You know, I appreciate that DC is trying to follow-up on Final Crisis in some high profile fashion after launching the meager and bland Aftermath books.

I do.

But this first issue of Justice League: Cry for Justice, notoriously delayed and anticipated, didn't quite strike the chord it probably should have. We got the heated interaction between Green Lantern and the rest of the Justice League we expected from previews, which ultimately results in Hal Jordan's departure from the league proper with BFF Green Arrow in tow, but then that side of things is dropped so we can see the Atom(s) and Congorilla (!?) kick some ass and wallow in played out super hero angst for the last half of the book. It's never indicated what the connection is between the dissonant events (though we can, of course, assume that these heroes will band together to form the new pissed off Justice League), but we do get treated to an awfully cheesy trend of these heroes literally shouting - excuse me, crying - for "JUSTICE" after their lives go awry.

It's a little much.

A flaw, here or there: Ray Palmer uses his power as the Atom to shrink to microscopic size and mess with some thug's brain, which is a hideous reminder of Identity Crisis (recall that his estranged wife Jean Loring uses the Atom suit to commit murder in the exact same fashion, which devastates the entire Justice League and sends Palmer reeling - yeah, not sure his actions here make a ton of sense after that), and despite the book's $4 price point and "40 pages," only about 20 are actually a part of the Cry for Justice story. The rest are pretty typical "director's cut" stuff, though we do thankfully get an origin story for Congorilla.

(Seriously, what?)

It's a fun set up for the 6 part miniseries which seems to be setting up Prometheus and Libra (yes) as the primary villains, but already the pacing is pretty wonky (where are the rest of the heroes that'll be joining the two big Greens, I wonder). Still, the art is gorgeous, and it's hard not to dig the concept and characters, so I suspect that I'll keep picking the book up, provided it doesn't fly too far off the rails.