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All*Star Squadron: #1-10
by Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler, Adrien Gonzalez & Jerry Ordway

I have a lot of admiration for Roy Thomas. In my opinion, Thomas was the best writer in American comics from around 1968-1974. He was more literate than (but not as funny as) Stan Lee and had a good feel for dialogue and captions (although he leaned a bit too much towards purple after being smitten by the Robert E. Howard bug). Thomas has a nigh encyclopaedic knowledge of most major mythologies and he is well versed in world history and literature and brings this extensive knowledge a lot of his work, making it a cut well above average.

Thomas brings his exhaustive knowledge of comics minutiae to the mag and manages to convey some of his undying enthusiasm for the All*Stars but it's not enough to compensate for the general inadequacies of the strip. I do enjoy the way Thomas attempts to weave in actual historical events with the stories.

The artwork by Rich Buckler and Jerry Ordway is nice in a retro kind of way. I always liked Buckler even though he was a notorious swipe artist and his swipes here are as obvious as ever. He even uses the same swipe twice within 5 issues ( based on a Neal Adams illustration of Ka-Zar in X-men #63). I also recognize Adams swipes from his GL/GA run and some Gil Kane GL stuff. Nevertheless, the art has an appropriate Golden Age feel to it with loads of round panels and Ordway does a nice work on finishes. Ardrien Gonzalez takes over with #6 (I think) and thanks to Ordway's inks, the transition is seamless. If Gonzalez swipes stuff, it is far less obvious than Buckler because I didn't pick up on anything. He does, however, do a great job of capturing the likeness of historical figures like Roosevelt and Churchill, who have extensive cameos (which is a contradiction in terms I believe).

Nevertheless, to be honest, it's pretty hard to find anything positive to say about this initial run. They have not aged well at all and there is no nostalgia factor at work here to gloss over the flaws. I only bought these fairly recently because Geoff John's sterling work on the latest incarnation of the JSA has sparked my curiosity about DC's original Golden Age heroes and, as I said, I usually like Roy Thomas' work.

However - you knew there was a big 'however' coming - his work on the All*Star Squadron is incredibly underwhelming, lacking any of the spark or dynamism of his previous work on team books at Marvel. Despite his protestations of undying affection for the JSA and DC's Golden Age pantheon, Thomas just seemed far more at home with Marvel's slightly more contemporary heroes. His dialogue here seems clichéd and cartoony. Perhaps he thought it was necessary to capture the era in which the comic is set; the dawning days of America's involvement in WW2. Besides, the hackneyed dialogue and generic plots, the characters seem like second-stringers with their silly costumes and ditto powers. The villains are also weak and colourless with names like Baron Blitzkreig and Kulkukan. It confirms the prejudices I always held against the characters. They really are two-dimensional and colourless. Perhaps Thomas was simply burnt out by this time after getting the boot at Marvel (his last few years on Conan were uniformly lacklustre) but I don't think that is true because his work on Arak was fun and entertaining, albeit unremarkable.

The first few issues are overly verbose, which make them seem to drag on even much longer than the 27 pages allocated to them. 27 pages must've been a record of some sort back then, coming of the 17-pagers of the 70s. The first issues were so tedious that I actually found it difficult to read any of the first issues in one sitting. Fortunately, the pacing picks up as Thomas eases more into the strip.

Another strange and anachronistic aspect of the strip is the nationalism and patriotism expressed in it, with cries to remember Pearl Harbour and even the Alamo. Once again, perhaps Thomas felt it was necessary to evoke the mood of WW2 but it just seems very out of place and quite frankly off-putting. The peculiar thing is that these comics were written in the early 80s, 35 years after the end of WW2 and less than a decade after Vietnam. They seem to anticipate the resurgent nationalism of the Reagan/First Blood era. Almost the same amount of time has passed since their publication, and WW2 (and Reagan for that matter) seem very, very long ago. These comics fall flat because they fail to bring any kind of contemporary slant to the events of the War. They just seem like a superfluous attempt to recapture the feel of comics, which were silly and stupid when they first appeared. They are neither fish nor fowl.

James Robinson did a much better job of updating the JSA, while retaining something of their original mood, years later in his marvellous Starman.

JSA: Ghost Stories tpb
by Paul Levitz, George Perez, Rags Morales, Jerry Ordway & Luke Ross

Rags Morales artwork is fabulous! I've said it before and I say it again, Morales is one of my favourite "modern" artists (although I actually think he's been around for something like 10 years now). His style is classically handsome in the tradition of John Buscema but has a contemporary sleekness and fluidity, which gives it a modern sheen. It also has a pleasing Berni Wrightsonesque quality.

Luke Ross also turns in some nice artwork, illustrating the "awe-inspiring, earth-shaking" origin of….wait for it….the Gentlemen Ghost. Despite the pedestrian fare, he produces some good work.

By contrast, the artwork by stalwarts like George Perez and Jerry Ordway seems old-fashioned and uninspired. Based on this and his contribution to the latest Crisis, it looks to me that Perez is well past his prime. There's nothing especially wrong with Ordway's work, except that it is just plain boring. It would be okay in the service of a decent story but alas and alack.

A whole trade paperback devoted to the origin and threat of a mundane mediocrity like the Gentleman Ghost, probably one of the lamest villains in DC's rogues gallery and there are some real duds in there.

As a writer, Paul Levitz makes a great publisher. His pseudo archaic English is so hokey that sustained exposure to it becomes hilarious but unfortunately the comedy is unintentional. Besides that, the plot is pedestrian and uninteresting, making Geoff Johns' absence acutely felt.

I guess it's okay if you're a DC maven and enjoy old-fashioned comics. Fortunately Morales saves the day. I wouldn't come back for more but apparently this was the JSA's last hurrah in this incarnation.

Well, I liked the Geoff John's spearheaded JSA well enough to buy all the tradepaperbacks and continue to follow the latest series in hardcover. I am seriously considering bailing once Johns leaves.
There is plenty to like, especially the artwork as John's was fortunate to team up with a stellar group of artists, including Javier Saltares, Steve Sadowski, Rags Morales, Carlos Pacheco, Keith Champagne and Dale Eaglesham, all artists who seem to not only excell at drawing powerful, handsome figures but also at group books.

I also really like John's characterizations. I have no affinity with the JSA but he managed to make me care and take interest in what I still think is predominantly a pretty second-rate group of characters, thereby proving Alan Moore's adage; "there are no bad properties, just bad treatments".

My main reservation about John's JSA is that in the beginning the team faced one "universe shattering" threat after another. After a while, it just doesn't seem so "threatening" anymore.

I have no high expectations about the minis so no big loss there.

I thought Virtue and Vice was pretty good too but mainly for the artwork.