The Rise and Fall of Crappy JLA Stories
// March 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Comics, Review, commentary
Roy isn't the only thing falling apart at DC.
*Warning- article contains spoilers regarding recent Justice League related stories, as well as future Green Lantern stories.*
It was hardly a week ago that I was raving about how great the ending of Cry For Justice was and how excited I was for the Fall of Green Arrow and Rise of Aresnal story arcs.
That didn’t last long.
Well, I suppose I should thank DC for killing my interest so early before I spent much more money.
This past Wednesday saw the prelude to both stories (Justice League: Rise and Fall special). The stories which began with James Robinson have been passed to DC newcomer J.T. Krul. Apparently that was a huge mistake on DC’s part.
I’ve only read Krul’s work once before on the recent Blackest Night: Titans miniseries. The story was serviceable, but to be honest I wasn’t the least bit interested in what was going on, even with Ed Benes on art. There wasn’t anything especially bad about the story, though. It was just bland.
Having read The Rise and Fall special, it is my hope that I’ve seen the worst Krul has to offer. A lot of people have complained about Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) murdering villain Prometheus. ‘Heroes shouldn’t murder.’ I disagree with that, at least in this instance. Prometheus killed thousands of people, with the intention of much more. His actions were responsible for the death of Ollie’s grand-daughter and the crippling of his adoptive son, Roy Harper. Was the murder an act of vengeance? A crime of passion? Pre-meditation? Yes, yes, HELL YES. (More on this later.)
Frankly, Oliver Queen has never been so interesting as he was at the end of C4J. When someone purposely murders the people you love and walks away scot-free (or I suppose Scott Free, in this case. hehehe. sorry.), the question isn’t “what would you do to him?” The question is, what comes next? From a story stand-point, that is a great place to be!
Unfortunately, Krul took that promise and… did ungentlemanly things with it.
The special itself deals with Ollie and his supporting cast finding out what he did. Roy is still in a coma and doesn’t know about his daughter’s death or Ollie’s actions. The story starts out fine (in spite of the fact that Mike Mayhew’s atrocious “art” fills out a full third of the story) as we see Oliver dealing with the pain of his loss by seeking vengeance on anyone who had a hand in Prometheus’ schemes and hiding the truth of the murder from his friends.
There is a brief interlude early on that shows Green Arrow’s inner monologue during the murder. It is here that the first cracks in foundation start to show. Ollie thinks about who Prometheus was and explains that prior to the attack they “all thought he was a joke.” Excuse me? The guy who single handedly took down the all-star Justice League team including Superman and Batman- was a JOKE? Granted, Ollie was “dead” when Prometheus first appeared, and as I recall he personally beat the second Prometheus. Still, to think that he would underestimate an enemy of that caliber is poor characterization at best. Not a major gripe so far, but this is only the first poor choice in the story.
The Justice League splits up into three groups. Some go with Black Canary and Green Arrow to fight the riots and save the innocents in Star City. Others such as Wally (Flash III) and Dick (Batman II) search for the remaining villains who could provide leads to Prometheus’ whereabouts. Hal (Green Lantern) and Barry (Flash II) seek out the Shade who they suspect knows how to get to Prometheus.
Okay, this is where the story REALLY starts to dig into my nerves. I am a huge fan of James Robinson’s Starman, and subsequently his characterization of golden age villain The Shade as a complex figure who is neither hero nor entirely villain. When you take a character who has been graced retroactively with such a rich history and have him say some thing to the effect of “You foolish mortals!” — J.T. Krul, I would personally like to see James Robinson kick you in the nuts. HARD.
Nevertheless, the story moves forward. The body is revealed with the arrow sticking out of his forehead. Prometheus’ … uhh, super-helmet… is missing, presumably stolen by Professor IQ who was present at the time. So how do Hal and Barry react? Well, Hal is shocked- SHOCKED I TELL YOU! –ahem* Barry on the other hand– is pissed. His first thought is clearly “we need to arrest Oliver right now, that evil bastard!”
Ladies and gentleman, I give you Barry Allen: World’s Fastest DICK. As for JT Krul, I would now like to see Carmine Infantino kick you in the nuts. Granted, it wouldn’t be really hard because the man is really, really old- but still, its the principle of the thing.
And it seems that the Fall of Oliver Queen will center around his friends’ efforts to bring him to justice (sorry for the pun).
Is it wrong for heroes to kill? Yes. But sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Prometheus killed thousands of people. Given time, he may have done worse. From a realistic standpoint, this was man who could not be tolerated to live. Its not hard to see him as the comic book version of a terrorist. Now suppose your best friend went looking for him and took the law into his own hands. Is that behavior that should be encouraged? Certainly not. But should it be condemned? Not in the slightest.
Being an adult is about making hard decisions and taking responsibility for the consequences. Stopping a mass murderer the only way you know how is a hard decision, but one that has to be made. It sort of goes back to the Batman/ Joker argument. How many times should Batman shrug his shoulders and hope they help him ‘get better’? How many bodies are too many before you say “Never again”?Do we accept that the Joker should not be executed because capital punishment/ execution is wrong… or because it’s Batman? These are the kinds of moral quandaries that Krul should be exploring.
I would like to think that if I were in a similar situation (oh, you know what I mean!) my friends would understand. Rise and Fall special didn’t make me question my answers; it just made me feel sorry that Ollie has friends that are such huge self-righteous assholes.
Ignited by a series of cryptic roster silhouettes, the internet buzz has been heavy on this series by Ed Brubaker and Mike Deodato Jr. There’s been speculation that this is a follow up to Dark Avengers. Personally, I’m nixing that guess. One: it’s two easy. And secondly the only reason people think that is bc Deodato was the Dark Avengers artist and one of the promos resembles Venom. The truth is there are about a thousand Spider-man clones out there, figuratively and literally.
