DC Source dropped some preview pages of Justice League: Cry for Justice. I love the art... a unique sketchy paint style by a virtually unknown Mauro Cascioli. Looks a lot like a guy they would normally only ask to do covers. Six issue miniseries starting this July. It's already out of place in current DC continuity, as a Justice League issue from two months ago referenced it as if it had already happened. Oy.
I am unsure about the motivations at work here. Cry for Justice takes place after Martian Manhunter and Batman have died, and Green Lantern is pissed off about it. So he creates a League splinter group to take the fight directly to the villains. He takes with him Green Arrow, Ray Palmer, Supergirl, the blue Starman, the new Shazam, and for fan-service reasons, Congorilla.
The preview pages show Hal getting in Superman's face about the League not being proactive. Hal sounds kind of vengeful, which is the kind of thing the GL Corps specifically forbids, by the way. At least, they used to. Maybe "Act Like An Ass" is one of the new top secret rules the Guardians keep adding to the Book of Oa.
First of all, where does Hal find the time for this sort of thing? I gather that Cry for Justice will not connect to Blackest Night this summer, but still. Unless we're talking about a Flash, I've never been a fan of the highly active heroes being tossed into multiple teams and multiple books. It's one thing to have John Stewart in the League, because he does not appear that often in the Lantern books... but Hal? He's the chosen one.
And I just don't know if that dialogue sounds like Hal Jordan. The comic references this when Diana says "This doesn't sound like you." She's right. It doesn't. It sounds more like the fabled darkening of Hal right around the time of Emerald Twilight or whatever that Parallax story was called. I wish they'd retcon that right out of existence, because I'm tired of people bringing it up whenever Hal gets angry. It's like the entire DCU is trying to help Hal stay off the cigs, except the cigs in this case are a giant metaphysical yellow space bug.
But where have we heard this before? Oh yes, back in 1995...
When it was Captain Atom giving the same speech. Probably also to Superman. I have the complete mid-90s 19 issue run of Extreme Justice, but I can't be bothered to go research this further.
I mean, look at Booster Gold on that cover! He's the Armored Linebacker!
And poor Blue Beetle is so dark and gritty in this incarnation that they couldn't even draw his face. Never mind that this book was literally weeks after Ted Kord had informally retired and had a huge beer gut.
So, we're rehashing a very poorly remembered League story beat - the League Goes Postal - at a time when neither the League nor Green Lantern really need it. Hal will be busy enough this summer and the League could certainly run an arc like this within the core series. And it's not like Martian Manhunter and Batman are going to stay dead - hell, both will probably miraculously return to life before all six issues of Cry for Justice ship - so Hal's impetus here is suspect.
Even though I like the art and the writer (James Robinson, who I'll always remember for his spectacular The Golden Age mini), I'm on the fence for this one. For completionist sake, I'll probably have to get it... but I'll think long and hard about whether it's the miniseries or the trade.
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