans. They are trying to tell the fans something.

I think, after reading Justice League of America #12, I’d have to categorize Brad Meltzer’s run as a combination of writing FOR himself and writing AT the fans. This whole last year has seemed like an exercise in attempted style with a blatant disregard for anyone trying to read the book, capped off with a final overpriced issue that served only to tell us that we, the readers, are wrong for doubting his work, because Martian Manhunter and Aquaman say it’s good, and the League is as good as it’s ever been!

So DC claims there’s a “shocking cliffhanger” to this issue entitled “Monitor Duty.” Either I’m guilty of reading too much into this, or somebody in marketing was being a bit manipulative. I was duped into thinking that this would tie into the current Monitor business going on in Countdown, and I was also duped into thinking that there would be a shocking cliffhanger.

Instead, it was what has become a classic Meltzer JLA story in which nothing happens except for constant “character moments.” I don’t think I would have minded had it actually led up to something – while reading it, I actually thought that Meltzer was doing a good job of building up a sense of impending doom – here are these characters just going about superhero business like it’s a shift in the warehouse, being undeniably “human,” and little do they know that a SHOCKING CLIFFHANGER is just around the corner. So as build up to something, I didn’t mind it. As build up to nothing, it was insultingly pointless.

I mean, imagine if some Hollywood studio put out a movie of all the “character moments” that were left out of your standard 120 minute flick, expecting you to pay to see a bunch of events that might be reflective of a personality, but really are otherwise irrelevant and self-indulgent on the part of the writer. “See? I can write real people!”

And then there’s the ending – the shadow figures watching in on our League – sort of like the shadow figures that were watching in during the Lightning Saga and sort of like the shadow figures that were picking the league NO MORE SHADOW FIGURES PLEASE – turn out to be Martian Manhunter and Aquaman! But I thought Aquaman turned into a squid-headed guy during World War III and then got killed in his own book…so either Aquaman’s transformation and death have been rendered irrelevant by some actions that I have yet to hear of, or this isn’t actually “Arthur,” and Martian Manhunter is just calling the new Aquaman “Arthur.” Or is his name conveniently “Arthur” also? Man, I don’t know.

The only reason I’ll continue reading this book is because Meltzer is done with it. I’m glad he left some direction for Dwayne McDuffie to pick up with. I’m sort of intrigued by some of the ideas Meltzer starts, but I have just completely lost faith in how he executes them. A dismally fitting conclusion to a dismal run on what should have been an easy home-run of a series.

Anyway, let’s see what the rest of the Legion had to say.

Doom DeLuise:
Actually, I’m not gonna write a review. Just say something like, “Aw, how cute. Martian Manhunter and Aquaman approve of Brad Meltzer’s Justice League!”

Fin Fang Doom:
Justice League of America #12 was a fitting end to the thirteen-issue run by writer Brad Meltzer. Unfortunately, that means this issue was the biggest steaming pile of turds out of the whole batch.

The main story this issue is that the League is switching off monitor duty shifts. Yawn. Sure, that could be a good scenario for some nice character development. But when it come at the end of a writer’s run, it makes you wonder why it took the guy so long to develop his characters, and why he even bothered when he wasn’t going to be writing these characters the next issue. And it doesn’t help that Meltzer used the half of the team that nobody gives a damn about. Red Tornado is perhaps the blandest character I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading, and Vixen and Geo-Force aren’t far behind. You’d think putting the Justice League into just about any situation could make an interesting story, but as Meltzer himself put it on page 6, “it doesn’t make monitor duty any less sucky.”

There’s a bit of a subplot this issue of two men in shadows commenting on the various members of the League. Kind of like…no, EXACTLY like the first arc of the story where Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman are discussing who should be in the new League. Perhaps reusing the same gimmick just a few issues later was a way for Meltzer to bookend his run, but it really just seems like lazy writing. Instead of telling the readers this issue how Red Tornado is hardening, or what haunts Hawkgirl, or how confident Black Canary is, he should have shown us these things over the course of the thirteen issues he had to work with. What really irked me about this subplot is that the two men turned out to be Martian Manhunter and Aquaman, commenting on the latest incarnation of the team they helped create. One small thing, though… THIS ISN’T THE AQUAMAN THAT FOUNDED THE JUSTICE LEAGUE!! That Aquaman is now a squid-face guy. This Aquaman has only been around since One Year Later and has had pretty much no interaction with any of the people he’s talking about. How does something that major make it past the rough draft stage? I thought Marvel was the one with the incompetent editorial staff!

You’d think that in his final issue, Brad Meltzer would attempt to tie up a few loose ends from his run, right? Well he doesn’t. In fact, he makes up a couple more loose ends this issue just for the hell of it. My biggest complaint about Meltzer’s Identity Crisis was that he introduced a lot of threads that he never had any intention of following up on. The same thing happened here. Hawkgirl and Red Arrow are sleeping together, Black Lightning’s going to get some payback from Lex Luthor, Geo-Force is a double (triple?) agent working with Batman by working with Deathstroke, Vixen is stealing her teammates powers…why waste time setting these things up if Meltzer’s not going to be writing stories about them? If these are stories upcoming writer Dwayne McDuffie’s going to be working on, why not just let him set them up? If these aren’t McDuffie’s ideas, why impose them on him? Is Meltzer trying to make himself seem more important by forcing his ideas to inspire other stories? It just seems like a waste of space to me.

Of course, I guess it fits right in with the overall theme of Meltzer’s run on Justice League.