The new year isn’t even a week old and I think we may have already gotten the image that will define DC’s year. It’s not from Final Crisis, “New Krypton”, Trinity or any other “event” book but it’s from the pages of The Justice Society of America. In issue #22, written by Geoff Johns & Alex Ross and drawn by Dale Eaglesham, Superman rips the head off of a god and then flies away into space. Yes, you read that right, Superman rips the head off of a god. Well, it’s not the “real” Superman but the Kingdom Come Superman but hopefully you still get the idea. Now if I could only figure out whether the image is completely tragic or the funniest thing we’re likely to see this year. I’m leaning toward the funniest right now.
Johns and Ross wrap up their epic length “One Kingdom, Under Gog” storyline and come close to completely botching the ending. With somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve issues to work on build up to this conclusion, they forget one very important thing. They forget to provide us a reason to care about this ending. They’ve given little bits here and there, mostly around Power Girl’s struggle to find out where she belongs and Damage’s insecurities about this maligned face but none of those come into play here where their contrived and motiveless villain Gog gets taken out by a Superman who’s done nothing but mope and be sullen since he first appeared in the pages of this title.
Since they’re dealing with a supposed Third World god (an interesting concept that was never really well explored,) the ending has to be cosmic but since it’s also an unofficial sequel to Mark Waid’s and Ross’s Kingdom Come, it’s also got to tie into that. The biggest problem with this issue is that for it to work, you’ve got to care about Kingdom Come and things like the Source Wall. You’ve got to care about Superman’s undeveloped story. But maybe it’s not fair to call it “undeveloped” because it actually was developed over ten years ago in a book that I’m sure DC thinks is on everyone’s bookshelf; Kingdom Come.
You see, to buy this ending, you’ve got to know Kingdom Come and understand Superman’s story arc there because this whole “One Kingdom, Under Gog” storyline takes place between the panels of Kingdom Come. But with understanding that structure, I’m at a loss to figure out why Alex Ross wanted to revisit that Superman in this story. The way this new story is set up, you’ve almost got to think that all of the lessons Superman learned in Kingdom Come aren’t due to the events of Kingdom Come but the events in The Justice Society. In some ways, “One Kingdom, Under Gog” invalidates the magnitude of the events in the final pages of Kingdom Come because you’ve now got to argue, in a fanboy argumentative type way, where did the changes in Superman come from– Kingdom Come or Justice Society? And those are the kind of fanboy arguments that Geoff Johns seems to relish trying to produce.
Maybe the silliness and fanboyishness of this issue could have worked if another artist had been on the book. Dale Eaglesham is a fine illustrator but he can’t convey the power and majesty needed to pull of the epic ending. The opening splash page features strongest members of the JSA struggling to hold the chains that bind Gog. I say “struggling” because that’s what I think they would be doing but in the image there’s no weight or tension to any of the heroes. They look like they’re posing without really doing any work. Eaglesham is capable of putting strength into his images because the splash page of Superman ripping off Gog’s head, while silly, is a fantastic Superman image, showing the strength and power that he can possess. But then Eaglesham is asked by Johns and Ross to do some cosmic silliness with the Source Wall and it almost looks like he’s lost interest by that point.
I miss the days of characterization in the JSA. Back in his initial run on the book, Geoff Johns did an excellent job of balancing a large cast with epic storylines like he did in “Black Reign” during the creative highpoint of JSA. That characterization has been dropped in this storyline as Johns tried to bring in more and more characters, crowding out any significant development for the Kingdom Come Superman. The epilogue in this issue, showing the events of Superman’s life after he returns to his world are inconsequential to this storyline as it practically reiterates the same events that we’ve already seen in Kingdom Come. It does nothing to add any color or understanding to the events in either story but does give Alex Ross another shot at doing some of his trademarked painted artwork.
“One Kingdom, Under God” and the preceding “Thy Kingdom Come” suffered from inconsistent storytelling. It never properly set up the main Superman/Gog storyline but it did occasionally veer off into interesting tangents like Power Girl’s journey to Earth 2. In the end, Johns, Ross and Eaglesham haven’t built up enough reasons to care about Superman or Gog by the time Superman rips off Gog’s head. What should be a climax moment instead comes off as silly and childish.
The Justice Society of America #22
“One World, Under Gog Part VII: Thy Will Be Done
Story by: Geoff Johns & Alex Ross
Written by: Geoff Johns
Penciled by: Dale Eaglesham
Painted Pages by: Alex Ross
Inked by: Nathan Massengill
Colored by: Hi-Fi
Lettered by: Rob Leigh