RSS Subscribe
Follow @JLAblog
Contact Us
“Walls” (Brad Meltzer/Gene Ha)
Well, that was unusual. JLA #11 is very high concept and is quite a departure from Meltzer’s house style at DC. As with all his work its a character piece, but unlike JLA or Identity Crisis it focuses on just two characters. Red Arrow and Vixen have become trapped in an air pocket beneath the waters of the Potomac River and the rubble of the Watergate Hotel. This issue features their struggle to keep each others spirits up and their desperation once they realise nobody is going to be able to reach them before they die.
Vixen’s panic and Roy’s calmness is nicely played. It feels like two actors alone together on a stage, one of those small arts shows where the actors roleplay and dark lighting invites you to imagine the scenery that it hidden by shadow. It works fantastically well and its success is largely due to Gene Ha’s subtler, atmospheric artwork. His process and Art Lyon colouring technique is discussed on Brad Meltzer’s blog. The repeated use of very narrow horizontal panels gives truth to the character’s claustrophobia and the use of the final splash page is an impressive change.
The use of Roy Harper continues Meltzer’s association with the Green Arrow clan that began with his succession of Kevin Smith on the Green Arrow solo title back in 2002. Arrow was also the main point-of-view character in Identity Crisis. It also can’t be a surprise that Meltzer was followed on Arrow his his old college room-mate Judd Winick or that Winick heavily used Harper as a character in his Outsiders series. Together with the ground work laid by the Teen Titans writers they’ve turned Roy Harper into a really interesting and incredibly well rounded character.
Vixen on the other hand remains something of a cypher. She carried a fair amount on anger during the old Justice League series, but after that she matured into a fairly run of the mill type-b superhero. Her vulnerability here drives part of the story and continues the subplot about her powers, but it feels less natural than Harper’s determination. She is meant to be a world famous supermodel and an experience superhero so she comes across as more timid than I’d have expected. (Is it my imagination or are artists “casting” Halle Berry as Vixen these days?)
My guess is that this issue and issue zero will be the ones that people remember most from Meltzer’s run. Also if any issue of the current run deserves to win awards it’ll be this one.
I loved Meltzer’s run on JLA. It’s a shame that a character that he really pushed for is getting the axe under the new writer. I was finally beginning to accept Arsenal as heir to the Green Arrow on the JLA only to find that the new writer doesn’t feel him worthy.
The amazing graduation of certain heroes from second stringers to the frontline under Meltzer seems as though it’s going to be unwoven, it’s a terrible shame.