Wraparound cover art to JSA #50.
© 2003 DC Comics

Mania Grade: C
Authors: David Goyer, Geoff Johns, Leonard Kirk, Keith Champagne
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $3.95

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JSA #50

Ever since comics stopped being able to hit the 100 mark with relative ease, they've had to mark the 50th issue as "landmarks". To make such issues stand out, a creative team can either indulge in the Story To End All Stories(tm) or create a virtual one-off that has nothing to do with the rest of the series. In the case of FANTASTIC FOUR, for instance, the 50th issue of two years ago fell into the second category and the 500th this week falls into the first. (Yeah, I know, number 50 two years ago and 500 this week - that's modern comics for you.) In many cases, either attempt manages to fail

With JSA #50, Goyer and Johns attempt the somewhat more difficult-to-pull-off first option - and it doesn't always succeed. For one thing, JSA is currently wrapping up its "Princes of Darkness" storyline with this issue, which immediately makes JSA #50 less an opportunity for the interested reader to take a peek and see what the series is doing and more an opportunity to expand an already plot-heavy storyline with even more baggage. For another, it's not over - JSA #51 will feature "Princes of Darkness: Coda," which means that the "landmark" 50th issue doesn't even contain the sense of closure that one might expect. In other words, it's business as usual in JSA #50 - there just happens to be more of it than normal.

Mind you, there are at least two bits of business that are worth seeing here. Alan Scott's triumphant re-adoption of the name Green Lantern is certainly worth all the angina it takes to get to that exultant moment. Those of you (myself included) who have always hated the name "Sentinel" and felt that modern comics readers should be able to accept two Green Lanterns in the DCU because there always had been two up until CRISIS will find yourselves punching the air with delight at this development. And the promise of a final, definitive explanation of the origins of Power Girl is also in the offing here - even if it does get put off until a future issue. Oh, well, can't have everything.

But in every other way, JSA #50 is something of a disappointment because there's simply too much going on here. By the time we slog through all of it, the redemption of Obsidian feels like an anticlimax. Even what happens to Sandman at the end of this issue, which should have been an affecting moment, ends up having hardly any emotional impact at all. If a "landmark issue" is supposed to sum up everything about a series, then JSA #50 does manage that - but what it reveals is a series that is overwritten, overpopulated, and too frenetic by half. While it's great to have the original Green Lantern back, did the rest of this stuff have to come with him?