Monday, November 14, 2011

JLD



Having followed the career of Peter Milligan for some time, I had to pick up on Justice League Dark, if only out of curiosity. The first issue was nicely drawn and had some good scenes, but I was concerned it might be given over too much to decompression. That is, I thought the creators might be spending six issues telling a one issue story - yes comics industry, there is such a thing - and that this could be a bad omen for the series' future.

I'm less worried about that now, after having read the second issue. Artist Mikael Janin, not known to me before, is applying mad skillz. The story is delivering unexpected twists, in terms of what mysterious femme Madame Xanadu is doing, so that it could be said a new plot is already launching.

And the character work is taking a turn for the funny. In this issue, Deadman tries to get with his girl Dove in the body of another man. Even though he really doesn't have his own body - on account of the whole "dead" issue - she's not havin' it. Nor do his efforts taking on the body of a woman come to anything. It seems real life isn't like the movies, even if your real life is in a superhero comic.

2 comments:

susan said...

Well, you probably know I haven't read a comic book in years but this does sound pretty entertaining. Mikel Janin has a deviant art spot as well as a blog with his work and I must say he's very good.

Ben said...

I didn't know about his deviantart page, truth to tell. And I suspected he might be European, but didn't know he was Spanish.

The thing about mainstream comics is that they're worthwhile when done right, or at least done interestingly. And both are rare enough so that I like to highlight the occurrence when it does happen.