Justice League of America’s Vibe #1
Writer – Geoff Johns and Andrew Kreisberg
Artist – Pete Woods
February gives us two new entries into the world of Justice League (JLA and Vibe) expanding the roster and bringing some new (old) blood to the New52. Spinning off from the new Justice League of America is the new Vibe series. This issue tells the back-story of Vibe and his “not-so-secret origin”. The issue concludes with Vibe deciding to use his powers for good, or at least for the US government.
This is a fairly straight forward origin story. However, it is the characterization that makes this a much more enjoyable than the usual origin story. The dialogue is well written and it flows well establishing the world and more importantly adding more to the background of the Justice League of America. The ending sets things up for future events and shows that even if Vibe is a good guy the backers of the JLA may be a little more on the “shades of grey’ side of morality. While some of the story may be a little cliché it can be over looked for the sake of telling an origin.
The artwork is well done with each character looking like an individual and the background being very well detailed especially the city streets. The artwork melds well with the main series making this work well as a companion story. The big shining part of the art is the fight scenes. There is a high amount of energy in the fights showing off Vibe’s power and the fearsome strength of an Apokolips warrior. If this is any indication of things to come we should see some really great battle sequences in future issues.
The bottom line is Vibe is way better than it has any right to be. However, that tends to be the case with the B and C list heroes that have received books are part of the New52 such as Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Frankenstein, OMAC, and Resurrection Man. What sets this apart is that Geoff Johns is involved in the writing keeping it connected to the title-sake and assisting in continuity between books. This may have been one of the best possible ways of marketing this character and giving readers a reason to check out a book they may otherwise skip. While, this book is not very compelling it is a good lead in to a series that will hopefully expand on this not very well know hero. If you are looking for a light hearted and fun super hero adventure you may enjoy this book.
Final Verdict:
3 of 5 – A good beginning to a new series