Action Comics (1938 Series) #775

June 12, 2012

Title: What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

Writer: Joe Kelly
Pencils: Doug Mahnke & Lee Bermejo
Inks: Tom Nguyen, Dexter Vines, Jim Royal, Jose Marzan, Wade Von Grawbadger, Wayne Faucher
Letters: Comicraft
Colors: Rob Schwager
Cover Art: Tim Bradstreet
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Publisher: DC Comics

With the new DC animated film Superman Vs. the Elite coming out today, I thought I would go back and reread the comic book that inspired it. This 2001 story by Joe Kelly was one that I remembered really enjoying when it was first released. Now, over ten years later, does it still hold up?

Hell, it’s more relevant than ever.

In “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” Superman is shocked when a new group of metahumans arrives on the scene. The Elite, led by Manchester Black, is a quartet of extremely powerful individuals who hand out their own form of brutal, murderous justice to criminals, often with no concern about civilian casualties or collateral damage. Public opinion of the group, remarkably, begins to rise, and Superman is suddenly faced with the question of his own relevancy.

This book was written as a response of sort to the growing popularity of comics like Wildstorm’s The Authority, itself a book initially conceived as the Justice League taken to brutal extremes. Then, like now, people questioned whether Superman could fit or belong in a darker, harder world. The thing that Joe Kelly did so perfectly in 38 short pages was show just why it was vital that a character like Superman refuse to cross the line the Elite trod upon. The final sequence of the story, the showdown between Superman and the Elite, is one of the hardest, most gut-wrenching sequences I’ve ever seen in a DC Universe comic book, but it isn’t gratuitous or shallow. It makes the point, it reminds us who Superman really is and why he’s important, and why characters like Black and the Elite are, ultimately, taking the easy way out.

The artwork here isn’t bad, with two strong pencillers and a tag team of talented inkers, but it does lack a bit of consistency, shunting from one style to another with more frequency than one would want. It tells the story well, though, and that story is strong enough that any glitches moving from one art style to the next can be easily forgiven.

If you’ve never read this comic before, it is currently available from the Comixology store (and if you’re reading this review on the date it’s published, it’s currently part of a 99-cent Superman Vs. the Elite sale). It’s well worth checking out before you watch the movie. It’s truly one of my picks for the greatest Superman stories of all time.

Rating: 10/10

JLA #100

June 29, 2004

Quick Rating: Fair
Title: Elitism

The Elite is back… and the world is theirs!

Writer: Joe Kelly
Pencils: Doug Mahnke
Inks: Tom Nguyen
Colors: David Baron
Letters: Ken Lopez
Editor: Mike Carlin
Cover Art: Doug Mahnke, Tom Nguyen & David Baron
Publisher: DC Comics

Okay, credit where credit is due – I was fully prepared for Joe Kelly’s origin story of the new “Justice League Elite” to go in one direction that I was prepared to thoroughly dislike, and he didn’t. He actually came up with a fairly reasonable origin story for the new team, an explanation of how it could get Justice League sanctioning and a decent launching point for the miniseries.

The Elite, a team of bloodthirsty anti-heroes, is re-formed by Vera Black (sister of their deceased former leader), with an ultimatum – the governments of the world must turn power over to them, because clearly, humans aren’t fit to govern themselves. This, naturally, sends the Justice League to the battlefield for a brutal fight sequence that turns out to be much more than it seems.

Kelly seems to want this new Justice League Elite to be a conspiracy theory superhero story, but the conspiracy he sets up in this issue is really trite and the conclusion of it is naïve at best, unrealistic at worst, and hard to swallow in any case.

Doug Manhke’s artwork is fine, and well-suited to the sort of story Kelly is telling here. He does good action, and the literally gargantuan battle scene that climaxes the issue looks extremely well-done… it’s the story itself that falls flat.

In truth, I’m probably being more charitable to this issue than I should be, but that’s because I expected it to be much worse than it actually was. It’s still not a great JLA story, not one that justifies placement in the 100th issue of this title. All these years later, I can’t help but look back at the first issue of Grant Morrison’s JLA where he brought the title back to its roots… brought in the “Magnificent Seven…” gave us good old-fashioned superhero action and showed why these characters are worthy of being known as the greatest superheroes not just in this world, but in any world.

Then I see this issue, which postulates that the JLA is out of date and old fashioned and not good enough, and it makes me think two things:

1. This is the same guy who wrote the brilliant “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?” in Action Comics #775?

2. (Sigh.) How the mighty (no, that’s the Avengers) – how the magnificent have fallen.

Rating: 6/10