Continuing with DC/Warner’s JLA series of paperbacks, — a pleasant surprise: a nicely crafted, if unremarkable, JLA novel.
Superman: The Never-Ending Battle by Roger Stern (2004)
| Overall |
 | Story |
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| Re-Readability |
 | Characters |
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Roger Stern proves what didn’t need proving — he can write a solid, middle-of the road, decently crafted comic book … as a novel. The JLA, Superman in their lead, take on the weather-altering scheme of Kobra. Will they succeed? What do you think?
Story: This could be a comic book. Literally. There are no significant missteps, but no real risks, either.
The biggest problem is like, any other stand-alone comic book (think of a giant-size annual here), there is no real progress or change between the beginning and the end. Nobody grows. The status remains quo. We spend some interesting time with our heroes (and villains), people talk, stuff happens, plots get revealed, the good guys fight back, the danger becomes dire, the good guys triumph, huzzah. This could — assuming the membership matches — drop anywhere into JLA continuity over the last decade
without affecting any backstory or continuity. No comics were harmed in the publication of this book. That’s neither good nor bad, it just is — but it means that the nature of triumph or tragedy is going to be strictly bounded — no heroes die, nobody falls in love, nobody passed on their powers to a successor, etc.
Characters: Again, Stern does a solid, workmanlike job. No false notes here, pretty much. People sound and act the way you expect them to from the comics. Nobody significantly new is introduced, no continuity or characterization is mangled. It all just works.
That said, there are no real penetrating insights here into any of the characters. Everyone goes through their paces, but I’ve seen Justice League cartoons that taught me more about the characters than this novel does — which is a shame, because in book form, that sort of insight and introspective is a lot easier to do than in a cartoon or a comic book.
The only other possible flaw is that, even though this is touted as a Superman story, it’s really a JLA story. Supes is “first among equals” here in face time, though his supporting cast shows up here and there, too. But it’s not a Superman story, but a JLA story with a Superman focus. We get a lot of time with Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Atom, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.
Re-Readability: Been there, read that, enjoyed it, don’t expect to need to read it again. I’ll be passing this on to the used book store.
Overall: There’s little to object to with this book, but there’s not a lot to enthuse about either. Again, this feels like a stand-alone annual or giant-size or guest writer fill-in, solid but unremarkable, and while it was fun to read (especially after the last JLA novel I read), I can’t say much more than that. Nor, necessarily, do I need to.