Comic Book Resources

Justice League reminds me of Saturday Night Live: it's a solid concept, it's an institution, it's great in theory...but most of the time, it's just not that good. Highlights like Giffen's run, or Morrison's, are so rare that they look like total flukes. I don't think DC has any idea what to do with the Justice League, and I don't know if they ever have.

JUSTICE!

Yeah I was expecting to see Robinson's take on the League and instead got him dealing with McDuffie's JLA who are quickly thrust into Blackest Night. Really disappointing and doesn't really entice me to come back.

Or to put it in a different light. Robinson isn't be forced to use third and fourth tier characters, doesn't have to pay attention to what came before in the book, launch other series, and has been given one of the best story teller artists in the business to work with.

JLA should have just been cancelled and re-started after Blackest Night and after Cry for Justice was over. This heavily promoted re-start was another horrible issues in a string of bad JLA issues. Bagley's art saved it from being a total waste.

So instead of having a chance to get people interested again, I'm ready to drop the book and wait until it actually gets started.

The JLA isn't just a good theory. The problem comes when editorial doesn't get how the book should be used. The same was true of The Avengers for years. Then Marvel got the right idea. Put one of our hottest writers on it and make it a focal point or our universe. Like him or not, Bendis has been the driving force behind what's gone on at Marvel over the last few years and the Avengers teams have been at the forefront of every major event.

Meanwhile, the JLA has been subject to a temporary celebrity writer given the task of reforming the team, followed by a professional whose run has been marred by having to tie into events to either prop them up (Salvation Run) or because you can't conceivably have the League not involved. Then all the major stars are taken away for other "events", he's not even informed whether one of the characters he's writing lives or dies, and is pretty much left hung out to dry.

Whoever writes the JLA should be one of the guys responsible for mapping the DCU's future. Right now, that's Johns and Morrisson. Either bring the JLA editor and writer into those meetings or give it to one of the "golden boys".

Wish Zatanna was sticking around after Bagley's first page w/ her in it.

Remember during Morrison and Waid's JLA runs, that there would be a fill-in story, or an annual, or a special, that would allow it to be part of whatever crossover was going on at the time, without the "lead" writers having to fit it into their larger stories?

This was a good idea. Clearly, these two writers had no interest in covering "Day of Vengeance" or whatever it was that cast Hal Jordan as the Spectre. So, they simply bowed out after one of their arcs was over, a fill-in team delivered the tie-in book, and then BAM! back to the good stuff.

I really miss this. I would actually consider buying JLA again if this were the policy.

Good point, Carl. Marvel doesn't have this problem with the Avengers right now because Bendis is basically one of the masterminds behind the Marvel U and the writer of the main Avengers titles. So he doesn't have to deal with someone coming in at the last minute and saying, "Oops, you can't use Spidey for a while b/c he's off-planet" -- if Spidey happens to be off-planet for some reason either Bendis was the reason it happened or knew about it so far in advance that he can work around it in a way that makes sense.

Slightly off-topic: I notice that we, the readers, tend to overblame "editorial" for not allowing writers to do what they want. While I'm sure this is a frequent problem, the upshot is that it's also a blessing: it prevents writers from doing what they want *when it would be awful.*

I'm not sure how many examples there are of this: since the ideas were nixed, we generally don't know about them. However, editorial did keep John Byrne from using his (IMO) god-awful idea of using the Shaper of the Worlds to reboot Spider-Man back to high school. And I'm sure some editor also nixed Mark Millar's idea to end Civil War with a bunch of Hulk babies invading the Earth. Those two instances make me glad an editor was on hand to reign in a writer's wacky ideas.

Meanwhile, the JLA has been subject to a temporary celebrity writer given the task of reforming the team, followed by a professional whose run has been marred by having to tie into events to either prop them up (Salvation Run) or because you can't conceivably have the League not involved. Then all the major stars are taken away for other "events", he's not even informed whether one of the characters he's writing lives or dies, and is pretty much left hung out to dry.

Not just a temporary celebrity writer, which would be bad enough. A REALLY, REALLY REEEAAALLLLY bad temporary celebrity writer. That's important to add and makes it even worse. I mean Wonder Woman relaunched post-OYL with a temporary celeb writer too, but one who was good and while it was directionless and delayed for a bit afterwards it didn't suffer anywhere near as much as JLA did long-term.

I agree with Adam, I don't like it either when editorial interference is shown as always bad. Another great example is Shooter making Claremont redo his ending to Dark Phoenix. Although I also agree it's off-topic in this case, as I can't see Didio's regime interfering with a book for the better.

Carl has an excellent point. Love-it-or-hate-it, the New Avengers are always together as a team and the books work because the guy doing the being status quo/event is the same writer behind the team books. I think thats why I'm looking forward to Siege. Its flowing naturally out of the current Bendis' books into a big conclusion, and the Avengers book will be right there every step of the way.

The best thing that DC should do once this Zombie-filled, all encompassing Darkest Night saga comes to a conclusion is bring the JLA back to prominence with their A List characters.

The series would benefit if DC looked upon it as one of the flagship and most important titles it publishes every month. This series started out as the home for their best characters set in unbelievable circumstances in which the league would have to work together to save the planet if not the universe from tyranny. Casual readers would be jumping on this title just to see what DC's superheroes can do when they do battle together. Instead we are being forced to read the exploits of B and C List characters who simply can't carry their luggage. Casual readers aren't buying the Justice League soley based on the series name anymore. They judge a book by the amazing art on the cover and in these economic times tossing out $3 a pop better look like a good buy at the point of purchase. Marvel's got it right (most of the time) with the various Avengers and X-Titles. Those series for the most part have all have recognizable characters that they want to read about.

Once the casual reader starts seeing an all-star cast fighting all-star villains, we will have an all-star comic book that will be a must read. I'm not saying that I dislike the various B and C List players that have been in this book. Some of them are great and deserve a well told maxi series on occasion. The thing is that they can't carry this flagship title for a prolonged period of time. Who really wants to read a book that has a revolving cast of creators and characters every 4 months? Marvel's X-Men can get away with this because of its many engaging characters. However, the JLA or DC for that matter currently doesn't have this privilage.

Having one or two of these B & C List "redshirts" would work best for me, as long as that B or C lister is in the story for logical reasons and not just in there for simple exposure or any other blatant corporate reasoning.

Bring the JLA back to its roots. Let's see the cream of the crop in meaningful sagas every month. Maybe then we'll see this title at the top of the charts again. James Robinson is a terrific writer. Give him the sandox and the toys that go along with it and stop interfering with the creators who are doing this job because they love what they do and want a good story told right.

I agree up until the notion is suggested that Robinson's script for this issue had its merits. That Mark Bagley was drawing made it more pleasant to read than Cry for Justice, but it's still got the import of an irrelevant Z-Lister as obligatory cannon fodder, heroes whining and crying about being irrelevant, awful dialogue ( " Uncle Bad-Touch ", Zatanna? Really? ), and the use of the evil Dr. Light ( because if there's anything more pathetic than a spandex-clad rapist villain, its a spandex-clad rapist ZOMBIE villain ).

What's funny is how much Robinson's new re-launch mirrors the start of McDuffie's doomed run.
Stuck with having to tie-up previous writer's plots? Check. In McDuffie's case it was Meltzer, in Robinson's case it's McDuffie.
Stuck with having to tie-into ongoing event? Check. In McDuffie's case it was Salvation Run, in Robinson's case Blackest Night.
Promises that once the tie-ins are over, the creator's vision for the League will really kick into high gear? Check.
What I just don't get is that for years - YEARS - allowing good writers to spin their self-contained Justice League stories WORKED. It worked with Morrison. It worked when Waid took over from Morrison. It worked when Joe Kelly took over from Waid.
As someone above pointed out, if a tie-in was needed for an event, then a fill-in writer stepped up to the plate (they got DeMatteis for Day of Judgment and they got Chuck Dixon for Joker's Last Laugh).
I think part of the problem here is a snowball effect which began when the decision was made to end JLA around Infinite Crisis and relaunch it with Meltzer.
I enjoyed Meltzer's run BUT I blame him for setting up subplots (Red Tornado, Vixen, Geo Force) he apparently knew he would not be around to wrap-up and for editorial allowing him to do so. Unless writers leave suddenly, they should clean up their mess and leave a blank slate for the next creative team.
Morrison had a clear start and finish to his run, as did Waid, as did Kelly.
And when other writers did short runs like Busiek, Chuck Austen and Geoff Johns, they too had basically one story-line to tell, then they moved on.
I think McDuffie was really the first writer since the JLA was relaunched under Morrison in the 1990s to jump into the middle of ongoing stuff with the title and be forced to make it work.
And then, because McDuffie was basically fired off the book, that set up whoever the new writer was going to be to have to come in under similar circumstances.
As a longtime fan of team books by both Marvel and DC I can say that this is certainly not unique. But what's so jarring is that for so long it was NOT the case with the JLA, and I would have thought it would have been clear to the powers-that-be that is a recipe for success.
So to me those are the big changes - and big mistakes - DC has made since Morrison relaunched JLA.
They've forced new writers to have to carry the ball dropped by predecessors and they've forced new writers to have to participate in whatever the event du jour is.
Robinson is a good writer. Editorial should just get the hell out of his way and let him right some good Justice League stories.

Morrison's run came during a time without any really major crossovers to work around. (The most significant one during that timeframe is the one that was his own baby, DC 1,000,000). This was a time when the major families got to do their own, internal big stories (Electric Superman, No Mans' Land), but major, company-wide manditory crossovers were in remission then.

Similarly, Giffen only had one crossover impact his JL books during his run, which was, again, the one he wrote (Invasion). This was the time when the Annuals were used for the crossovers or themed summer stories.

There is a lesson here: to get good Justice League stories, you need to either lay off the crossover whip for a few year, or else put that whip in the hand of the person writing JLA

I agree up until the notion is suggested that Robinson's script for this issue had its merits. That Mark Bagley was drawing made it more pleasant to read than Cry for Justice, but it's still got the import of an irrelevant Z-Lister as obligatory cannon fodder, heroes whining and crying about being irrelevant, awful dialogue ( " Uncle Bad-Touch ", Zatanna? Really? ), and the use of the evil Dr. Light ( because if there's anything more pathetic than a spandex-clad rapist villain, its a spandex-clad rapist ZOMBIE villain ).

Wow, that sounds WAY more awful than Brian's charitable review. If this stuff really happened then i think robinson contributed more toward making the story awful than the editorial interference did.

"uncle bad-touch?" really?

The problem isn't so much the editorial dictates coming from DC editorial, it's their policy of choosing a new JLA writer every six months. They treat JLA as if any idiot could write it, and they're running out of idiots. They need to give it to one guy Robinson, McDuffy, whoever and completely forget that guy exists for five years. Because the JLA is a group book with lots of action, the character subplots takes longer, the who-is-writing-JLA-this-month nervous tick that DiDio has is killing the book.

Writing a team book like JLA is a special kind of challenge. The team exists to deal with menaces the average superhero can't deal with on his own. Therefore, the threats should be *big* and every major hero should be a member. On the other hand, if a character already has his or her own series, then the JL writer doesn't get to control them like he would like to. That's why the League should ALWAYS have both Major and minor heroes: the minor ones (read: the ones without their own series) allow the writer to tell his stories, while the major ones help deal with the action. Oh, and he DOES get to decide how those big heroes interact- maybe Superman or Green Lantern's powers, personalities etc. are decided in other books, but the JL writer gets to decide how they get along *with each other*. It can be interesting to write about, if you accept its limitations.

I think Robinson was a comic book writer before he became a celebrity.

But I agree that Robinson will be temporary. As soon as a movie deal goes through, he will no longer have time.

" Wow, that sounds WAY more awful than Brian's charitable review. If this stuff really happened then i think robinson contributed more toward making the story awful than the editorial interference did. "

It's also the fact that with a few exceptions ( most notably Batman ), the DCU's heroes aren't suited to bleak, realistic narratives with political overtones. Bringing in a shrunken, flying man calling himself " Blue Jay " to kill off in the opening scene draws even more attention to the fact that you're reading a story that's taking itself way too seriously. This story is just the latest in a long line of DC superhero gorn-fests.

Still, there's no defending Robinson's dialogue, which apparently was never that great ( I didn't read Starman, so I wouldn't know Robinson's best ), but now is the stuff internet memes are made of. I halfway expected Red Tornado to scream " I AM A MAN! " and punch Despero in the face.

I think the main problem is that there is no clear vision for what the JLA are. What's their mission and what kind of book is this (BIG SUPER threats or more funny stories or what)?

@MCGroupy: The problem with having all A-listers is that the best you'll get is Big Action Stories and be at the whim of their own book's writers (ie. Superman's in space or Electric or whathaveyou). Plus no real character development since that is what their book is for. On the flip side, your right, without these characters you wonder why Flash isn't helping stop the White Martians or whatnot (who is easier to include now that there are 3 of them). The best is to include a mix so you can develop some while still having the big hitters/draw.

On a tangent, Avengers never really have this problem since Marvel publishes very few solo books so little chance of that book interfering with Avengers. Also a lot of Marvel characters tend to be around the same on a power scale so you loose the Superman problem (and those who are more powerful tend to do their own thing like Quasar or Thor) so it's not a glaring issue when they're not included (plus the precedent of Cap's Kooky Quartet).

That said (and I'm rambling at that point but I could go on) I'm surprised that Robinson didn't just keep the old crew for this issue and then use the Blackest Night crossover to break up the team. I mean the return of the dead and the whole mind screw they seem to be doing would provide enough motivation for anyone to take a little break from a team.

Also I was surprised that they way they're doing Blackest Night that it wasn't just a JLA/GL(C) crossover. I mean this is the stuff JLA should be dealing with and so you could have all the Earth based stuff taking place in that book and the Space based in GL(C). It would have opened up the event in my opinion and made a lot more sense.

Alan Coil - the temporary celeb writer being discussed was Brad Meltzer

I was really let down by the issue. It had all of the hallmarks of Robinson's Cry for Justice work with the added disappointment of taking place in the main title.

- Contradictory characterizations.
- Taking an interesting C-list character, ragging on them for being C-list, and then killing them off ingloriously.
- Taking decent characters (Vixen, Plastic Man, Red Tornado, etc) and making them appear ineffectual to make pet characters (Hal Jordan, Green Arrow, Ray Palmer, Gongorilla, etc) look better by comparison.

I was really let down by this issue. Meltzer's run was overwritten and glacially paced, and McDuffie's run was hampered by editorial meddling, but at least there were sparks of creativity and originality in both stints. This issue was by the numbers and a bad indiction that Robinson's JLA is going to have the worst qualities of Cry for Justice in it's pages.

I've been following Justice League regularly since the relaunch (even with the uneven storytelling), but I'm honestly not sure I'll be around next month.

...But like other folks have said, the Mark Bagley artwork was pretty nice looking. So it's got that.

Have a good day.
John Cage

Chiming in:

I don't think it matters so much who/what characters are on the team, so much as how they are written. Anybody in the comics industry can make new and strong "money" out of old (even withered) rope.

I was pretty firmly a DC reader (collecting only Captain America and Daredevil in trade), but recently, I have sat myself down with borrowed comics and some library trades from Marvel, and caught up with what has been going on over there for the last 3 to 5 years.

I'll tell you right now. I didn't like everything. I'll tell you something else - no matter what title I read from Marvel, there was what can only be called cohesion. Really strong cohesion in all titles - didn't matter who was writing it, that is one unified universe. Not only that, but the threads/breadcrumbs/hints and foreshadowing were strong. Those still unfolding seem pretty strong too.

It seems to me that some of this is down to the amount of communication that Marvel writers and - I assume - editorial has. I'm pulling this from interviews mainly.

Bendis is leaving Daredevil. What does he do? He asks the incoming Brubaker whether he needs or wants the plot of Daredevil/Matt Murdock on trial to be wrapped up or not. Brubaker wants it left open as he has his own ideas that he would like to spin off. The baton is passed.

I know that Joseph Michael Straczynski was kind of screwed on his Spider-man run, but in bringing back Thor, he requested that he get a solid amount of issues under his belt where he was free of any direct event tie-ins. His wish was granted.

Diggle - and don't get me started on how DC so wasted this guy's talent - is taking over from Brubaker on Daredevil now, and they had a similar chat.

Not to suggest that Len Wein should ever be made to be someone's "pony", but Len's storyline should have been used to get the JLA to wherever Robinson wanted it. Wein could have had a free hand to accomplish that anyway he wanted to, so long as by story's end the League was where James Robinson wanted them.

I left this version of JLA after The Lightning Saga. This is the first time I haven't been buying the JLA (in whatever moniker they go by) since JLA Detroit. That's over twenty years I have read this title.

I kind of feel that maybe the best thing is a moratorium on the title for year or so. Issue numbers don't mean anything these days anyway, so next year's JLA #1 will invariably become #867 when the marketing department decides it is a good idea. So just scrap the title, and bring it back when a new bunch of bright boys or women have a solid idea, and the powers that be, let them run with it.

Whatever that idea is it, it has to be bold.

It's a familiar and tired thing to 'dump on Didio' but I kind of blame him for a lot of this. Especially JLA. Firstly, I personally don't think that McDuffie's comments merited his getting the sack. Secondly, you don't get someone like McDuffie to write JLA, unless you give him (mostly) what he wants. Thirdly, anyone remember the constant refrain of Didio a few years ago?

"Countdown is the spine of the DC Universe"?

Bollocks.

JLA is, or should be the "spine of the DC Universe".

Firstly, I personally don't think that McDuffie's comments merited his getting the sack.

Neither did DC until the two years worth of comments got him sacked because it looked really embarrassing when put together like that.

I think Robinson was a comic book writer before he became a celebrity.

He's a celebrity?

Outside of comics?

How so?

- Taking decent characters (Vixen, Plastic Man, Red Tornado, etc) and making them appear ineffectual to make pet characters (Hal Jordan, Green Arrow, Ray Palmer, Gongorilla, etc) look better by comparison.

That doesn't strike me as a valid complaint considering none of those pet characters even appeared in this issue.

Frankly, Despero was almost taken out by Zatanna, who isn't even on Robinson's upcoming team.

Looks more like Robinson was trying to demonstrate that the Justice League needs a more powerful team than 3 injured members and Red Tornado. And he did, and they do.

Well, I guess I'm in the minority. I thought it was a pretty good start, with solid characterization, excellent action and surprisingly decent dialog. I think everyone is pre-judging and pre-disposed to not liking the book, but we'll have to see where we are in a year I suppose.

Still, I have high hopes for this - in a book full of characters I don't care about, written by a writer who doesn't care about most of them, I was entertained. What happens when characters I DO like (Mon El, Hal Jordan, The Guardian) and characters the writer WANTS come onto the book?

Good things, I hope.

Re: Sean Whitmore -- I guess it came across that I was saying that Robinson's cast were made to appear better than the current roster when, as you noted, they didn't actually appear in the book, but what I meant was the present JLA was appeared so badly in this issue that Robinson's cast of favorites will only look better by comparison. Which is particularly galling for me (a fan of Vixen, Red Tornado, et al) since it's been well-publicized that with the exception of Dr. Light, they're all being written out of the book. So not only are they getting the boot, but they're getting smacked around on the way out. Plastic Man's a mess, Vixen is petty and unable to deal with a broken leg... the only character that comes off half-way decent is Red Tornado, and he's portrayed as a guy who has trouble remembering his own past and familial relations.

Not sure if that all makes sense, but it's late and I'm tired. Hope it tracks.

Have a good day.
John Cage

Nitz - I can't speak for Brian but my guess is maybe he's using lowered expectations to judge Robinson's writing because of how awful Cry for Justice has been. Because the more I read about this issue here and on other sites, Robinson's contribution definitely seems to be weak as hell.

I still have faith in Robinson as a writer. I've been enjoying his Superman stuff so far and am willing to be patient for a few months as he sets his tone/direction.
My fear is that DC did not learn a lesson from McDuffie's run and will continue to interfere with the direction Robinson wants to take the title.

Morrison's run came during a time without any really major crossovers to work around.

No, it came at a time when there were yearly megacrossovers that got their own miniseries: Genesis was part of JLA #10, One Million (which was Morrison's) happened between #23 and #24, and Day of Judgement was part of #35, plus the No Man's Land stuff. That's five crossover issues in three years of stories.

Yeah, Genesis happened directly in the middle of Morrison's multi-part storyline!!

Hm. It occurs to me that I haven't read the Morrison run as issues since it actually happened, only the trades where such little things get minimized or edited out entirely.

But my point sort of stands, in that neither Genesis nor Day of Judgement killed or made unavailable any of Morrison's cast, or really did anything that couldn't be utterly ignored for that matter. The stories that did make Morrison work around them were the sub-line-level ones like NML and Electric Blue Superman. He didn't have to deal with the Atom going missing after his ex killed someone or J'onn getting killed like a chump, and for all of the sillyness of Electric Blue, he was still Clark and not Donna Troy or something...

But my point sort of stands, in that neither Genesis nor Day of Judgement killed or made unavailable any of Morrison's cast, or really did anything that couldn't be utterly ignored for that matter.

Both Wonder Woman AND Flash were made unavailable to Morrison during his run (Wonder Woman was "killed" while Flash was replaced by an alternate reality Flash).

No, it came at a time when there were yearly megacrossovers that got their own miniseries: Genesis was part of JLA #10, One Million (which was Morrison's) happened between #23 and #24, and Day of Judgement was part of #35, plus the No Man's Land stuff. That's five crossover issues in three years of stories.

I read all of Morrison's run when it first came out, and it was the only book at DC I read at the time. I didn't even browse the covers of DC books, I would just go into the DC section of the store only to pick up JLA on the days it came out and no other time. And I will honestly say, until now I had no idea any of those crossovers were being touched upon in Morrison's run outside of the DC One Million stuff. I never even heard of the Genesis crossover until I just googled it to see what you were talking about. I don't remember a crossover called Day of Judgment and although I know what No Man's Land is I can't recall a single tie-in to it in Morrison's JLA.

The Flash replacement was a strictly Flash-titles-generated event, so that goes into the same bucket as NML and Electric Blue. I don't remember what was going on with Wonder Woman, but I suspect it came out of the WW titles or at least their writer (if it was in Genesis, that was Byrne and so was WW at the time, right?).

Keeping time with what's going on in their solo books is the price for using the Big 7 JLA. I'm talking about losing access to characters that ought to 'belong' to the JLA, having no permanent home due to a line-wide crossover event. And line-wide crossover events were in decline during that era. The Final Night, just before Morrison started, was the last one that really impacted multiple books up through Identity Crisis. Between those, you get your occasional unholy mess like Genesis or Bloodline or whatnot, but apart from advancing the Hal Jordan through-line in Day of Judgement, crossovers were skippable and inconsequential when they happened. (Even 1,000,000, which didn't really do anything other than kill Resurrection Man. [And Vandal Savage, but it's not like anyone ever thought that would take.])

This was because Morrison, as was originally pointed out by a commenter above, didn't write the cvrossover issues. Those were made fill-ins, with Day of Judgement being by J.M DeMatteis (#35), the No Man's Land stuff being written by Waid (in issues #32-33), and Genesis being relegated to a last-page teaser in JLA #10 with JLA #11 picking up after the whole crossover had ended.

The whole reason the issue came up is that McDuffie was made to build his arcs around crossovers where Morrison was allowed to ignore them entirely. Jeff argued that Morrison was writing in a less crossover-heavy period, but the evidence shows plenty of crossovers and even some tie-in issues during Morrison's tenure as "main" writer on JLA.

Where Morrison might have been allowed to just ignore Salvation Run, the aborted Tangent revival, Countdown to FC, and so forth, MacDuffie seems to have been asked to write multi-issue arcs just to set up or tie into those same miniseries "events" and crossovers.

This was because Morrison, as was originally pointed out by a commenter above, didn't write the cvrossover issues. Those were made fill-ins, with Day of Judgement being by J.M DeMatteis (#35), the No Man's Land stuff being written by Waid (in issues #32-33), and Genesis being relegated to a last-page teaser in JLA #10 with JLA #11 picking up after the whole crossover had ended.

Ah, that explains it. I didn't really read the fill-ins.

T. -- Re: celebrity writer = Meltzer -- Right you are. I missed that.

FunkyGreen Jerusalem -- Robinson is a Hollywood screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for a famous (infamous?) movie.

I'm beating a dead horse here, but again I'm going to argue that Morrison's tenure on the JLA (and to a lesser extent Waid's and Kelly's) PROVES that giving a good writer free reign on the title equals a hit.
So I continue to struggle with why folks at DC every few years decide to mess with it.
I don't care if some readers want every little thing going on in other titles/in the DCU mirroried in JLA. That didn't happen under Morrison and the freakin' book sold like gangbusters and returned the company's flagship title to its glory.
James Robinson wrote freakin' Starman. STARMAN! All the carping about his other work or the current Cry for Justice mini aside, that is a pretty good draw: "Join the man who brought you Starman and see what he does with the Worlds Greatest Heroes" or whatever.
Dan Didio: Just ... leave .... James Robinson ... alone ... to ... write ... the Justice League of America!

On a sidenote, this is my latest fear:
For a few months now there have been these rumours that Justice League might be broken into two books. I think this got started when one of hte on-line gossip columns suggested Morrison might be returning to the title with Jim Lee as artist, and then that morphed into Geoff Johns and Lee.
Now, here's where I get a bit concerned.
From the standpoint that Marvel has turned The Avengers into this big franchise (which, as a long time Avengers fan, I don't care for, but that's another issue) it would not be a completely bizarre move for the higher-ups at DC to say "Yes, let's have TWO Justice Leagues."
The other thing that gives me pause is that this is exactly what DC has decided to do with the Justice Society.
Is the two-book JSA model a try-out for a JLA franchise?
As much as I love the first year or so of the 1990s Giffen/DeMatties/McGuire Justice League, the popularity of the book lead to the horrible late-1990s Justice League era filled with all sorts of spin-off titles of average to poor quality.
So DC REALLY needs to just get the current JLA right. But again, I have this little fear in the back of my mind that the wheels are already in motion to create yet another "franchise"...
I really wish one of the news sites would ask Didio to talk about this during an interview. Try and pin the guy down.

[...] Brian Cronin @ Comics Should Be Good numerates the editorial challenges facing this issue and then concludes: Luckily, Robinson acquits himself pretty well – he tells an engaging story with a lot of strong action (Mark Bagley is particularly good on the art for the book). If it weren’t for those obstacles which are mostly outside of his control, I think this would be a comic I might even recommend, which is a big improvement over Justice League: Cry For Justice. [...]

[...] As much as I’d like to believe this volume is cursed by a stench left by Meltzer, it boils down to bad editorial. James Robinson has a long row to hoe if he’s going to make this title work again. I could go on, but Brian Cronin over at CBR states it all more concisely. [...]

I'm sort of getting mixed messages, here. On the one hand, the continued mediocrity under Robinson is being blamed on "editorial interference," but on the other hand, the point is directly made that Robinson 'didn't want to "use the characters McDuffie left him with wit a good in-story reason." So it seems to me that at least part of the issue is yet another writer of yet another book who is under the delusion that he is writing issue #1 of a series that has been around for years.

By the way, I am COMPLETELY in disagreement that "the thing this book needs is to get back to A-list characters/" I'm not saying that CAN'T work- it obviously has in the past under Morrison (I wasn't especially impressed with his work, but I'm clearly in the minority, so I'll concede)- I just don't think it has a thing to do with whether the book is good or not. As I recall, there were several years worth of "JLA" post-Morrison that used the same "A-listers," and nobody is reminiscing fondly over them. MEanwhile, people still love the Gidden/DeMatteis run. What the book NEEDS is for an editorial/writer/artist team to stay on for a solid run, and for them to have a vision for the book beyond "I like these characters, let's put them together." People forget that Giffen and DeMatteis didn't get to choose THEIR lineup, either- but they had a solid concept for their book and made it a huge success. That kind of thinking is needed now. (It's also interesting to note that some of the people who praise what Bendis has done with the Avengers are still insistent that the JLA be about the "big guns," when the Avengers has almost NEVER been about "big guns" and still isn't.)

FunkyGreen Jerusalem -- Robinson is a Hollywood screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for a famous (infamous?) movie.

So?

That doesn't make on a celebrity - outside of making of doco's, I'd be surprised by pretty much anyone not really into film knowing who wrote what movie.
Even more so when that film was a monumental flop like LXG was.

And I'm sure some editor also nixed Mark Millar's idea to end Civil War with a bunch of Hulk babies invading the Earth.

Damn, that would have been better than the endings to both Civil War AND World War Hulk!