Turning Point: Black Reign

As my recent posts should have made obvious, I'm getting to be more and more interested in the "man on the street" aspect of comic books. There's lots of different directions you can do it. I really enjoyed the novelization of Kingdom Come which really fleshed out the preacher character well. In that book, one of the recurring themes was "what place do normal people have in a world of Olympian Gods?"

As I've said, I really think that looking at the DCU from that point of view, JSA: Black Reign should be an absolute turning point. While I prefer large universes to one or two books that define everything, this is a weakness. In the DCU (or MU), there are so many books that important, or even key, developments in one book can get "washed out." These are not only key developments in that one book, but also in the larger flow of the universe.

If you stop and think about it, there should be no way that Black Reign should not have been a "universe turner". Not only do you have a splinter group of the JSA going "rogue", but the JSA itself seems to be an "accomplice" to that. They went there, and they came back without finishing the job. It certainly would appear to the ordinary person that the Society is sympathetic to Black Adam (as opposed to the no-win situation they were in).

I really hope that Johns (or whoever is going to write JSA in the future) returns to Black Adam's situation. What kind of ruler is he going to be? In a sense, I can see him as an almost Dr. Doom type ruler. He'll do his best to develop the nation in a very paternalistic way. However, woe betide anyone who has a different vision of the country, even if it is a fair and valid one. Can you really see Adam allowing an election on any meaningful point? What will he do the first time someone asks to elect the dogcatcher?

Even more important, how has the world reacted? How will they continue to react? Are they screaming for Superman or someone to go in and "clean out" the baddies? Metahumans taking political power by force has got to be a recurring nightmare for political leaders. For that matter, it's entirely possible that some group like Checkmate could be ordered to "deal with" Adam. There's alot of potential there, not only for JSA, but for the entire DCU, and I really hope that they finally pick up on it and use it.

Oh wait, I forget. Earth-2 Superman is a better story.

*sigh*