The Justice Leagues - Legacy, History and Room For Improvement

[Restingvoice]

I'm set to begin rereading Johns' JSA run. Because I think that is a better contender than his JL run. I reread Johns' JL run and I was so disappointed. Jim Lee and later Finch's art work were stellar, but Johns really didn't utilize the full League to it's potential. Aquaman has the now iconic Throne of Atlantis story and Shazam has his new origin. Which have been adapted into big DCEU films. But everything else was a wash.

Supes and WW have nothing to do but play kissy face.
Bats has nothing to do.
GL gets kicked off the team super early.
Flash has nothing to do.
Cyborg has a little piece of the action in Forever Evil, but Luthor saved the day and carried that story.

The Super Seven who make up the League, and only 2 of the members walked away with anything substantive.

Hmm... the first arc was the origin... the second is to make Hal leave so Johns can continue with the ending of his Green Lantern Saga and to hook up Superman and Wonder Woman... the third is to continue the story of Aquaman and the creation of JLA which is the set up for Trinity War... which itself is the fourth arc and preparation for Forever Evil, which is the fifth, which is also the setup for Luthor to join the League... which is the sixth arc, where Johns also introduce Jessica Cruz who was teased at the end of his Green Lantern... after that, it's straight to Darkseid War, which has been set up in the first, and act as the ending of the saga.

So yeah, Johns League is less about featuring the League members but more about his plot and conflict, including the plot and characters from his other books and stories (Arthur and Jessica)

[married guy]

I've been thinking about this and had a bit of an epiphany.
I think most writers took all the wrong lessons from Grant Morrison's JLA revival.
Morrison was pretty much balls to the wall action with grand-scope universe shattering tales every issue without a great deal of quiet moments or character building.
It worked because:
1) It had been YEARS since the book had seen the headliners as regular members of the team. The title ended in a whimper with some pretty average writing.
2) It was Grant Morrison in his groove. There aren't many who can match him.
Now, every writer who takes the book wants to be all about the spectacle, but without the character stuff, and it all simply falls flat.
I think it's why the satellite era (Hawkman/GA, Tornado) Giffen/DeMatteis, Meltzer (Roy, Vixen, Hawkgirl) and the JLU are so popular as they had the action, but put the effort into the character play & team dynamics as well.

[Doctor Know]

Is it time for the League roster to omit the Trinity and other more popular players. That will give us time to miss that iteration

I agree. The Super Seven sells but they’ve had nothing to do for a over a decade at this point.

I've been thinking about this and had a bit of an epiphany.
I think most writers took all the wrong lessons from Grant Morrison's JLA revival.
Morrison was pretty much balls to the wall action with grand-scope universe shattering tales every issue without a great deal of quiet moments or character building.
It worked because:
1) It had been YEARS since the book had seen the headliners as regular members of the team. The title ended in a whimper with some pretty average writing.
2) It was Grant Morrison in his groove. There aren't many who can match him.
Now, every writer who takes the book wants to be all about the spectacle, but without the character stuff, and it all simply falls flat.
I think it's why the satellite era (Hawkman/GA, Tornado) Giffen/DeMatteis, Meltzer (Roy, Vixen, Hawkgirl) and the JLU are so popular as they had the action, but put the effort into the character play & team dynamics as well.

Precisely that. With Johns and Scott Snyder their runs felts like events and trailers for other events.

Trinity War is a trailer for Forever Evil. Forever Evil’s last panels teased the New 52 Anti-Monitor for Darkseid War.

Snyder’s JL run was a trailer Metal and Death Metal.

The Doom Patrol/Jessica Cruz arc was a trailer for Jessica and Simon’s arcs on GL. Which Johns also teased on mainline GL book.

Darkseid War was a vehicle to tease several unrelated and unconnected events. Rebirth, Doomsday Clock, Three Jokers and Children of the Gods.


The other arcs of Johns’ run, Villain’s Journey, Amazo Virus and the short lived Amanda Waller controlled Justice League of America arcs aren’t worth talking about. Because there’s nothing there.



Funny thing I've noticed. Is the JL recent runs focus on spectacle and grand events, like you said. While recent Avengers runs (mainly Jason Aaron's) have been characterized by 'smashing action figures together. A lot of mindless action, with no purpose or substance. Same problem for both legacy teams, on different ends of the spectrum.

[Nomads1]

The Justicve League has always been my favorites, however, their story sure has been less stellar then you'd expect. While their counterparts over at Marvel, the Avengers, were helping build the mythos os the MU with slow-building multi-part epic sagas such as the Kree-Skrull War or the Celestial Madonna, the League usually had done in one, or done in two storylines, that didn't seem to have that much overreaching effect over at other books, other than, maybe, the JLA/JSA cross-overs, and, right up until COIE, the DCU was a whole lot less cohisive than the MU. That started to change a bit when Steve Englehart came on board, for a relatively short but memorable run, that built on the Manhunters mythos, explored the "secret origins" of the League, and introduced a couple of members and important villains. After that, Gerry Conway went back to the previous mold, though, maybe, with a bit more of gravitas to his stories. George Perez on art gave us a couple of classic fan-favorites, such as the Red Tornado Story, the JLA/JSA/SSSV crossover and the incredible #200. However, George soon went his own way (the Titans way), and Don Heck and Romeo Thangal while giving us some pretty good art, were not at the same level. However, the League was now regularly experimenting with more multi-issue sagas. Then cam Chuck Patton, whose art, at first ressembling Perez's, greatly excited readers. The Beasts three-parter and the Paragon done in one are certainly a favorite of mine. However the League seemed to be stuck in a rut for quite a few years, never truely being able to move foward from that "nothing in the book matters in the big picture" pattern, and then, came that great idea that shows that even great ideas can go terribly wrong. Let's streamline the League to a more cohesive unit that lives together and trains together, that way the characters can be more freely developed. The problem? Doing this by getting rid of all the most popular and powerful members, and making the League into a wanna-be Teen Titans lite, incapable of tackling the kind of enemies the League always did was an idea that a blind man could have seen going wrong. I've always said that, if instead of Vibe, Steel and Gypsy, Conway went with other powerful adult DC heroes who were not having much spotlight, instead, the story could have turned out completely different.
Well, than comes another great idea, which was, at the time, way more sucessful, yet, also had it's problems. The all-new, all-different Justicve League. It was a great idea. Adult herores again, Great heroes again, powerful heroes again. The problem? The humor that made the book stand out at first got out of hand, and it's difficult to sell your team as the World's Greatest Super-Heroes when they are always behaving like incompetents and children. Still, that run gave us pleanty of classics, even going as far as having spin-offs gthat, IMHO, dilluted the brand (let me add here a disclamer stating that I was a big fan of both, the Detroit League and the JLI. I just see that some changes could have made them better). The Despero trilogy, Breakdowns, the Extremist Factor, were all great stories. After that, the League stumbled a bit, giving us some good stories, however, without attaining the level of success it deserved. I liked quite a lot Jurgens's run. Judgment Day was an attempt at giving us an earth-shaking event that, sadly, felt flat. I really hated post ZH JLA. And then, the Morrison years lifted the League to what I belive was the hight of it's popularity. New World Order was, IMHO, fantastic, and probably my favorite storyline of that time, but there are plenty of others that are very good. The League became the center of the DCU again, and, this time, what they did mattered and changed things. After Morrison, you have Waid, which kept the ball runing, as did Kelly, though he changed things quite a bit more in the League. Every adventure was supposed to be Universe-shaking, and, IMHO, that ended up getting a bit tiresome. Obsidian Age is one of the all-time largest JLA saga. After Kelly left, the book seemed to loose momentum, with an attempt at a rotation of creators that didn't work much. Still, Syndicate Rules is one of my favorite League stories. Another revamp, Meltzer is loved or hated among fans (I'm more in the second field), people had high expectations for McDuffy, but his run revealed another problem that ended up dooming the book: Editorial Interfearence. It also damaged quite a lot Robinson's run, after him. With the New 52, DC had it's tgop writer at the helm, so, the editorial interfearence wasn't so much feared anymore, however, it dove right back into the frequents events. Some liked it, others, not so much. I mostly did, but oftimes didn't. It's a fair run, and the Darkseid War is, IMHO, a very good saga. After that, another rut. Unimpressive creative teams and line-ups didn't excite very much. Snyder was a big name that came with bigname artists and a bit of a line-up shake up, but it really left me cold. Now, I'm not getting near the book until Bendis leaves. He has ruined too much for me. What I tried to longwindedly say here is that there are, IMHO, many memorable JLA sagas around.

Peace

[Nomads1]

Listing a few here so my post doesnt get humongous.

1- The Englehart run. I can be read as a single story.
2 - JLA #200.
3 - Beasts
4 - The Final Days of the JLA.
5 - The Despero Trilogy.
6 - Extremist Factor
7 - Breakdowns
8- Destiny's Hand
9- New World Order
10 - JLA Earth 2
11 - Tower of Babel
12 - The Obsidian Age
13 - Syndicate Rules
14 - The Darkseid War.


Peace

[Doctor Know]

It's been a little over a year since this I made this thread. I completed Johns' JSA run. All three omnibus volumes. It was a terrific time. I'm about to start rereading 90s JLA.

I wouldn't say there has been any positive change or improvement. As 2022 has featured both Death of the JL and Dark Crisis.


Has anyone's position's changed or would anyone like to add something?

I'm always curious about what others are thinking. It comes with being a "Know-it-all".