DC Comics weren't really my thing growing up. Aside from Batman, I 'made mine Marvel'. I would read Green Lantern and Aquaman sporadically, and until I was in my teens, didn't follow any of the series with much passion (all the Batman books being the exception). So my 8 year old self didn't fool around with much outside of the X books and the Avengers and Spider-Man.
I blame that on the art. I mean, when I got into comics, extremely young, Marvel had the best art bar none. Guys like Silvestri and McFarlane and Lee and Byrne and Adams. Back then, as an aspiring young artist, that meant the world to me. Looking back on it, most of that art dazzled me then, and falls extremely flat now. But that's how I got hooked on Marvel. I even followed most of those guys' books into the Image shitshow, but not for long.
So when I got a bit older, teen years and whatnot, I still read all of the Marvel books for the characters I loved, but got really into DC once Morrison started writing Justice League, and I fell into the darker Vertigo stuff for Ennis.
Anyway...
I guess really I just never cared about the JSA because I didn't know any of the characters growing up, and I always looked at them like the bush-league JLA. I guess I needed some time to grow up and into it, because I really love this book. That, I'm certain, has to do with the writing. Now that I'm older, I'm not as concerned with the art as I am with the script. And now that we are in a new Golden Age of comics (much the same as with current brilliant television series') I'm at a point where I feel spoiled for all the brilliant writing floating around out there. So when I try to go back to a time like this, around '99-2000 or so, I try to put things in perspective.
Here we have a revamping and re-forming of the Justice Society, and mostly these fest two volumes are a series of growing pains. It's mostly a 15 issue introduction to the team and a hodge podge of villains old and new. I feel like most any writer would struggle with this team dynamic and both Goyer and John's do. There just isn't enough screen time for some of the more minor characters like the Star-Spangled Kid. However, they try valiantly to use most everyone to the best of their abilities- but what we get is mostly a series of actions without much human drama. I guess that works for Morrison in his JLA, but here it doesn't. Here, we need more of a Wolfman/Perez Titans style of scripting. We need it to be more human, more interaction between the characters, and less aggressive with the action. Because these fools are just fighting nonstop the entire time. There is zero downtime and zero drama, which would've added so much to a book like this.
Art chores are handled well enough. Nothing spectacular here, but serviceable.
Writing: B
Art: B