JSA Strange Adventures

[Ian_Levine]

I know that I've done this subject before, but I feel really strongly about this one, especially reading Peter David's BRILLIANT article on page 238 of the current Comic Buyers Guide, which put into wonderful words EVERYTHING I have been feeing about Identity Crisis, and said it better than I could have begun to. Identity Crisis which, as popular as it has been, has cast into shadow the best DC new title for such a long long time.

Simply and straight forwardly, JSA Strange Adventures is the BEST new DC comic for the last twenty years.

Identity Crisis is great but is very modern and dark. I grew up with the classic superheroes who were not involved in tales of rape and lobotomies. I had no problem with dark concepts in titles like Sandman, but feel they're out of place in stories about the classic DC superheroes of my youth.

JSA Strange Adventures, on the other hand, reads like an amalgamation of all the old Justice League and All Star Comics that I adore. The artwork is fabulous, the characters are their old original selves (I STILL hate Crisis On Infinite Earths, and hate what it did to the DC Universe), and it reads like a real proper comic book for a change.

Given that DC release 80 comics a month, it surely wouldn't do them any harm to make more of this type of comic. The tragedy is that, in the shadow of Identity Crisis, this wonderful JSA Strange Adventures six part miniseries has been WOEFULLY neglected and overlooked, and that's one of the greatest tragedies to comics in the forty years I've been collecting them.

Speaking as someone who has every DC except for one comic, I urge anyone who's remotely interested to go out and support this comic, in the vain and pitiful hope that someone at DC might notice, and perhaps we may at some point in the next twenty years get another title as good as this one.

Support means to buy it now, not wait for the trade paperback, or try to pick it up for a dollar three months later. Only some kind of sales swing might persuade DC that this title has merit as far as future considerations.

By the way, I do like the current JSA. It's my favourite of ALL the current DC titles, but it still utterly pales into insignificance next to the BRILLIANT JSA Strange Adventures miniseries.

[Darthdiesel]

Arch - any chance of a "beating the dead horse" graemlin?

[Norrin_Radd]

Arch - any chance of a "beating the dead horse" graemlin?

 

 

This is the closest I could find.

 

[seank]

If it's any consolation, I'm buying JSA Strange Adventures and waiting for the Identity Crisis TBP....

[BachelorOfComix]

Arch - any chance of a "beating the dead horse" graemlin?

Will this do instead?

[nearmint]

I don't know, I'm okay with Ian promoting(heck, even over-promoting) a comic that he feels strongly deserves more attention. He's almost got me convinced to go out and buy the issues rather than wait for the trade.

 

And there's merit in discussing whether such a dark tone is appropriate to characters that have been "kid safe" for literally sixty years. Shouldn't a book with Superman and Batman on the cover have a parental advisory if it depicts(or even suggests) rape?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm sucked into the series. I've very much enjoyed reading the "Identity Crisis #6" thread over in the Modern forum, and I'm dying for the last issue, and for all the secrets to be revealed.

 

But I might want to take a shower afterwards.

[Darthdiesel]

Nearmint,

 

Don't get me wrong. I read it and thought it was a cute throwback at best and I read a ton of issues week after week from marvel, DC, Top cow and IDW. I was interested in Ian's take on it the first time and I got it loud and clear. But the way he is promoting it, it's like he can't get it through his head why its sales pale in comparison relative to Identity Crisis. It's just the will of the people...period. And he can't live with it. So he goes on and on...with the same old same old.

 

"And there's merit in discussing whether such a dark tone is appropriate to characters that have been "kid safe" for literally sixty years. Shouldn't a book with Superman and Batman on the cover have a parental advisory if it depicts(or even suggests) rape? "

 

That's a separate issue entirely. Also discussed in depth when IC 1 first came out. You've got people on both sides of the fence, it's been written up on the DC message boards, CBG, ad nauseam...all I can say is blame Miller and Moore for writing comics in that tone so well oh so many years back... but it's like if we don't agree with Ian's tastes, he makes it feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with our way of seeing things

 

I just feel like it is beating a dead horse...

[Zonker]

So Ian, I'm sympathetic (despite the fact I'm pimping Identity Crisis in my sig line), but the grim & gritty comics ship left the dock some time ago. For me, it was the (strongly implied) rape of Black Canary in Green Arrow: the Longbow Hunters back in the late 1980s.

 

And I love the pre-Crisis DC Universe. But comics have moved on from when we were kids. We can debate all day about whether kids no longer read comics because they're no longer written for them, or whether comics are no longer written for kids because kids don't read them. But that's the way it is.

[BradleyX2]

The tragedy is that, in the shadow of Identity Crisis, this wonderful JSA Strange Adventures six part miniseries has been WOEFULLY neglected and overlooked, and that's one of the greatest tragedies to comics in the forty years I've been collecting them.

 

Really? I find it a tragedy that JSA Strange Adventures probably kept 10 or so people from buying Identity Crisis by buying this instead.

 

Speaking as someone who has every DC except for one comic,

 

Oh, c'mon! I have at least 400 DC comics in my collection, so that's at least 400 that you don't have.

 

[nearmint]

Darth,

I understand what you're saying, and you're probably right. I guess Ian felt that he'd found an ally in Peter David, and felt justified in bringing it up again.

I don't frequent the other sites you mentioned, and wasn't really aware that the discussion about the appropriateness of the tone of Identity Crisis was talked to death.

It is interesting that DC would chose to publish a throwback to an earlier time like "JSA Adventures" at the same time they introduce a fundamental shift in the tone of the DCU in "Identity Crisis". It's easy to see how a reader that dislikes, or even feels betrayed by that shift might glom onto the throwback.

[Darthdiesel]

Something for everyone is a good policy to keep one in business. But Ian seems to want to drive readers to other publishers with his vision for DC.

[Darthdiesel]

I don't frequent the other sites you mentioned, and wasn't really aware that the discussion about the appropriateness of the tone of Identity Crisis was talked to death.

 

But I also forgot to say how thought provoking some of those discussions were - as interesting and with as much participation as the current IC 6 thread in the Modern forum

[Ian_Levine]

If it's any consolation, I'm buying JSA Strange Adventures and waiting for the Identity Crisis TBP....

 

Now there's a man to be proud of.

[Ian_Levine]

I don't know, I'm okay with Ian promoting (heck, even over-promoting) a comic that he feels strongly deserves more attention. He's almost got me convinced to go out and buy the issues rather than wait for the trade.

 

I'm not promoting it. Promoting means having a vested interest. It's not SPECIFICALLY about this one comic per se, as it is about my dissatisfaction with current superhero comics as a whole. The article in Comic Buyers Guide spurred me on because I agreed with it so strongly.

 

And please understand that the reason it keeps comig back to JSA Strange Adventures is that it's the ONLY title around at the moment that reads like a traditional DC Superhero comic, and that's tragic.

 

Therefore the only way I can get my point across is to keep using this title as an example of what nakes a good comic, purely because there is NO OTHER COMIC around that I can use as an example.

 

Having said that, there is an upcoming five issue arc in the regular JSA that goes back in time to the 1950s with the original Justice Society members, and I'm praying THAT too is wonderful - but up till this point, as far as post-Crisis-On-Infinite-Earth comics go, JSA Strange Adventures remains unique and simple wonderful because of it.

 

And I remain unrepentant.

[Ian_Levine]

Something for everyone is a good policy to keep one in business. But Ian seems to want to drive readers to other publishers with his vision for DC.

 

I take exception to that.

I have religiously read every panel of Identity Crisis.

My argument yet again, is that if DC put out eighty comics a month, there is room for a few in the old style. The fact that JSA Strange Adventures is virtually the only one for twenty years is sad.

There is plenty of room for seventy eight modern comics a month and two old style superhero ones, for example, without upsetting ANYONE or driving anyone to other publishers.

 

You're just twisting my concerns to make me look outdated and isolationist.

[Illiterati-migration]

Something for everyone is a good policy to keep one in business. But Ian seems to want to drive readers to other publishers with his vision for DC.

 

I take exception to that.

I have religiously read every panel of Identity Crisis.

My argument yet again, is that if DC put out eighty comics a month, there is room for a few in the old style. The fact that JSA Strange Adventures is virtually the only one for twenty years is sad.

There is plenty of room for seventy eight modern comics a month and two old style superhero ones, for example, without upsetting ANYONE or driving anyone to other publishers.

 

You're just twisting my concerns to make me look outdated and isolationist.

 

You're absolutely right on all counts, Ian. Darth is just as trollish, if not more surrepetitious, as any of your detractors. I would say to just "ignore" him, but I know it's hard when he's harping on every little thing you have to say.

 

However, there was a good point made in this thread about how clever DC was for putting out JSA SA at the same time as IC... it really is an amazing contrast and very, very cool that we have the opportunity to experience BOTH extremes of the medium at the same time.

[Ian_Levine]

However, there was a good point made in this thread about how clever DC was for putting out JSA SA at the same time as IC... it really is an amazing contrast and very, very cool that we have the opportunity to experience BOTH extremes of the medium at the same time.

 

I would agree with that, except for the fact that DC have dusted JSA Strange Adventures under the rug, and ignored it as if it didn't even exist. Almost as if they threw it out there and hoped no-one would notice. After all, we don't want comic buyers praising something so old fashioned and retro, do we ? Not when we can take the old characters of the last seventy years and turn them into rapists and lobotomists.

 

When Green Lantern 76 first came out, it was revolutionary and fresh, but BOY OH BOY has it gone too far now.

[BachelorOfComix]

However, there was a good point made in this thread about how clever DC was for putting out JSA SA at the same time as IC... it really is an amazing contrast and very, very cool that we have the opportunity to experience BOTH extremes of the medium at the same time.

 

I would agree with that, except for the fact that DC have dusted JSA Strange Adventures under the rug, and ignored it as if it didn't even exist. Almost as if they threw it out there and hoped no-one would notice. After all, we don't want comic buyers praising something so old fashioned and retro, do we ? Not when we can take the old characters of the last seventy years and turn them into rapists and lobotomists.

 

When Green Lantern 76 first came out, it was revolutionary and fresh, but BOY OH BOY has it gone too far now.

I heard they made JSA Strange Adventures specifically for you to buy. YOU & YOU ONLY!

[Ian_Levine]

I heard they made JSA Strange Adventures specifically for you to buy. YOU & YOU ONLY!

 

Well they might as well have - they certainly haven't remotely advertised it or promoted it.

[BachelorOfComix]

I heard they made JSA Strange Adventures specifically for you to buy. YOU & YOU ONLY!

 

Well they might as well have - they certainly haven't remotely advertised it or promoted it.

And THAT good sir, is why it will be a big-time sleeper down the road. I'm going to have 5 full 9.8 sets put away for the future.