{"id":4957,"date":"2010-05-09T06:00:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-09T06:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=4957"},"modified":"2010-05-08T19:35:11","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T19:35:11","slug":"jsa-volume-6-savage-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/05\/09\/jsa-volume-6-savage-times\/","title":{"rendered":"JSA volume 6: Savage Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Geoff Johns<\/strong>, David Goyer<\/strong>, Leonard Kirk<\/strong> & Keith Champagne<\/strong> (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 1-84023-984-0
\nNew Extended Review<\/strong><\/p>\n

When they’re producing what their confirmed readership wants, today’s mainstream comics publishers seem to be on comfortably solid ground, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh in my judgements when they seemingly go berserk with multi-part, braided mega-crossovers. The tale collected as Savage Times<\/strong> is top notch, well crafted, standard comic book fare, but I just can’t escape the nagging worry that by only regurgitating the past – no matter how well – ultimately you’re only diminishing the business and the medium.<\/p>\n

This volume gathers together issues #39-45 of the monthly JSA <\/strong>title, and as costumed capers go, it is a saga packed with action, excitement, soap opera tension , humour and that heady mix of continuity in-filling we fan-boys adore\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The drama begins with two stand-alone tales ‘Power Crush’<\/em> by Goyer, Johns, Patrick Gleason and Christian Alamy, starring the unfeasibly pneumatic and feisty Power Girl as she deals in characteristically direct manner with a metahuman stalker obsessed with her prodigious physical charms, before moving into far more sinister territory with ‘\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Do No Harm’ <\/em>(by Leonard Kirk & Keith Champagne who also illustrated the rest of this book) as Star-Spangled Kid and Captain Marvel must use extreme care to rescue an entire school from a sadistic telepathic suicide bomber, whilst Doctor Mid-Nite struggles to keep the monster’s geriatric master alive on the operating table\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The main event begins in the ‘Unborn Hour’<\/em> as a time-travelling villain accidentally shifts some of the Justice Society back to 1944 and a climactic meeting with the first Mister Terrific. In ‘Paradox Play’<\/em> the malfunctioning time vehicle sends Captain Marvel to ancient Egypt, and after defeating the chronal marauder, Hawkgirl and Terrific’s modern successor follow the world’s mightiest mortal into a spectacular confrontation with the immortal conqueror Vandal Savage and an elemental metamorph determined to lay waste the Black Lands.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the new Doctor Fate is in another dimension seeking answers to the mystery of his comatose wife\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

‘Yesterday’s War’<\/em> unites the modern heroes with Egypt’s champions Nabu, Prince Khufu, Chay-Ara (Hawkgirl’s own earlier incarnation) and Black Adam – who is both hero and villain in the JSA’s own time – but as the war goes against the beleaguered defenders Marvel and Adam are dispatched to the Land of the Dead to seek godly aid in ‘The Tears of Ra’<\/em>, wherein the Black Marvel’s tragic history is poignantly revealed\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

With Savage defeated and history restored, the book closes on a treble cliffhanger in ‘Princes of Darkness Prologue: Peacemakers’<\/em> as Doctor Fate returns to discover the true nature of the woman he believed to be his long-lost wife, the genocidal terrorist Kobra smugly escapes his long-deserved fate and the Society’s most powerful foe reveals how he has manipulated the team from the start\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

It’s always unsatisfying to reach the end of a book but not the story, so even though this is a class superhero act it is hard to not feel a bit resentful, even though the next volume promises everything a fan could wish for.<\/p>\n

At least the thing has already been published. Maybe you shouldn’t wait for my impending follow-up graphic novel review but just get this book and JSA: Princes of Darkness<\/strong> right away\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2002, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Geoff Johns, David Goyer, Leonard Kirk & Keith Champagne (DC Comics) ISBN: 1-84023-984-0 New Extended Review When they’re producing what their confirmed readership wants, today’s mainstream comics publishers seem to be on comfortably solid ground, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh in my judgements when they seemingly go berserk with multi-part, braided mega-crossovers. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “JSA volume 6: Savage Times”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[76,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dc-superhero","category-jsa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-1hX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}