Geoff Johns: writer
Jim Lee: penciller
Scott Williams with Sandra Hope, Batt & Mark Irwin: inkers
Backup:
Geoff Johns: writer
Carlos D'anda: artist
The Solicitation
The Justice League is united at last against Darkseid! The awesome consequences of this high-stakes battle will resonate within the series for years to come! Geoff Johns and Jim Lee end their historic first arc with a bang!
Preview
The Story
What the hell. Six issues for this?
So if your question was "does this payoff," then I think you know my response. But let's look at the story first.
This story is 4 issues long, not 6. While the art allows for a little bit of padding, the story could have been a hell of a lot tighter and more focused. This last issue had everything to build up and then wrap up in order to have some payoff for the story.
We start off with focus on a random family who is running away from where the heroes are. They get an eye witness account of everything that is happening. This set up with a character out of no where is used as a simple way to set up the name for the Justice League.
But back to that Darkseid fight! Wow what a...wait a minute, now they are kicking his ass! just a few issues ago, I mean five minutes ago, Darkseid was tossing everyone like nothing. But this is the big "let's act like a team full of veterans and not act like we didn't know each other 10 minutes ago" routine.
Cut to Batman finding out how they are torturing Superman. We get some story about Darkseid's intentions for being on earth. These intentions are entirely pointless it seems, or are meant for a larger story. At this point, I could really care less.
Aquaman and Wonder Woman then share a moment of stabbing Darkseid in the eyes. That scene I like. It shows some ruthlessness from both characters that matches Wonder Woman's characterization a bit in her own title. i stopped reading Aquaman, so I don't know if its the same attitude or what, but I like this Aquaman better.
Cyborg then taps into the network that the mother boxes are all working on. The mother boxes are the transportation devices that Darkseid and his army use to travel between worlds. When this happens, batman frees Superman and helps his escape back to earth. Batman gives the inspirational line of "we need Superman" and superman plows into Darkseid.
Then we get about four pages of Cyborg trying to turn off the mother boxes when it only took him a few panels to do it before. Darkseid says he will return and then all the bad guys get teleported away.
But the heroes were being watched! Cue our random character narrator who guides us as we see the Justice League being honored by the president of the US. They all squabble among themselves about if they are even a team. The timing on those characters, its just bad comedy. I can tell Johns was probably thinking about how ironic it is, but I just sighed. The Flash then tells the president that they have a name, and its the Super Seven! But they will work on it.
Next page shows a book written by the narrator guy. The book is called Justice League.
Then, in classic Johns style, there is a preview for the next storyline. Set in London, some mystery guy goes up to another mystery guy and says more heroes are joining the league everyday and that they are being called super heroes. The other guy retorts that the mystery guys will be called super villains. Some random symbol is show of a skull or something.
The back up contains a story about the mysterious Pandora character who helped changed the reality to the new 52 universe. She is supposed to be an observer of worlds with some guns. apparently she can't die. And she has a box. That's right, Pandora has a box. And the Justice League will help her imprison The Strange, whether they like it or not.
Looking back at the story line as a whole, this would have been much better with a different artist. Lee can draw some fancy superhero stuff, but he needs a writer like Jeph Loeb who allows for that to happen. johns can be more wordy and have a bunch more story that isn't as flash in the pan. Hell, the artist for the back up told Johns' story better, but that's for later.
This issue seemed less conclusion for the first story, and more of a preview for the next one. If I was new to DC comics, and I never read a comic before, I would have been done a couple of issues ago. If I was a comic book fan and knew that Geoff Johns has a reputation for writing an awesome story, I would wonder what all the hype was about.
There is no focus through these issues. There is no one character that the reader can connect to in order to follow along with the story and get drawn into the story. This comic was made to be shown and not read.
Which brings us to...
The Art
Four inkers again. That means that Lee was running late. It shows. There are almost no backgrounds. And when there are backgrounds, its very sketchy and leaves out a lot of details. In that first page spread, try to find another character's feet besides Cyborg's boots. Try.
There are panels that just look like a blob, which I think is supposed to be an energy bubble or something. Characters move in ways that defy laws of physics, even for superheroes. When Wonder Woman stabs Darkseid in the eye, it is an awesome moment. I just can't look before that page or after that page, because that's where the inconsistency comes in.
The page where Batman rescues Superman is so off from the rest of the pages, I have to assume there was a different inker involved, and I'm half tempted to say that a different artist was almost involved. Where is the Bat symbol on Batman's chest throughout this issue? I think I remember it being there before Batman jumped into the Boom tube before in the previous issue, so where did it go?
I grew tired of using the Boom tubes for a background about halfway through the issue. Seems like there were boom tubes everywhere and behind everyone. But hey, it takes up space for background images if you want to rush the comic, so let's do it.
Don't even get me started on the one whole page that was the explosion and it was all almost white save for a couple of blast shadows and tiny, tiny figure outlines.
Typically in comics, whenever a President type of figure is shown, they always resembled the current president in some way. So when a white guy is thanking the Justice League, I get kinda lost. Also in the same scene, I wonder why the darkest panel is the one where the Flash calls themselves the Super Seven. That should be the panel that makes the characters stand out and should be shown the brightest.
The page with the book was used as a solicitation for issue #9's cover. That's reusing the comic in an interesting way. To be fair, the solicitation did say that it wasn't the final cover, but come on.
The last page neither tells me nothing to be intrigued about this upcoming villain, nor does it show me anything about this upcoming villain. Not thrilled.
The back up had much, much better art than the main story. It was effective, but matched the main story's art when it came to backgrounds.
The Cover
EVERYTHING IS RED. Except for Batman, because he's so dark, and Green Lantern. Because he's GREEN. If you found the cover confusing, then it matched the story perfectly.
Grades
Words: 2/10 for both main and backup. I still don't care about this Pandora character. I'm not intrigued by her "mystery" at all. And having her have a box, that's just poor, poor creative choices.
Pictures: 2/10 for the main story, 5/10 for the backup.
Recommend: Not for the story, not for the pretty pictures. I had set the bar pretty high due to the creative team and I really felt that they would exceed those expectations. I was way off.
Buy Next Issue: Nope, I'm done. I stuck with the first story arc which I hoped would pan out in the end, but I got bit on the arse. DC has my money for this comic, but they won't be getting any more in the future.
Previous Issues
Justice League #5
Justice League #4
Three Issue Trial
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