Where have you gone Mr. Geoff Johns, JSA turns its lonely eyes to you?  What's that you say Mr. DiDio, Mr. Johns has left and gone away..ay, ay, ay... ay, ay, ay?

As much as I want to like this book, and I really do want to like this book, I simply am not.  Marc Guggenheim seems to have a plan, but that plan includes, among other things, Jay Garrick becoming mayor of a mid-western town, a massive cast of non-descript heroes, Mr. Terrific being stripped of his intellect (the only thing that truly makes him a special character), villians that are given gravitas only because readers suffer through an "untold story" from the past of the team and, now, in this latest issue, a re-design of Alan Scott in power set and in a costume that has him, literally, wearing a giant lantern (although perhaps Scott Kolins is more to blame for this later offense than Guggenheim himself).  I am from Denver and when I realized that the first Green Lantern of them all was now clothing himself with a giant lantern, I could only think of the late, great Denver Broncos fan Tim "The Barrel Man" McKernan, who wore an orange barrel (and little else) to Broncos games for years.  The late McKernan is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, this GL re-design will not make anyone's hall of fame. 

I guess it shows how far off comic book fans' radar screens this team has fallen when Alan Scott can be paralyzed and then undergo this sort of change (a change that is likely to be fleeting) and no one seems to care.  I am reading the comic monthly (along with JLA where Alan Scott has been appearing too although not a version of him I recognize as the same character from JSA) and I barely care.

And that's the problem, I just don't care enough.  Guggenheim's writing isn't terrible.  Kolins' new style doesn't offend, but the title just isn't involving enough.  We'll see what happens with #50, but with 7052 new issues spinning out of this summer's Flashpoint crossover, I need to cut something somewhere.  JSA, I'm looking at you.