Review: Cry For Justice #3

Cry For Justice #3 is another up and down issue in this up and down mini-series. The problem with this issue is that there are many more downs than ups.

In fact, there is only one up. The artwork by Mauro Cascioli is simply astounding. I mean ... I could really just gaze at the pages. I had complained about the delays in releasing this book. If the delay was to let Cascioli produce these pages then it was worth it. Now I might not like the composition of some of the panels, but overall the art was stunning.

But so much else ... the plot, the dialogue, the events ... just fell flat. Really flat.


Let's start with the opening page, the 'headless Supergirl' page we saw back a few months ago in the DC Nation column. Back then I talked about the composition of this page which effectively reduces Supergirl to her chest and midriff. What a sorry way to open this issue after Kara's heroic entrance which ended last month.

Back when we first saw it, I hoped it was just a cropped panel and that Supergirl's face would be visible. Instead it is the opening splash page and we don't see any of Kara's head. Why lay out this panel this way where it is clear that the emphasis is Supergirl's breasts?

As if the composition of the panel wasn't bad enough (and I don't know if the design is Robinson's or Cascioli's), we get some pretty weak dialogue. How nice of Hal Jordan to ask Supergirl if she is a villain. Hasn't he teamed up with her in the past? Didn't she just defeat some supervillains? Does Green Lantern really think Supergirl is a villain?




So I rolled my eyes when I saw that first page hoping things couldn't get much worse.

I was wrong.

Pages 2 and 3 were cringe inducing.

First we get my particular pet peeve ... a shot of Supergirl crying. I have harped on this before and I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it does. It really does.

Hal asks her if she is a villain and she cries?

I get the symbolism behind it ... I really do. Supergirl is physically indestructible but emotionally vulnerable. It is a powerful and intriguing contradiction so I can understand why creators would use it. But when it is overused it can lose its emotional punch. I mean, how many times have we seen Kara cry in the last year?

I mean ... your father dies in your arms? It's okay to cry.
You're in the eighth grade and your best friend is dying in your arms. It's okay to cry.
You are still reeling from your father's death and your mother is emotionally cruel to you? It's probably okay to cry.

But Hal Jordan acts like a jerk and asks you if you are a villain? And you cry? Maybe not so okay.

Ollie goes to console her but he ends up talking to her like she is in elementary school saying 'the horrible man didn't mean it. He gets grumpy around this time of day if he doesn't get a candy bar.' I know Ollie is trying to lighten the mood but would he talk to any other super-hero that way? Would he talk to Robin that way? It makes it seem like he doesn't take Supergirl or her feelings seriously.

Then we get this panel where again Supergirl is reduced to just her looks by the other heroes.

When Captain Marvel says he senses no ill will in Supergirl, the Atom assumes he is thinking with his hormones. Luckily Freddy chastises the Atom for his insensitivity. But then Captain Marvel comments that Supergirl is indeed pretty.

It unfortunately gets worse.

When Supergirl is told that Hal is being cautious because of the current situation with New Krypton, she says this wooden line. "I'm Kryptonian sure. But I'm not bad. I'm good." Who would say that? It sounds almost childish. Or maybe it should have been "I'm not bad; I'm only drawn that way" a la Jessica Rabbit.

At least Supergirl gets to explain her reasoning why she is there. Like all of them, she wants justice. For her, she wants to find who was behind Zor-El's assassination. But then she says the clunker of a line: 'Together we can be justice.'

I know there were complaints about Robinson's dialogue in the first two issues but here the lines are too campy ... too grandiose ... to really tolerate. The comic almost reads like an overblown parody of comics. It reminded me of Doom Force, Grant Morrison's parody of Rob Liefeld's X-Force. The problem here is I don't think Robinson is intentionally writing parody.

I also don't really know why Supergirl thinks that Hal, who initially was going after Libra but now has been side-tracked by Prometheus, would even be interested in finding Zor-El's killers.

We next get to the 'torture' scene of the issue. The League has apparently captured Prometheus (off screen) and is now torturing him for information. Ray Palmer again shows how he has mastered the technique Jean Loring used to kill Sue Dibny.

As I thought in the first issue, Green Arrow plays the foil to Hal asking if torture is the right thing to do. Hal shrugs off the question saying that the bodily harm they are inflicting is still better than the death that Prometheus and other super-villains have been spreading around.

Do I really want Green Lantern to do this? Geoff John's has done such a great job recreating Hal as the ultimate Green Lantern, the ultimate good guy. Does this Green Lantern, literally picking the brains of his enemy, seem like a hero?

And with all the Atom has been through, would he really crawl around people's brains like this?

Because of ... or maybe despite ... the torture, Prometheus begins to talk some gibberish about how Prometheus wanted to become Batman. It doesn't seem like any useful information came out of this.

Green Arrow then shows his lack of knowledge when he calls Prometheus a B-lister, below Javelin in ranking. Now I know Ollie was dead at the time, but doesn't he know that Prometheus almost took down the whole JLA single-handedly? I realize that Prometheus has been portrayed as a chump since then ... but below Javelin?

While the interrogation goes on, we cut to Congorilla and Starman who are still jetting to Europe in a Blackhawk plane.

They talk like old friends, odd since they just met. Congorilla says that he noticed a missing body among the remains of his slaughtered tribe. An evil ape scientist called Malavar was not amongst the dead. Congorilla assumes that is an important clue.

Now I haven't heard of Malavar but his inclusion seems like a convenient way to shoehorn Congorilla into this science-based plot.

Before the two can talk more, they are ambushed by men with jet-packs. The heroes take to the skies and defeat the airmen although it means Congorilla needs to swim the rest of the way to Europe.

The art here, no surprise, is spectacular.

Back in the States, "Prometheus" drops his disguise and reveals himself to actually be Clayface. He then detonates a bomb which destroys the floor of the skyscraper the League is questioning him in.

So first off, the Atom couldn't recognize clay brains when he was crawling around in there? But second of all, I don't know if a bomb is a significant enough threat to be a cliffhanger here, to make me concerned about thr well being of the heroes. Outside of Green Arrow, would any other member of this group even blink at a bomb?

We finally catch up with the real Prometheus who is shown to have captured Malavar.

After he reclaimed his name from his protege, Prometheus realized that he wanted revenge on the entire superhero community. Death did not seem to be a good enough outcome for his plot, especially given the number of heroes who come back from the dead.

He recounts to an underling how he began to accumulate super-technology. First he did so in Europe where he encountered and killed some Global Guardians. (Okay, I admit having the Tasmanian Devil end up as a throw rug is a nice touch.) Now that Prometheus has the tech he needs, he can unveil his true plan.

This is the Prometheus I remember ... intelligent, cunning, ruthless. At least this series will rehabilitate his character.

The issue ends with mystical characters in Opal City (presumably characters from Robinson's Starman comic which I did not read). One of them, using tarot cards, says that danger and death is coming for all of them.

We then get a full page of small panels showing all those endangered.

Look! It's another nearly headless shot of Supergirl's chest! Yeesh.

So overall I have heroes torturing villains, a poor portrayal of Supergirl, some very hackneyed dialogue, and absolutely lush artwork.

In case you can't tell, I was pretty disappointed with this issue. Yes, I am sure that in the end Hal will realize that you can't look into the abyss without the abyss looking back. And yes, I will read the rest of the issue to see how this all turns out. But this seems like a mess.

And when Supergirl is reduced to breast shots, says childish lines, and sheds quick tears ... well I am going to be unhappy.

Overall grade: C-