Reviewer: Kevin S. Mahoney
Title: Honor Among Thieves Part 3
Written by: Jen Van Meter
Penciled by: Patrick Oliffe
Inked by: Drew Geraci
Colored by: Nathan Eyring
Lettered by: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Stephen Wacker
Publisher: DC Comics
Villains are a superstitious and cowardly lot, or so most super hero stories would have it. This arc of JSA Classified, told as it is from the villains’ perspective, necessarily argues differently. This is an issue dedicated to, of all things, loyalty. It’s an effective hook, especially when three of the five main cast members are killers and the other two are dead. The assembly of liars, psychos, and monsters in the final installment of the arc certainly piques reader interest with a plethora of possibilities.
It’s a real shame that the execution of the story squanders a lot of what made it special in the first place. There’s a lot of the JSA in it for starters, but they are essentially just heroes rescuing their own. This is irrelevant data in a story about villains stomping villains. It may be nice that the JSA brownstone’s resident bottle washer lived through her trip through cryosleep, but her rescue and treatment took the focus away from our team of miscreants for far too many pages. And what exactly is up with Ted friggin’ Grant knowing how to treat a woman with Popsicle-itis? Where did that come from?
The heroes are not the only ones who seem to be out of sorts though. The Icicle is whinier and runnier than one might remember him from both the beginning of this arc and the JSA mega-arc Stealing Thunder. The internal monologue concerning the similarities and differences between villains and heroes was well done, if formulaic. The resolution with Tigress seemed tacked on, and the reversal courtesy Johnny Sorrow that closed the book merely confused things further. Those unnecessary JSA pages sure would have helped keep this arc to the Icicle, instead his character’s dramatic arc sort of shatters abruptly at the tip, like his namesake.
The artwork in the concluding segment of this story succeeds in a highly unspectacular fashion. The characters depicted look as they should (except perhaps the drones of Nyssa and Talia Al Ghul), and that’s a real accomplishment considering the scope and breadth of the cast. The settings are rendered well enough to be understood but do not distract the reader with superfluous detail. There are no coloring or scripting foibles to be found, and that is not always an easy thing with so many voices and scenes and characters to keep straight. And yet, there is little verve to be seen here. If something could be said to be under stylized, this would be a good example. It might be the layouts chosen were just too by the numbers to evoke the mercurial spark that certain art teams seem capable of. Perhaps it’s the fault of this reviewer, who just isn’t jonesed by the art team here.
