However, the in the 'mainstream' DC comics, it won't work. The main reason are the facts that they have 'writers' whose egoes are bigger than Mt. Everest
I think Meltzer's telling an interesting JLA story at the moment. What's not to like? There's Starro the Conqueror, Grodd, an ARMY of Red Tornadoes, and a now-intelligent Solomon Grundy. And I've never seen Canary as frightening and formidable anywhere else as she is here. Surely, the female is deadlier than the male.
What's interesting is the pacing as Meltzer tells his story. He's got the sense to have multiple stories going on at the same time: Vixen's mysterious quest, Black Lightning as a trenchcoat-clad detective investigating a drug ring based on the Parasite's blood, Ivo discovering he wants to die, Red Tornado becoming human for the first time, and the three founders working out a new League roster.
Amazingly, every few pages, Meltzer whips out a surprise. I won't ruin it for anybody that hasn't read the book yet, but every six pages, there's something that totally recontextualizes what's going on. Most comics have one big "surprise" per story arc. Meltzer has two each: the revalation in the DC-Earth there can only be twelve immortals, the new Amazo, the army of Red Tornadoes, the possibility Batman may not be a League member this time around...
Meltzer sure picked a winner with his JLA roster. I hope Black Lightning stays as a trenchcoat-clad, private dick forever. And it looks like the three members I've never liked in JLA, whose participation in the group never made sense: Batman, Aquaman, and John Jones, are not going to be around.
As an aside, I had the pleasure of meeting Brad myself at the Miami Jewish Book Fair. He signed my copy of ARCHER'S QUEST and we talked for five minutes - not about HIS work, but about SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS, classic Wein and Englehart JLA, and Maggin's Green Arrow tales.
Brad Meltzer is a cool cat, and he's one of us. He would fit right on this board. In fact, was I hallucinating, or a while back, didn't he actually sign up for an account with our forum?
and Didio's decrees that humor has no part in decent storytelling.
Comedy is hard to pull off right. The best one I can think of is the situation in Star Trek II when Kirk caused the shields around Kahn's ship to lower. The look on Kahn's face....
There was a thread a while back where I made my feelings on "comedy" in superhero comics clear: namely, darkness and human depravity is many, many times the lesser of two evils than so-called "comedy," because at least to have darkness you have to take the character seriously and play it straight.