3 out of 5

Let’s first note that Joe Kelly’s awesome two-tpb collection of ‘The Obsidian Age’ are the only JLA trades I ended up keeping, and re-reading, and re-enjoying in the same way.  Although Morrison created the whole uber-complicated storyline thing in comics (not really but maybe sorta), and Joe takes his cues from Morrison’s run in setting up some Obsidian elements (the time looping, the massive-sized JLA), it’s actually a better version of what Grant did because the scale of it matches the reader’s involvement, and it’s confusing in just the right way.  Whereas Grant’s whole whorligog setup is big-idea comic telling to the extreme (this affects the whole world omg), The Obsidian Age – and, to a lesser extent, Kelly’s whole run – finds a great balance where the threat is actually to the JLA… time loops are great for that stuff.

Anyhow, Joe worked on his wacky comic antics in a large Action Comics run, and a lot of that creativity pops up in his other JLA storylines.  Similar to Waid, these are strong stories, and unlike Waid, Kelly gets a penciller who can match his style with Doug Mahnke (and Duncan Rouleau, for the weakest part of his run), but beyond the jaw-dropping scope of Obsidian, most of these are again pretty regular tales that don’t work as well when read in one sitting.  Month-to-month the tension between Batman and Wonder Woman was more graceful, and the concluding Martian Manhunter storyline paced better, but without that forced delay they just read too much like comics to really make a lasting effect.

Saying this, it should be noted that that’s the name of the game for almost all of the big name comics.  They read well monthly when handled by good writers, but the silliness becomes more apparent when taken all together.  Morrison circumvented this by going all out, and then smoothing out the campy nature with his typical boggling story structure, but Waid and Kelly (except, again, for the Obsidian Age) stick to the more traditional story by story structure and so lost a bit of steam during their runs.