Video reviews for JSA #30, Superman #691, Flash: Rebirth #4, Hulk #14, Secret Warriors #7, Last Days of Animal Man #4, Wonder Woman #35, New Mutants #4, Batman: The Widening Gyre #1, Sinister Spider-Man #4, X-Force #18, Gotham City Sirens #3, Dark Wolverine #77, Avengers: Initiative #27,

Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Dale Eaglesham
Inks: Nathan Massengill

Art: 7/10
Story: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10

The Good

Johns understands and gets the JSA members like no other writer. His strong character work affords him the ability to create plenty of excellent chemistry between the JSA’ers. It’s so easy for the reader to lose themselves in this story as these characters seemingly spring to life. The scene where Power Girl refuses to let go of Alan and Jay once they arrived back home was perfect. It was touching and poignant without ever crossing the line and becoming overly dramatic.

The incredible long range vision and wonderfully complex and detailed plot lines on the Justice Society of America is impressive. There are very few titles that can rival the depth and range of the plotting that we get on the JSA.

Johns manages to nicely fold the Earth-2 plotline into the larger Gog plotline. On the surface, it appears that Johns places the Gog plotline on hold while he wraps up the Earth-2 plotline. But, upon closer review, Johns slyly uses the Earth-2 plotline to further the Gog plotline by pushing two of Gog’s biggest critics closer to accepting this seemingly benevolent god.

Johns gives an excellent and impressively concise and clear re-cap of the history of the Multiverse. I found it interesting that the Multiverse expands just like the universe does. This would suggest that the new Multiverse will continue to expand and will eventually keep growing past the original 52 worlds. This would seem a logical way to bring back the original Multiverse that had an infinite amount of Earths. I have a feeling that the Multiverse will certainly not be limited by the original 52 Earths that we saw at the end of 52.

Johns ends Justice Society of America #20 with a fantastic hook ending. The adventure on Earth-2 and the sight of their loved ones alive once again appears to be enough to get Alan Scott to finally buy into Gog. Alan has been the leader of the faction of the JSA who do not trust or believe in Gog. That appears to be changing. I am curious to see how Mr. Terrific reacts to Alan’s question.

The Bad

I only have one minor complaint. I thought that the Earth-2 Power Girl began channeling a bit too much of her inner Superboy-Prime with the maniacal way that she interrogated our Power Girl and the general over the top presentation of Earth-2 Power Girl’s character.

Overall

Johns continues to impress with this title as Justice Society of America remains one of DC’s best and most consistent titles on the market. If you enjoy incredibly complex plotlines along with quality character work then you should give JSA a try. This title is balanced enough in terms of action and drama that should make it appealing to a large percentage of comic book readers.

For more in-depth reviews, story recaps, scans and news visit Comic Book Revolution!

Also: another Dwayne McDuffie interview.

The all-ages fantasy novel Marvelous Effect makes the July Vibe. (Marvelous World is actually the name of the book series. Marvelous Effect is the first book in that series. I didn’t realize that before and got the titles mixed up.)