I'm not going to go into a spirited defence of him because I've found with Loeb it's pointless here but I did want to at least venture a dissenting opinion. Because Meltzer is probably one of my favourite writers working in comics today.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

I was planning on dropping JLA after the last arc, but forgot to tell my retailer so got this one anyway.

It just earned a reprieve as this issue was very well done.

I'm not a huge "art" guy when I read comics. I appreciate good art (Risso on 100 Bullets) and I notice when the art is so bad is actually drags down the story. But for the most part I can say I don't notice as many artists as I do writers. But Ha's art on this blew me away. And really, that's the reason this issue was, in my opinion, a very good comic.

I'd like to see the script to see if Meltzer came up with the ideas about the panel size (showing the feeling of being "trapped") and the "misdirection" page. If so, kudos to him. It played out well.

And yes, I did read Archer's Quest, and three of Meltzer's novels. And, well, you know, that Identity abomination. At this point, my opinion of Meltzer is so colored by my utter disgust that I honestly can't trust myself to be objective about his work.

I've read his JL run because it's on my pull and I was too lazy to drop it and reinstate it after his departure (horrible reason, I know, and yes, I'm responsible for the death of the comic industry, so heap on the scorn). I thought the latest issue was awful (Rebis summed it up pretty well), but again, I can't trust my judgment in this area any more.

Here's what he did wrong with Vixen, aside from misunderstanding (deliberately or not) how her powers work: OK, so you want to introduce this plot point about her powers going awry — now she can only absorb abilities from nearby humans, not any other animals. Whatever; I can roll with that. But Meltzer should be seeding the mystery of "what's up with Vixen's powers?" MUCH better than he did. Really, the only clue we got was when she ran as fast as The Flash, and that just looked like he was probably being sloppy. (We readers can be forgiven, I'm sure, for not giving Meltzer the benefit of the doubt, after how horribly he mishandled "Identity Crisis.") All he had to do was make it clear that something was going on — something other than bad writing and editorial oversights. It was as simple as letting one character remark (or even think to themselves): "Hey, what the hell? Cheetahs can't run as fast as Jay Garrick! How'd she do that?"

Better yet: Let us readers in on the problem. Make us privy to Mari's distress about her powers going awry. Then you'd have a good subplot, one that Meltzer could've been building in a much more effective way over the past couple months. Think about how much more drama he'd have gotten out of this recent issue: From the start, we'd know they were both in serious trouble, because she's essentially powerless too, trapped with non-meta Speedy (er, Red Arrow). From page one, there'd be drama as we realize that Mari finally has to tell the truth — to reveal her secret at this most inopportune time.

But no, Meltzer screws it all up. He goes for the big reveal instead, and it falls flat. There are times when a big reveal works really well, but just as often, it's much smarter to give the audience information ahead of time, which will build suspense instead of saving for a big "oh-ho!" moment. As it happens in this instance, we readers spend half the issue as frustrated as Roy, thinking "why the hell isn't Vixen saving the day? This should be a piece of cake for her!" Meltzer completely misjudges what makes for smart storytelling here, and in doing so wastes a potentially excellent subplot that he could've been building up for several issues now.

(Instead, he spent pages setting up some completelly unlikely conspiracy between Degaton, Despero and the Ultra-Humanite — a plot point he'll never resolve, leaving it to others. What the hell? Why bother, Meltzer? That was one of the worst things about "Identity Crisis": How he introduced plot points that were never resolved within his story and had nothing to do with the main mystery. I suppose DC editorial might be partly to blame for such choices, but I'd rather see Meltzer develop and resolve most of his own ideas than introduce a ton of stuff that he can't handle, only to clumsily hand over what he's not finished with to another writer.)

All of which goes to point out that his novels are, I strongly suspect, better than his comics. I've only read two — one I liked ("The Zero Game"); the other, I didn't (because the plot twists were too, too preposterous). He doesn't make any pretentions to write great literature; he's just cranking out action thrillers. But there's a place for those, when done well. He's clearly in love of the big reveal, the big twist, but with his novels, he's got to wrap everything up, so that forces him to make smarter choices. And he's not writing about characters that he grew up reading, so his novels don't have that quality of geeked-out fan-boy love run amok.

In closing, "Archer's Quest" was a much better comic than this (or any) issue of his dreadful "Justice League" run. I can't wait for McDuffie.

In all fairness, though, Meltzer has been misusing Vixen's powers since day one. He's operating under the wrong impression that she's basically Animal Man, but she needs a device to focus it. When in actuality she's always been able to call up whatever animal she wants through the totem, regardless of what's nearby. If Vixen's powers were innate, then how did her uncle get the same abilities when he stole the totem back during the JL Detroit era?

Of course, I can't say for sure that Meltzer consciously changed the way her powers worked or if he just assumed she works like Buddy. But given how up on continuity he seems to be, I'd say it's most likely that he knew how much he was altering her powers.

Out of curiousity, has anyone read Meltzer’s prose work?

I made it all the way through the Millionaires, which I realize now was a feat. That was the first thing I'd ever read with his name on it in books or comics. Tried to read the Tenth Justice and, I think, the Zero Game, but they were fairly awful and I gave up.

No, he had been building to this revelation. We get flashbacks to earlier in his run showing us how Vixen has used other humans' powers previously in the run.

Paperghost: Vixen’s powers don’t work like that anymore, as revealed in the issue.

So he changed the character to service the plot?

Yikes.

And this is his best to date?

Double Yikes!

Sort of.

Our of curiousity, has anyone read Meltzer's prose work? I have only read the preview that was included in one of the comics (was that JLA?) and I found it pretty terrible. With that extremely limited knowledge, I'm guessing that his comics work is actually the best stuff he writes. How wrong am I?