Comic of the Week: Justice League: Rise and Fall

For the longest time, I kept wondering if Cry For Justice was canon or not, because it was just so far out there with huge changes. People were losing limbs, characters were dying, and whole cities were getting assrape destroyed. Normally, when cities take a hit as large as Star City did, it’s usually in a DC-wide event, like Blackest Night or some crisis. So, when Cry for Justice started coming out, I was left wondering if it were all in continuity. If it was, then goddamn, it’d be awesome.

I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I did enjoy Cry for Justice. The art was great and the direction was bold and new, although a lot of it didn’t make one lick of sense and a lot of people were out of character. I have a friend calling it Gay for Justice, but still, I stand firm with my opinion - Cry for Justice was a solid read. I absolutely loved the direction they were going to take with Green Arrow and Rise and Fall just got me even more excited.

Written by J.T. Skrull
Pencils by Diogenes Neves, Mike Mayhew, Fabrizio Fiorentino
Inks by Mike Mayhew, Vicente Cifuertes, Ruy José
Colors by Nei Ruffino, Andy Troy

As if I needed more reason to love the emerald archer, Green Arrow, DC comes out with this new direction and doubled his badassery. Yes, he’s right at the edge of being a baddie. This has gotten me excited because of all the possibilities that opened up. I wishing against all odds that DC doesn’t fuck it up.

The entire issue doesn’t really move the story anywhere much, except at maybe the very end, but it provided a great look at how dark Ollie’s world has become. He’s pushing away his friends and loved ones, and to him, the world has already ended. It opens up so many questions that future issues could potentially tackle. How far will he go? What is his ultimate goal? What will redeem him? Does he even want to be redeemed? What will Roy think about all this? What will the Justice League do to him? GAH! HEADSPLODE!

I love a good plot as much as the next guy, but indepth characterization is always a good thing. Get a tragedy, make it personal, throw in some more personal tragedy, throw in a murder and you’ve got a good launching pad. Mix in a little Justice League and you’re all set. If anyone takes down GA, it should really be GL, but yeah, I guess we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit.

There were a quite a number of artists who went to work on this issue, and their styles were readily apparent. I’m a big fan of some of the styles, and not so much for the others, but they all work for this book. It mixes some classic cartoony comics art and that new fad of making comic internal art more realistic.

This issue has me hyped for Green Arrow #31. I’m not sure when it’ll be out, but I’ll definitely pick it up when it does shoip out. Because this issue already has me by the balls, I give it 4 out of 5 green cartoony arrows.