When did Jim Lee get so awful? I mean, I haven’t seen anything drawn by him in a long time, back before he gave up on WildC.A.T.S., but I thought his art was more exciting than that. This is all kinda dull, not outrageously bad, certainly nowhere near Liefeld levels of badness, but it wasn’t good either. Far too bland for a comic that’s supposed to launch a new era of greatness for DC Comics. Jim Lee art should be exciting, but here he just seems to be going through the motions.
The plot certainly is. There’s nothing new here, with the second panel telling us that this story takes place five years earlier and instead of seeing the full Justice League promised in the cover, we get GrimDark Batman being chased by Gotham’s finest meeting Cocky Green Lantern for the first time as some Darkseid minion attacks both of them, a subplot involving pre-Cyborg Vic Stone and how his daddy doesn’t love him, before we head to Metropolis and a last page reveal of Superman in his new godawful costume punching out poor old G. L. and asking Batman what he can do.
In other words, it’s a bleeding origin story. And only half of one at that as it still leaves three of the seven Justice League members promised unused. There’s literally nothing in this that’s new or original in this comic. This is not your dad’s Justice League, but this plot would be tired and hackneyed to your grandfather. A world not used to superheroes viewing them with fear and suspicion? A Big Bad Villain in the background possibly doing his best to stoke this fear? Various heroes meeting each other for the first time and not liking each other very much but reluctantly forced to work together?
How is any of this new?