Jeff Lemire’s JSA Vol. 1: Infinity, Inc. vs. the Justice Society reminds me of some of the post-Geoff Johns Justice Society runs, Jerry Ordway and Bill Willingham and Marc Guggenheim and Paul Levitz. The Justice Society is here, it’s clear Lemire and those previous writers had affection for the team, but there’s a certain verve that’s lacking, some sense of why the audience should want to read about this particular group of heroes — classics, sure, but increasingly out of the mainstream. That the art, then as now, isn’t quite at the top of DC’s standard, also doesn’t help.

I appreciate that Lemire starts the book in medias res, with the Justice Society already in a doomsday scenario; the drama is immediately ramped up and it never ramps down. Equally there’s a lot of characters here, enough so that some even fall out of the narrative for a while, but this positively reminded me of good Legion of Super-Heroes stories; Lemire’s got a soapy Society here, storylines bubbling in and out.