And why did no one tell me? I haven't been the biggest fan of James Robinson's post-Starman return to DC, and what I saw of Cry for Justice looked terrible, but his run on Justice League (and with a team made up of Dick Grayson/Batman, Supergirl, Jade, Jesse Quick, Congo Bill, Mikaal/Starman, and Donna Troy) with Mark Bagley is a lot of fun. The dialogue is a bit clunky at times, and he tends to beat the reader over the head with the "This is the REAL Justice League...no, really" stuff a bit more than necessary, but it's a good team book. One thing I like is that he's got his version of a Batman, a Superman, a Green Lantern, a Flash, and a Wonder Woman, but they're versions that he has more freedom to work with than he would otherwise. Between this and the new Flash series (which I love) I might have to check out some more DC books again.

I haven't been reading it, and I can't imagine ever stepping back into the JLA pool until it has a writer who can go at least 2 months without having to adapt to yet another DCU status quo change.

I just read through his run, and while there were a couple of Blackest Night and Brightest Day tie-ins, it's relatively self-contained. There's a crossover with Justice Society, too, but Robinson and Bagley took over that title for those issues, so it reads pretty smoothly.

Ultimately, though, having to deal with status quo changes on a book like JLA is par for the course. Even Grant Morrison had to deal with it during his run. So far the characters Robinson's using for the team minimizes it to a certain extent.

A huge chunk of us gave up reading comics in periodical form.

Heck, I haven't bought a trade in 6 months.

I haven't even kept up with current comics for the last year. Last time I read JLA it was the first 12 issues of the relaunch which had Red Tornado in it, whenever that was.

I read the Stern/Byrne TPB that collected their JLA Classified arc.

And of course, all of the Blackest Night tie-ins.

Monk, It didn't. In fact it got so bad that I dropped the flagship JLA title for the first time in, well, forever I think. It just seems like it is spinning its wheels until DC's Flashpoint event is through, after which there will be another big timeline/continuity change and Geoff Johns and Jim Lee reboot the team with the big 7 back in place again. Enough hints have been dropped that I am pretty sure this is where things are headed.

I've read the Robinson/Bagley run, and it did, in fact, get good.

Then why didn't anybody tell you?

When Len Wein took over after issue #99.

I read it, but didn't think it was particularly good, that's why I didn't tell you.

Just to be clear, I certainly don't think it's great. Just good. I'd put it on the level of the Busiek/Perez Avengers or the Nicieza/Bagley New Warriors. And, post Blackest Night, at least, it's not full of over-the-top goriness in the way of a lot of DC books.

I have been enjoying JLofA as well...the comparison to the original New Warriors series is a good one, but I have to wonder if it is really just because of the Bagley art...

I think that's definitely part of it, though I think the collection of younger heroes is part of it, too. Aside from Congorilla and Starman, they're all from a later generation than usually makes up the Justice League.

Did they get a new inker for Bagley? The first few issues I flipped through looked bad. I'm having a hard time warming to Bags' DC run.

By the way, the forced crossover with JSA served as an exit point for me. It was bad enough when they split the JSA into two books, making me buy a couple issues of JLA was too much so I bailed.

They got a new colorist, and there've been a couple of different inkers. His works always a bit rougher on team books, I've noticed.