Justice League of America #56The Rise of Eclipso continues to take a toll on the Justice League of America in James Robinson’s current storyline. There’s a great deal of talking, broken up by various fights, in which Eclipso simply grabs more heroes for himself. They bring in a reserve team of Leaguers, and the vast majority of them fall with no apparent effort from Eclipso, or even dialogue. Animal Man, Cyborg, Dr. Light, Red Tornado, Bulleteer, and the recently resurrected Tasmanian Devil (yes he was, shush) all fall with no resistance whatever, and not even any dialogue. Congorilla resists long enough to join the “main team” and Zauriel gets beaten into the ground in a one on one duel with Eclipso. The issue ends with Eclipso commanding his slaves to take the League. Suddenly, Obsidian pops up from nowhere, says “As you command” and pulls Donna Troy, Batman, Starman, Congorilla, and the Blue Lantern St. Walker into one of his portals. Just before this happens, the ongoing narration box argument between Bruce Gordon, Eclipso’s preferred victim as host, and Eclipso himself, reveals the rather grandiose end in mind here- Eclipso plans to kill God.
Ok, I have a LOT of problems with this issue, so I’m abandoning my usual format here. Supergirl is still missing for the big Doomsday event, we get it, although it seems a bit callous of Dick to just sort of say “Well, hopefully she’ll be ok ’til we finish with this.” I don’t see the point of bringing in the reserves just to have them all fall like that. While we’re on the subject, two things about that part: 1) I am beginning to think Robinson has an issue with Animal Man. In his controversial Cry For Justice, Animal Man disappears just before the big fight with Prometheus, one of many things never explained from that book. Here, he shows up as cannon fodder. Animal Man never seems to do well with the League, barring the late Dwayne MacDuffie’s run. Back in his own book, when Animal Man was a founding member of the Justice League Europe, he even commented “I never seem to do anything when I’m with the Justice League.” 2) Dr. Light, with her powers that seem to be a really good counter to Eclipso’s darkness, who has been shown as an immensely powerful being, also goes down in a fight so brief we don’t even see it on panel? What was the point here again? Oh, right, Eclipso’s big and bad and dangerous. Got it.
Oh, by the way, last issue, Jesse Quick raced off with Alan Scott to keep him safe. Now, they’re trapped on the moon, which doesn’t have but so many places to hide where you can breathe and all. So, where are they this issue? No clue. Maybe Alan recovered enough to fly them off somewhere, but in that case, why hasn’t he summoned his team to help?
They keep trying to make Eclipso a major threat, and it keeps not working. Does anyone remember the massacre of the Shadow Fighters back in Eclipso’s own book? He finally managed to kill a bunch of heroes, and most of them came back anyway, but that’s another article I’ll be doing another time. He gets defeated, temporarily, by light, or purity of spirit, or both. Heck, Will Payton Starman ended his life to beat Eclipso last big go around, and then Robinson decided Will Payton didn’t really exist.
I also seem to recall Eclipso used to have to work at it to take people over. They usually needed to be showing some really negative emotion, rage, vengeance, what have you. Now, I can sorta see Eclipso taking the people already powered by darkness relatively easily, although I still think Shade went down way too easily. Here, heroes just show up and they get snared. Red Tornado was taken just by flying though some patch of Eclipso’s darkness, and he was shown to be pretty much without sin in the recent JLA 80 Page giant. Dr. Light certainly has light based powers, and she didn’t even get an on panel take down. So, purity of spirit and/or light haven’t helped a bit this time.
There have been a lot of negative comments about Robinson’s more recent work. Let me say again, for the simple minded who seem to feel that disliking some work makes you a “hater,” I have enjoyed much of Robinson’s earlier work. Starman and Golden Age were fantastic. He’s been sliding downhill since then, IMHO. Cry For Justice was horrid, riddled with errors and out of character moments. His Blackest Night specials showed a flaw he’s repeated since in his JLA run, calling characters by the wrong names. I don’t dislike the JLA for the line up, I don’t think it needs to be the “Big 7″ all the time. But I do have an issue with Robinson’s out of character writing, and generally falling quality. He was getting better the last few issues, but this one reversed the trend in a serious way.
Some predictions: Obsidian is not under Eclipso’s sway, and he just saved the team. Eclipso’s inevitable defeat will combine a masterful plan from Batman, Saint Walker’s light power which is based on hope, and freeing Jade will likely be essential to the plot. At some point, someone will most likely exclaim once again “This IS the Justice League.” Is it?
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATINGProsConsWell.... umm... the whole team’s not beaten yet...a whole lot as detailed above Rating40% You might also like...
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Justice League Of America #46 ReviewBy BlogsdnaTagged with: Batman Eclipso James Robinson Justice League of AmericaLeave a ReplyClick here to cancel replyYour name (Required)
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This post was added on 20 Apr 2011, 22:59 by Wayland who has contributed 291 posts to this blog.
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