Vol 1
Written by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
Art by Alex Ross
2006
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Vol 2
Written by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
Art by Alex Ross
2007
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Vol 3
Written by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
Art by Alex Ross
2007
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Oh boy. Just look at those covers! They look so cool! And flick through those pages! Oooooh! The way that the light reflects so sweetly - and everything has a warming glow that seems to emanate from somewhere deep inside - I dunno - your memories of superheroes past. Or something.
But: yes. Let's face facts: Alex Ross makes comic fanboys go funny in the head. Did you know that Comics Buyer's Guide discontinued it's Favorite Painter award from their CBG Fan Awards due to the fact that Alex Ross kept winning the damn thing year in year out? Oh - you did know that. Oh. In that case - nevermind. My point still stands that if you looked into the heart of any DC/Marvel geek - chances are - Alex Ross' name is tattooed across it. Because - damn it - he makes superheroes look real and how superheroes have always existed inside your mind - every since you first saw your first ever picture of Superman. All the other artists out there - they're just drawing pictures. Alex Ross - he's taking photographer from inside your comic book soul.
Jim Krueger on the other hand. Well - I've no idea who he is. (checks his wikipedia page) Hmmm. Well. His wikipedia page is a little sparse and feels a little - depressing. ("He has written his first novel, whose title is thus far unrevealed but has something to do with Christmas.[citation needed]"). He's written other stuff - but it seems like his most well known things are Justice and Earth X - a marvel comic also co-written with Alex Ross.
Now - I don't want to be mean (and looking around it seems like the internet is a mean enough place already...) - so if Jim or any of his fans are reading this - I apologise - but I kind of get the feeling that I get from reading Justice is that Alex Ross - riding atop the plaudits and praise of fans worldwide - thought "hey - writing comics - how hard could that be?": enlisted the help of his friend Jim Krueger (are they friends? I have no idea - sorry) and was like - I want to draw this, this and this (I would include links to images from the book - but dagnamit - I'm too lazy - use your imagination or pick up the book itself or something) and Jim said something like "yes sir boss!" and so now we've got three books to content with - full of (and I think maybe I'm not saying this enough) absolutely astounding art - but not much way in terms of a well told story.
Although - wait - to be fair - I should admit that back when this first came out - I managed to get a copy of volume 1 (back when I worked at a different library) and thought that it was absolutely astounding - and not just because of the artwork - it had a cool set-up, a wicked-cool cliffhanger (*gasp!*) and it all seemed appropriately EPIC (and everyone likes their superhero stories to be epic - that's for damn sure).
But then when I finally - finally [1] - got to the read the next two parts - it was all of a bit of a muddled let-down - which: frankly - left me with no desire to read it again (full disclosure: so far in writing this I still haven't).
The problem really is that - no matter how fantastic the pictures are - you need to be using them to bring to life a story worth telling (which is ironic - seeing how in the introduction - Jim Krueger mentions Robert McKee (the guy played by Brian Cox in Adaptation) and so really he has no excuse - although (and I realise that this is all getting a little bit much for a book that probably doesn't deserve this level of blah - but whatever): I'm of the opinion that the people that go to those kind of story-writing seminars are probably (making a massive generalization here oh well) the kind of people that probably aren't going to be that great at telling stories. Sure - everyone can do with a helping hand here and there - but if you really struggle that much with the basics and have never realised before that oh hey - maybe bad guys don't actually think of themselves as bad guys! (which is what said in the introduction)- then maybe I shouldn't be wasting my time reading the stuff that you've written).
My main problem with the book tho is something that will mean that some of the rest of you might really take to it and that's the level of fan service that is paid here. If you've been reading DC comics non-stop for the past 30 years - then I reckon you're really going to dig it. There's loads of stuff with different super-people's super-villains popping up and being super-evil (but not obviously - because they're doing stuff that they think makes them good guys. Or something). But yeah - by the end it all just collapsed into a big Grant Morrison-style ending mess. Like there's a feeling that something is probably making sense somewhere - but just not anywhere inside your own head.
And I think it says a lot that trying to track down some reviews or something to put down next to the links so far I'm coming up a little blank. I mean - everyone seems to love the pretty pictures - but no one seems to have much to actually say. (Or then again: maybe it's just because "Justice" is a hard thing to google properly).
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[1] Here's something you might not know: sometimes it can take a while for libraries to a hold of the book you want.
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Links: The M0vie Blog Review.
Further reading: Kingdom Come, The World's Greatest Superheroes, DC: The New Frontier, Final Crisis.
All comments welcome.
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