Justice League: The World's Greatest Superheroes by Alex Ross & Paul Dini

Product Information

A place for fans of DC's comics, graphic novels, movies, and anything else related to one of the largest comic book publishers in the world and home of the World's Greatest Superheroes! Heroes often get watered down a bit so that others can shine or some heroes get little to no attention and feel unnecessary. It’s a book that deserves better and luckily there are better versions out there, but you’ll have to spend a little extra for them. Marvel uses the speed of Mercury to catch up to the Flash and knocks him off balance with his magic lightning bolt.

Alex Ross and Dougie Braithwaite captured the essence of the characters in the most impressive manner. I have a close spot in my heart for the classic Shazam Captain Marvel, as does Ross, who folds him into the story and makes his nemeses Dr. Ross and Krueger lack the ability to focus the script on the necessary moments, and the result is long, dull scenes that don’t impact on the larger plot and make Justice quite the slog if the art alone isn’t enough.There were many twists and turns, betrayals and revelations that kept this from being the same old story we've seen a hundred times already.

While never a member of the Legion of Doom, Joker is included in the story as a wild card, lingering in the background for the first ⅔ before acting as a catalyst for events in the final act.It hooked me immediately and when I started reading it last Thursday night with the intention of finishing one chapter before going to bed I found myself unable to put the book down! And possibly to stroke Alex Ross’ ego because he doesn’t do small books, he works on EPIC books so they have to be EPIC-long regardless of whether or not the length is required. Also included are several pages of promotional art, preliminary art and thumbnails, art done for DC Direct product, model-to-finished-painting comparisons, reflections by the book's creators and much more!

My brain glazed over and I just sort of floated through the last couple chapters until I reached the ending. I like to think the reason why they don’t isn’t purely because real world and superhero comics are a disastrous combo and are best left unsaid, but because Superman and co. There were far too many characters, far too many chapters, and far too little coherence with everything that happened to make it even a halfway decent comic. Those who don’t mind losing a bit of imagery and prose to the spine won’t mind the TPB, but for me I would rather spend the extra cash on a version that delivers “Justice” at its full potential.

The cast was too large and in the end the bold and interesting premise devolved into the typical heroes vs. Braithwaite is one of the star artists of the Valiant Comics line, having illustrated premier titles like X-O Manowar and Bloodshot USA. And like, way to make a totally salient point and then miss the friggin’ point completely when a book like JUSTICE comes along. His most recent interior artwork for DC includes the epic series JUSTICE featuring the Justice League of America which he co-wrote with Jim Krueger.

His big break came in 1993 with Marvels, a limited series that took a realistic look at Marvel super heroes by presenting them from the point of view of an ordinary man. This is my favorite graphic novel of my favorite comic book hero, done by one of my favorite artists. Story synopsis: Super Villains unite, beat the League and take their place in the heart of people doing good stuff without nobody thinking they are bad guys and up to something, reserve heroes save the day and JLA triumphs again deleting info about their secret identities from villain minds. By incorporating this many characters into one story it’s almost impossible to budget time appropriately and still make an interesting story. I think that was just the right material at the right time, evoking the correct amount of nostalgia and fresh ideas.To begin with there hope that some illogical aspects will be explained, and that does occasionally happen. The Joker has never felt more superfluous, Hawkman and Hakwgirl are boring and unnecessary, Plastic Man adds nothing to the story, there are some cool visuals with Wonder Woman but its her lasso that does all the work in the main scheme of things, and then there’s a laundry list of C-list heroes who show up and I don’t even know most of their names. Rendered by Ross in more subtle tones, the image marks the beginning of the union of the World’s Greatest Super Heroes.