Justice League: Cry For Justice #2 (of 7)

There has already been a bit of a debate online about the preview pages for CRY FOR JUSTICE #2.  The scene in question involves Green (Ollie) Arrow teasing Green Lantern (Hal) about rumours of a liaison between GL, Lady Blackhawk, and the Huntress. Now its not entirely clear if Hal is admitting that the rumour is true, but he’s certainly aware of it. David Pepose on Blog@Newsarama and Brian Cronin on Comics Should Be Good both comment on this point, so I won’t dwell on it here except to reproduce the quote from Gail Simone, the writer of Birds of Prey, who commented,

And I can’t see them [Lady B, & Huntress] doing a threesome, that affects their friendship, and the Birds were ALREADY one of the very few books about female friendship which is so fucking rare in comics it might as well be moonbeans captured in mason jars. Not that friends can’t have sex, but once again, this is all about the man, and “Well played, sir” is just, ugh.

To the story itself… (spoilers follow)

Where the first issue was about showcasing and introducing the characters this issue is the one where they start to meet each other. The focus of their investigations are a series of robberies targeting the centres of super-high technology in the DCU – the Cosmic Treadmill in the Flash Museum, the Time Pool in Ivy Town, Metropolis STAR Labs, etc. All the evidence points to the old JLA foe Prometheus working through a network of C-list villains. Starman and Congorilla meet up on Blackhawk Island and after the perquisite fight they team-up. There is a nice character moment with Congorilla where we’re reminded that he’s lived for over a centuary and has master more skills that you’d have first assumed.

GA and GL are in Gotham City to meet Jason Bard – Batman’s Private Detective from the time of Batman’s One Year Later arc (coincidentally also written by James Robinson) – who tips them off about a meeting of Prometheus’s minions. We also get a glimpse of Batwoman, but she doesn’t make herself known. The Atom (Ray Palmer) meets the elder Flash (Jay Garrick) at the Flash Museum to discuss the spate of thefts and they are joined by Captain Marvel (Freddy Freeman). It’s a nice scene and I like the fact that they bother to acknowledge the time Freddy and Ray spent together on the Teen Titans. This series can some across as very continuity heavy, but most of its deftly done – a casual reader wouldn’t be able to spot the difference between passing mention of new backstory or of references to old stories.

Eventually Ray and Freddy join Hal and Ollie in Gotham City with the cliff hanger being the sudden appearance of Supergirl. For reference Charles Bukowski, who Supergirl asks about (thereby showing that she was listening in to their conversation),  is a German poet who became the voice of the American, read Los Angeles, lowlife.  The literary references are a little pretentious for a comicbook, but no more obscure that a lot of the old cases that these characters are reminiscing about. In fact a lot of this comic is about reminiscing and characters catching up with each other. Its really fun to see these characters discussing their old friendships. The inclusion of Jay Garrick is interesting as it almost seems like he’s going to be joining the crusade.

The art, well that speaks for itself, Mauro Cascioli’s paintings are fantastic. I particularly love the way he creates an oppressive, red sky for Gotham City. Even when GL and GA are down at street level you can tell that the city is more solidly built that the normal New York. He also uses an interesting trick of keeping the “camera” low to show the maximum amount of bloodshot skyline behind the characters. The only slight problem I have is that even the fight scenes tend to look a little too static, almost like an action photograph taken with an incredibly short shutter time.

This is warming up to be a great series. I’m still not entirely sure what that GL/GA are doing anything different that the normal rounding up heroes, but the definite opponent of Prometheus serves to pull these threads together.