I don’t really read superhero comics anymore, but I love Alex Ross’s art and I was a huge Kingdom Come fan when I did.
So when his new Elseworlds series, Justice, came out, I gave it a try. I loved the Challenge of the Superheroes as a kid, so I figure I was the target audience.
Instead of teaming up with a top notch writer like Mark Waid, it seems Ross tried to do too much of it himself and teamed with a lesser experienced writer, his friend, Jim Krueger.
I had heard there was some animosity about Mark Waid getting too much credit for KC, and maybe this is Ross’s solution.
For me? It didn’t work. Justice, while a pretty piece of art, was a god awful story. This was especially true in the third and final volume I read yesterday (12 issue series, reprinted in three TPBs).
It got so bad in volume three that I had to look to see if my copy was missing pages.
The flow of the storytelling would GENEROUSLY be described as choppy.
The dialogue was terrible. Characterization and plot? Like it was fanfic.
The art? Well, it sure was pretty.
As much as I love Ross’s art, and really the type of subject he enjoys (alternate looks at superheroes), I won’t be buying anymore of his work unless he teams with an A-list writer who has as much input into the work as Ross.
He needs someone to keep him in check (James Robinson/Alex Ross is a dream pairing for me!), otherwise it is a really talented fanboy production.