Alex Ross (1) (1970–)

Jim Krueger, Alex Ross, and Doug Braithwaite’s Justice volume 1 collects the first four issues of the eponymous series from DC Comics. The story begins with supervillains around the world experiencing a vivid nightmare in which the heroes of the Justice League fail to save the Earth, leading to the end of humanity. Led by Lex Luthor, they gather to take on the Justice League in order to study them while also taking a more active role in preparing humanity for the nightmare they shared. Luthor and the other supervillains believe that the League held humanity back by not allowing it to face challenges on its own. Using Batman’s files, the Injustice League begins targeting the League one by one, with each falling. This is a fantastic start to the story, but it's only the first ¼ of the tale.… (mehr)

I'm never been the biggest Alex Ross fan. I always felt a lot of his work looked stiff. However, he absolutely shines here. The colors are wonderful and there's the right amount of Kirby influence in his lines. FF: Full Circle is probably the best looking book I've ever seen from Ross.

Is it a good story? I dunno. I don't think it'd make a bit sense to anyone who isn't overly familiar with Lee/Kirby's FF run, but I am, so it worked for me. It helps that Ross understands that a good FF story has more in common with Star Trek or the X-Files than summer blockbuster movies.

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The Torch is dead - buried with full military honors. But what does death mean for an artificial man? The Mad Thinker is determined to find out, with the reluctant help of the Torch's best and oldest friend - Tom 'Toro' Raymond.

Picked up in my local comic book store as a retelling of one of the original superheroes. Jimmy Storm from the Fantastic Four (the Human Torch that people are more familiar with) named himself after this character who is an android with the ability to set himself on fire. He's been resurrected by The Mad Thinker, who is trying to dominate the world - naturally - and his best friend Tom has been resurrected along side him.

Both have to confront the modern world, whilst confronting The Torch's demise (The Mad Thinker is destroying his cell structure) and deal with the grand children of the original Nazis who have set up a New Berlin in South America stocked with androids.

It's not the most deep or complex of stories - the Mad Thinker and his associates seem to be able to double cross each other with regularity and ease, and the Torch's struggles with human thinking and emotion makes him like Data/Spock but much less engaging.

The graphics are good, Toro looks remarkably like Clark Kent, and situations have to be resolved by using brains as well as brawn. The contacts with the Resistance seem to accept remaining in New Berlin rather easily but.....mid level story for a lazy afternoon read… (mehr)

I read "Kingdom Come" first and really liked that, so when I found this I decided to check it out. The art style is still great - I love that the women are pretty muscular and how proportionate all the characters look (all the guys are still a bit funny-looking).

Overall, the story was somewhat enjoyable. It fell apart a bit over time. Every issue seemed to be leading up to something and it kind of led to half-second conspiracy explanations that were kind of off-putting and a bit of a let-down. One of the biggest problems was the Joker. I fail to see what relevance his part in the story had and it kept distracting from the plot. I suppose a case could be made for demonstrating how the villains would act if they WEREN'T mind-controlled (they'd just screw each other up), but it's kind of a long shot and it just didn't work.

I'm also confused about The Dream. If the characters are all already mind-controlled and their plan is to kill off the JLA and rule the planet, then why do they need The Dream? This seems like a fallback to one of my major issues with "Kingdom Come": the frequent biblical(?) text intermixed with shadowy fortellings of the future that broke up the story. It was irritating. It's kind of like overkill for what I'm sure is the primary story-telling purpose (besides sounding like an epic concept): in KC, it would be to explain to the human witness what MIGHT happen if things go badly so he has a stake in stopping things, and in J, it's part of the mind control to keep the villains in line. Except when they lose the overt mind control, all the villains abandon the cause anyway so... It's kinda stupid? The Dream fails to explain HOW the supers lose their powers or when all of this takes place or who is doing what's happening. It's full of so many unexplainables that I think SOMEONE among all the geniuses of the JLA would figure something out and cry foul.


There were a lot more cameos here that mattered than in KC, which I liked. More screen time was given to actual characters (particularly female characters) than oh... random human males that no one knows, and I liked that. The dismissive nature of Hawkman and Green Arrow was KIND of irritating, though. My favorite character interaction was probably Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. Their friendship was quite sweet. I don't see Marvel being really smart and thoughtful in a lot of comics (or you know... using his Wisdom of Solomon) and this was a nice change.

I also really liked how they played with Wonder Woman's character. That was interesting and enjoyable. And I love that she refused to stop believing in Rich. Batman also gets some interesting story moments, and I liked how Marvel came to Clark's rescue. It was quite interesting to see Marvel carrying Superman in his arms.

Overall... worth a read if you like JLA comics and "Kingdom Come". If you haven't read KC first, go read it. It's better.… (mehr)