Summer of Events Book Club Week 1: Justice League: No Justice #1 and Flash #46

Summer of Events is finally here! This week we have one must read comic: Justice League: No Justice and Flash #46. The Flash #46 is a catcher upper for everyone new, with some small references to continuity.

Spoilers Below!
Justice: No Justice #1 Discussion Questions

Who is the most unexpected character in this series so far?
What do you think about Task Force XI?
What energy is Earth (If you know the answer DON’T SAY IT) Entropy, Wisdom, Mystery, or Wonder.
Finally, did Brainiac get a good death

Flash #46 Discussion Questions

Diagnose Wally: What is his main problem?
Who is faster, Barry or Wally.
Is Hunter Zolomon a good villain or is his whole plan unclear?
According to Zatanna, Magic is dying ever since the Source Wall cracked. What do you think of the first set up to Justice League: Dark.

Thanks everyone for joining me. Sorry that I changed the reading assignment.
Fortunately next week is just Justice League: No Justice #2.

3 Likes

This is a nice tiny scoop of assignment. I may sample this one, oh Destroyer of Discords.

Did you see I posted a dream I had during a late afternoon nap of Discord Destruction, then hours later…the Incident? Ba dum DUM!!!

When Nathan snaps his fingers all of Discord listens

I am the DC Thanos… SNAP!

2 Likes

Well, I’ll start off the discussion with my review of Justice League: No Justice #1
https://www.dcuniverse.com/community/boards/comics/justice-no-justice-1-exten

1 Like

Sorry I haven’t participated yet, I’ve been trying to find time to read the Flash

I’m adding DC Nation #0 to mine…

DC Nation #0 - the Justice League story

I figure I may as well read No Justice since I’m going to be waiting for Justice League Dark anyway.
It was a little jarring to see the League working with murderers like Lobo and Deathstroke, and without them trying to kill anybody (yet).
And after reading a few Bronze Age comics with Zatanna, her ‘backwards speech’ being written wrong stuck out like a sore thumb.
Otherwise, it was a decent setup.

Justice League: No Justice #1

Well… it feels like an event. So it’s got that going for it.
I was reminded of both Contest of Champions (1982) and Annihilation while reading this.
What could be worse than Galactus? How about four Galactus?
And I’m probably the only person in the world that doesn’t care for Manapul’s art.

Zatanna only speaks once: “Nepo rood”, which technically could be either “Open door” or “Door open”. So I’ll let that pass.
Etrigan was done well.

It’s also nice to see the Titans used in an event and not just as cannon fodder.

The story, itself, is okay. It has a few rough spots where it feels a bit contrived, but all summer popcorn flicks are like that.
Best to just sit back and let it go.
It did have a really good cliffhanger.

Who is the most unexpected character in this series so far?
Starro

What do you think about Task Force XI?
It’s up there with ‘My name is One-Face!’ for me.
XI? How is it pronounced? ‘X I’? ‘Eleven’? "psy’?
And it’s amazing that none of those psychics saw this coming…

What energy is Earth (If you know the answer DON’T SAY IT) Entropy, Wisdom, Mystery, or Wonder?
I’ll say Wonder because ‘wonders’ has been used to refer to superheroes and Earth has more than its share.

Finally, did Brainiac get a good death?
Well… I’m glad he’s not a favorite of mine. And they can always make a new one.
But the cliffhanger did do a good job.

I give it a 3 out of 5 right now.
It’s decent. Not making me get super-excited, but this is the event we got.
And I’m looking forward to JLDark.

@Leonardo The Batman story was our week 0 title.

I love the XI Psy connection. I’ve always thought it was 11 because of Task Force X, but it just became a MUCH cooler name. Never thought of that.

I think on the art. I’ve appreciated it more on a reread. I’m about to reread Flash #26 for my extended review. (Might do an extended for BoP and WW) and I feel like the art will be more enjoyable.

1 Like

@awesome squid it is a good starting point, catches you up, and takes about 10ish minutes to read.

@ Nathan.Payson,
I read the Batman and Superman stories last year when DC Nation first came out.
Back then, the Superman story was the one I liked most.
Batman had great art, but I just can’t get into modern Batman. He feels too superhuman to me.
I didn’t even bother reading the Justice League story last year because I didn’t like the art.

1 Like

Wow, you are the only person who doesn’t. I hope you enjoy Justice League: No Justice because it only gets better. It’s a comic with many iconic moments after EVERY SINGLE ISSUE!

By the way, I’ve been thinking about this club and I think I’ll create a schedule for each issue. Example, Discussion for Justice League: No Justice #1 Tuesday - Friday and Flash Saturday to Monday. That way you guys can know when to participate easiest. Also if you are only reading one of the titles, you can join on those days. Thoughts?

@Nathan.Payson,

I went back and looked at the art and after some analyzing I think I figured out what it was that didn’t appeal to me.
Turns out that I do like Manupul’s art. I even like some of Hi-Fi’s coloring using halftones and grunge filters.

What I determined to be the reasons I didn’t care for the art overall was the lack of inks.
After studying the art for a bit, I was able to see that it went straight from pencils to coloring, with the art given an ‘illusion’ of ink by just darkening the pencils digitally.
The lack of an inker left the art with a subdued contrast that wasn’t really compensated for in the coloring.
I probably would’ve liked it more if there was an inker or if Hi-Fi had added some darker shadows to frame the art and direct the eye.

Of course, I could just be over-scrutinizing.
I do like Manupul’s sketchy art. And I like Hi-Fi’s indie style of using retro filters.
It just felt to me like something was missing.

1 Like

@leonardoMyst interesting insight into the art! Glad you like it!

1 Like

I’m not a fan of Snyder’s JLA. It’s just too high concept for me. Too Grant Morrison. I miss simpler stories, like stopping a villain from taking over a city or something.

I’m also not a fan of the current Flash writer. I just don’t like his dialogue. It’s boring to me. Everyone sounds the same, and it’s just… pretty vanilla.

And the whole Wally Rebirth thing was supposed to be a sign of hope and the old coming back. Now it just seems to make everything more complicated, and darker.

1 Like

Well Snyder’s JL is WAY Better!

1 Like

@ trustymutsi,

I totally understand.
I grew up loving ‘villain of the month’ stories with a huge three part cosmic epic once a year to keep things interesting.

Green Arrow kinda summed it up in JLA (1960) #181
“When half the guys in the group can move mountains, it changes your perspective. Suddenly, only the big fights seem important…”

Ironically, half the team have been de-powered greatly since then. They’re nowhere near the power levels they were before Crisis.
However, they’ve still moved away from regular superhero stories. And the ‘rhythm’ of comics is a lost art. There’s hardly ever any downtime or minor stories to make the big ones feel important.

2 Likes

has been de-powered.
Pretend I edited that.

JL: No Justice #1

The most surprising character for me was Starro. I actually had a robot man “wtf” moment.

Task Force XI I felt was a cool idea but if it was meant to be pronounced psy, that would be much cooler.

I’m not sure if I would call Brainiacs death a “good death” but it was certainly a bad ass way to leave off.

Overall I’m excited to continue with the whole fallout of metal and what snyder and company have been putting together.

Side note: not a huge fan of the art style in this book.

1 Like

@oversizedGeek I love the inclusion of Starro in the story and Starro has become one of my favorite characters in the series as a whole!

1 Like