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By Chuck Austen & Ron Garney (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-033-6
Getting over a post-celebration hump is always tricky for a long-running comic series. An anniversary or centenary is usually celebrated by some large-scale cosmos-shaking exploit which it’s impossible to top, leading to an anti-climactic “day in the life†venture. In the case of Pain of the Gods – reprinting JLA #101-106 – Chuck Austen and Ron Garney take that hoary tradition, and indeed the equally tired plot of heroes’ soul-searching angst after a failure to succeed, and run with it to produce a stirring and powerful exploration of humanity too often lacking in modern adventure fiction.
Each chapter deals with an emotional crisis affecting an individual Leaguer. Superman, Flash and Green Lantern all fail to save someone, Martian Manhunter is forced to confront the life-long emotional barriers left after the death of his entire species, Wonder Woman faces her own mortality and Batman has to acknowledge that he can’t know and do everything alone.
The entire story can be seen as a post 9/11 treatise on fallibility and post-traumatic distress with superheroes acting as metaphors for Police and Firemen and the sub-plot of a seemingly mundane family seeking redress plays well against the tragic grandeur of the stars. It’s good to see a super hero book that thinks with a heart rather than act with gaudily gloved fists for a change.
© 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.