Grant Morrison's JLA run

[t hedge coke]

Kelly did some great stuff.

Anyway I would go get it. It is a great run even though Bats irked me a little. Also didn't see the point of Huntress in the JLA.

I loved Huntress on the team. Batman's little mini-team (Huntress, Plas, Oracle, and temporary allies Catwoman and Mirror Master) was a fun and subtle subplot. Characters he think she can control, basically.

But, I never got into Kelly's stuff. The Manitou Raven stuff. The whole Elite thing. Lotta bad tastes in my mouth for one run. But, it wasn't written for me, so.

[ThiefHookUps]

Rock of ages is pretty good. The rest of it is surprisingly disappointing and I gave away all my issues.

[Deniz Camp]

Well, to clarify; I tend to see the trio of his most influent work at WildStorm - StormWatch, Authority and Planetary - as one entity. When someone mentions one, I tend to think of all 3, and they all follow the same kind of narrative formula anyway (maybe StormWatch experimenting a little more on structure). So, yeah, if we look to "just" Atuthority, I'm forced to agree with you. But it's hard for me to look at "just" Authority.

Well they're very different, in my opinion. Storm watch was as much a political book as anything, the ramifications of post humanity working within the confines of a political structure; supermen as wmds.

Planetary was a celebration of the diversity of pop culture and the beautiful weirdness of life. It's a book about discovery, which is why the FF were the villains.

Authority was wide screen superhero action. It has elements of the rest, but they're secondary or tertiary to the full on swaggerous tub thumping action. Gods making war in thunder and blood thats incandescent.

[t hedge coke]

Well they're very different, in my opinion. Storm watch was as much a political book as anything, the ramifications of post humanity working within the confines of a political structure; supermen as wmds.

Planetary was a celebration of the diversity of pop culture and the beautiful weirdness of life. It's a book about discovery, which is why the FF were the villains.

Authority was wide screen superhero action. It has elements of the rest, but they're secondary or tertiary to the full on swaggerous tub thumping action. Gods making war in thunder and blood thats incandescent.

I'm not even sure how they "all follow the same structure." Stormwatch was a loose series of short arcs or done in ones designed for an open-ended ongoing series. The Authority was very specifically three stories, each taking four issues, then trade off to a new group of talent. And Planetary was designed to be done-in-ones with a tight focus driving towards an eventual and deliberate end. Even the pacing in each issue between the series isn't very similar (with Stormwatch vol 2 having a very tight and purposeful structure to the single issues).

[ViewtifulJC]

the only JLA books you'll ever need

[BohemiaDrinker]

Well they're very different, in my opinion. Storm watch was as much a political book as anything, the ramifications of post humanity working within the confines of a political structure; supermen as wmds.

Planetary was a celebration of the diversity of pop culture and the beautiful weirdness of life. It's a book about discovery, which is why the FF were the villains.

Authority was wide screen superhero action. It has elements of the rest, but they're secondary or tertiary to the full on swaggerous tub thumping action. Gods making war in thunder and blood thats incandescent.

All of this is true; yet, because they share the same concepts and style, I (and that may very well be my own way of looking at stuff) tend to see all as the same essential "thing" looked at trough different angles. The theme that's the driving force on one is subtext on the other, and so on, but all of it is there in all three.

I'm not even sure how they "all follow the same structure." Stormwatch was a loose series of short arcs or done in ones designed for an open-ended ongoing series. The Authority was very specifically three stories, each taking four issues, then trade off to a new group of talent. And Planetary was designed to be done-in-ones with a tight focus driving towards an eventual and deliberate end. Even the pacing in each issue between the series isn't very similar (with Stormwatch vol 2 having a very tight and purposeful structure to the single issues).

Oh, I didn't say structure (except for that bit in Stormwatch), I said narrative style. You know, Ellis snarky dialogue, very little fat (except for reasons of pacing), a set quantity of information being dumped on you almost homogeneously trough the pages, that stuff.

[JackDaw]

I didn't like it.

I suppose I was never going to, because I don't like Grant Morrison's style of story telling... and I think JLA is actually a hard title to write well anyway. Too many characters that can't be developed in any progressive way because you have to stick to the brand image, too many very powerful characters, etc.

I suppose one thing it had going for it was that the characters were shown at power levels that were consistent with their solo showings: Grant M wrote credible threats that required full powered JLA to fight. Too many writers show curiously under-powered GL's, Superman, Martian Manhunter, etc.

But only JLA you need to read?? You don't need to read any JLA stuff, of course. But I'd suggest there's been such a wide variety of JLA stuff over the years that most people will find an era they enjoy reading, even if they don't like this run. (e.g. Can see many people preferring light hearted approach exemplified by "New Frontier".)

[Vinsanity]

I still love 'Obsidian Age', 'Tower of Babel' & 'Rock of Ages'

I know the first two aren't Morrison.

[Outside_85]

As far as I am concerned, if you only ever read one JLA run in your life, then the Morrison run should be it.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I'm inclined to agree that Morrison's run on JL was among the best incarnations of Justice League ever, especially the first six issues which introduced the White Martians, followed by the League's battle with Asmodel and the Pax Dei. As for Howard Porter's art, it was hard to get used to at first, but I would agree with another poster who said it had a certain "Kirbyesque" style. The first four trade editions encompassing Morrison's run (and Mark Waid's "Towel of Babel" debut storyline) are well worth reading.

[Leander1102]

Thank you all very much for giving me your opinions, a lot of you got me hyped for these books! However my local comic book shop doesnt have the trades in stock so Im going to have them order online which will take a week or so.

If Im correct, the first 4 trades are written by Grant Morrison and Mark Waid and Joe Kelly continue after Grant Morrison? Are these trades also worth reading?

[Nomads1]

I'd have to say, yes. JLA is certainly worth reading, right up untill Kelly leaves.
Morrison uses the iconic League and adds some members as the series moves along. Not being able to develop much characters with their own books, it's very short on charactarization, but HUGE in action and adventure. The threats scale is always being upped. Following writers try to continue this trait with their own twists.
Waid (vol 5 is all his) concentrates mainly on the "Big 7" and Plastic Man and Waid being a writer strong on charactarization, while keeping the threat scale high, manages to explore the relationship between members in intresting ways. I wish he'd have introduced more members (who knows, maybe he had plans to, if his run wasn't cut short almost from the get go, by a contract Waid closed to be editor at Boom, if I'm not mistaken), but it still has many intresting beats.
Kelly decided to rotate the Big 7 cast out a bit. Some members left, others, like GL, were replaced with other versions, he brought back old favorites, and he introduced some of his own characters. Some I loved (Faith), others, not so much (Manitu Raven and Dawn). Still, despite charactarization focussing a lot on these new characters, I feel liker we never got to know enough about them. It was, IMHO, a very enjoyable run, though. All three of them are, for different reasons, so keep an open mind.
After that, the series seems to lose consistency and I have to say that the saving graces of the series are John Byrne and Chris Claremont reuniting (sort of) for an arc that is mostly there to launch Byrne's Doom Patrol, which was not very well recieved, however I think it's a cool arc merely for the reuniting of these two industry icons (And Jerry Ordway's ink really elevate Byrne's pencils to another whole level of greatness), Kurt Busiek and Ron Garney's Syndicate Rules (it was born as a CSA mini and ended up as an eight issue arc that, as I understand, was supposed to be the opening of Busiek's ongoing run on the title, that, however, somehow didn't happen), which manages to be one of my all-time personal favorite JLA stories, and a sort of closing chapter to Identity Crisis by Geoff Johns and Chris Batista. The rest, I have to say, was not very good. Still, all in all JLA is very high quality series. IMHO, of course.

Peace

[Jeff Brady]

I read all the way through the CSA story. The artist on that story was the direct opposite of my cup of tea, and mostly unreadable. It's a shame, because I really, really like Busiek's writing.

The Claremont/Byrne story was a complete waste of my time.

Waid & Kelly's runs were really fun. I remember being confused at one point during Kelly's run, but re-reading it all in one sitting helped.

[Deniz Camp]

It's a common criticism, but I disagree with it anyway; Morrison's JLA was OOZING with characterization. What it lacked was character growth.

Grant Morrison's JLA is, as far as I can recall, where the now ubiquitous technique I call 'momentism' first arose in the mainstream, or was first popularized. Johns is its greatest practicer these days, and Millar too. Essentially you set up a conflict that is specifically designed to allow a character to shine in a very particular way, usually simultaneously delivering some quippy line ("Flash Fact", "wrestles an angel", "I wrote the book on Willpower", "Give up" "I...don't know how", "No more silly faces") with some decisive physical action. Combined they say some essential thing about the character, letting you know what they're all about in an exciting way, all the while moving the plot forward and conserving pages. It's a tool of efficiency, and it's a necessity on book team books (which is why, in my opinion, Johns is specifically suited to team books; he's mastered this tool where someone like the newly Marvel exclusive Jeff Lemire never did...and many, many others too).

What I'm saying is there were a lot of character bits. We got probably the most clearly defined Kyle Rayner in history, with arc resolutions that played off of his inexperience and allowed catharsis and growth-into-competency. We got the burgeoning Wally/Kyle bromance, one that grew out of genuine dislike. It was made remarkably clear just how towering a figure Superman was, to everyone, even - at times - himself. We watched Steel rise to the occasion and Zauriel rebel against everything he had ever known, as drastic a growth as there could be, really. We saw Huntress struggle to define her role, then save the future. And we saw the emergence of Batman as a God of Night, the terror of gods and monsters just as he was of criminals and thugs. We even saw the nuance of Lex Luthor.

That's all strong character stuff. Not a lot of it is really growth, but it's clearly, efficiently, and impactfully defining characters.

[Montressor]

It was like eating a great, alien piece of candy once a month. Weird action, sharp and dynamic art.

I actually had to wipe my eye during the epic ending arc, when a certain character stood up from a chair during a certain worldwide event.