Grundy Cometh...
By: Andrew Hines
Many people of this generation are unaware of the Justice Society or JSA. This title has been a good way of bringing their legacy back to life. The fourth installment of Earth 2 introduces a fourth member of the future Justice Society. We see new faces and get a bit of tease on possible backstory for several of the characters. The character intros have been pretty good up to this point and issue four is no exception. There are bumps in the road with every story and several issues of discontinuity between characters from the old DCU and the new, they do make for interesting character development. This series (and really, the DCnU in general,) shows that superhero costumes can be both stylish and functional. The last real tick in the "W" column is that Rob Liefeld hasn't gotten his meat skinners onto the Earth 2 characters just yet.
James Robinson has done a good job so far with Earth 2. He has given new depth and realism to characters who haven't had a whole lot of that in recent years. Basically starting from scratch, since several of the Justice Society are now in the main DCnU, such as Powergirl and Mister Terrific, he's been making it his own. There's not much you can ask a writer to do beyond that. This is essentially a hard reboot of the entirety of Earth 2 mythology in the DCU, but with bits that link it to the current Animal Man and Swamp Thing story lines. He has left the past behind and created something new and intriguing, which I find to be better than something old being resurrected. I mean, look how Jason Todd turned out when he came back. ....Exactly!
The art by Nicola Scott and Eduardo Pansica is pretty good. Even the look They've given to Jay's suit and Kendra's new Hawkgirl uniform. This version of Grundy works pretty well and provides a sort of visual reference to the Blackest Night event. Again, there is a full team to back them up. The inking team consists of Trevor Scott and Sean Parsons, who've done a great job on this issue. The colorists are Alex Sinclair and Tony Avina who have done a good job on this one as well. The first page and last are the best examples of how good this artistic team really is.
This one deserves an A- based on the few bits where dialogue is slightly lacking or pacing is a little off. Good job overall. I highly recommend it.
