So in case you haven't heard, last year DC Comics did a reboot, canceling ALL their titles and restarting the whole universe over.  Pffft, dumb idea.

Back in 1978, as a 9 year old lil Polt, I had already for a few years, been buying comics.  Every Thursday when I got my allowance, I went with mom to the local strip mall.  She went to the grocery store, I went to the book store.  I went to the squeaky, metal rack that rotated around and held all the comics.  I'd find the ones that had the coolest looking covers, and buy those.

But that summer, the summer or 1978, I picked up Justice League of America 158.  It was the first of two parts and I figured I better make sure I got the second part so I knew what happened.   And after that, I decided I'd like to just get every issue, and that's what started my comic book collecting.  In those ensuing 33 years, I've collected every issue of the Justice League, be it Justice League Of America, Justice League America, Justice League International, Justice League Europe, Extreme Justice, or any of the ensuing titles.

Now, back to the idoitic reboot.  There have been 5 issues so far of the new Justice League, and frankly, it sucks.  Superman whines. No longer is he a paragon to be admired and looked up to, he's just a whiner.  Green Lantern is obnoxious, probably from being protrayed like the Ryan Reynolds character in the movie last year, I understand they may be playing up the "Man Without Feat" aspect, but frankly he's just arrogant and stupid.  Wonder Woman is vicious ("Those beams come from his eyes." "Then we'll put out his eyes!" she says brandishing a sword.)  Aquaman is...well nowhere near developed character-wise, he does well in his own title, but not here.  The Martian Manhunter, one of the founders of nearly every  incarnation, is nowhere to be seen.  No, in his place is...Cyborg.  Yep, him.  He who is a decent enough B-grade character, but to be a founder of the JLA?  Nah, no way.  Only reason I can figure that he's there is to have a black character as a founder.  Whatever the reason it's stupid.  And Batman, who knows none of these people and just meets them, takes off his cape and cowl in front of Green Lantern (and coincidently, anyone else who's in viewing range) and tells him he's Bruce Wayne, someone GL's apparently never heard of.  WHA???  I guess in this rebooted universe, there is no WayneCorp and Bruce Wayne's not famous the world over.  But the bigger issue is Batman revealing who he is, in public to someone he just met?  No fucking way.  The only one of the seven that's done even remotely like he should be is The Flash.  And that's good.  Its just unforunate the rest of the team is so badly written.  And Judd Winnick, I believe is the writer, and usually a good one, so it's quite surprising he's responsible for all this horrible characterization.

I'm trying out several of the titles, giving them six months each.  If they don't grab me in six months I'm gonna drop them and not collect them anymore.  And there's seveal titles I already expect to get rid of.  And with the unmitigated disappointment this new JLA is, it may be one of them.  And that would be the first time in 33 years I was not collecting the JLA. 

A shame that, really.  A bigger shame DC Comics has done this insanity to begin with.

POLT