Justice League United #10 - A Review

This final issue of the Legion of Superheroes/Justice League United crossover had all the same problems as the previous issues. And for those who missed my earlier reviews, I'm referring to the forcibly posed artwork and complete lack of explanation as to who any of the Legion characters are for the readers who don't know/don't care about the LOSH. And yet, I found this one far more enjoyable than any other part of he crossover so far. And that enjoyment came down to three separate factors.



1. The awesome alternate cover inspired by Mars Attacks.



2. The goofy-ass moment in this panel, where Brainiac 5 briefly becomes Macaulay Culkin.



3. The final few pages, in which the characters are allowed to be characters and have conversations rather than shout exposition.

Alas, I'm not sure how many of these characters will be surviving in this form as we enter into the Post-Convergence DCU.  Still, for all its problems, this book wasn't dull.  I just wish Jeff Lemire had been allowed to do more to bring these characters to life.

Justice League United #9 - A Review

Pro Tip: When you have so many characters in your comic that you can't name them all on a single page and indeed can barely fit their headshots onto a single page, that might be a sign that you have too many damn characters in your comic.


I don't mean to keep harping on this point but that's really all I can say about Justice League United at the moment.  Literally nothing has happened for the past few issues except that more Legionaries keep being sent to the past to fight this one cosmic villain. And the whole affair is mind-blowingly dull in the way that only the most truly awful of LoSH stories (i.e. most of them) can be dull.


The artwork continues to be the high point of this book.  You may not have any idea who any of these characters are or what they can do but by gum they look good doing it!

What happened, Jeff Lemire?  Did Paul Levitz insist on taking over JLU and ghost-writing it now that all the Legion books have been canceled?  Do the have your family?  Is your true opinion of this crossover hidden in Sardath's dialogue about there being too many characters to keep track of?

Just blink twice if you need help!  We are ready to rescue you!

Justice League United #8 - A Review

I must apologize to you all, dear readers. I had intended to review Justice League United #8 today. But owing to some kind of printing error, my copy seems to have been replaced with a Legion of Superheroes comic.

*whisper whisper whisper*

Say that again?

*whisper whisper whisper*

This IS the new issue of Justice League United?

*whisper whisper whisper*

Then why do we barely see the Justice League in it?!  I mean, I know there's a crossover going on, but shouldn't the title team have most of the action focused on them?

*whisper whisper whisper*

You think this gag where I talk to an unseen person is getting stale and I should drop it, especially since it doesn't really make sense in print?  Oh, okay.



In all seriousness, I commented in previous reviews that the presence of Legion characters in this comic was a hindrance to the story as little effort was made to explain who the dozen-or-so characters were and what their powers were, let alone their personalities. Introducing another dozen of them in this issue does little to help matters.  Indeed, nothing of importance really happens in this issue until the last few pages. Until then, everything is all about how things are still terrible in the future and how the Legionaries still in the future come to the past.


At least the artwork by Neil Edwards is still good.  Though one wishes he focused less on two-page splashes and more on trying to make the action flow smoothly.  Edwards is great in an open space but confine him to a few panels on a page and everything becomes hemmed in and sloppy.

Justice League United #7 - A Review

It appears that the cast of Justice League United are as bored with this crossover with The Legion of Superheroes as I am.  At the very least, Animal Man and Green Arrow are fed up with it.  Both of them make wisecracks about how many damned Legionaries there are and how hard it is to keep track of all of them in this issue!


Jeff Lemire tries his best to keep the story moving but the inertia of The Legion continues to hold him back.  It doesn't matter that he slips in some quick gags such as Animal Man and Timberwolf sniffing each other.  The story never bothered to explain who Timberwolf was for the readers who aren't already intimately familiar with every single member of The Legion, their powers and their personalities... or lack thereof!


The artwork this month is an improvement.  Neil Edwards' figures are still forced and stiff, but this is less obvious in the splash pages that dominate the second half of the comic.  Strangely, though this issue features two inkers, the finishes on the comic seem less erratic than they did last month when only one inker was assigned to the book.

Justice League of America #8 - A Review

Justice League of America #8 starts promisingly enough, with Martian Manhunter and Stargirl awakening in a field and quickly becoming aware that they are trapped in some kind of prison.  This apparently is the fate of all the world's greatest superheroes in the wake of Trinity War. Placing these two heroes together is a brilliant conceit and one that plays wells to Kindt's experience writing Martian Manhunter.

The main problem is the story fails to build past this concept.  Most of the issue depicts Martian Manhunter as he explores the prison and discovers the ingenious ways that most of the other heroes are being held captive.  There's very little plot or action here, though the ways in which the various heroes are trapped are interesting academically for those fans who like to discuss these sorts of things.


Indeed, Kindt may well be offering some of the best metaphysical examination these characters have received in years.  Superman, for instance is bound both by his belief that he cannot take a life and his desire to make things right.  This has him trapped in a never-ending orbit around the Earth, desperately trying to fly fast enough to go back in time and prevent the mistakes he believes started his current problems.  Why?  Because he's Superman and he has to be perfect.  In just one page, Kindt has exposed the folly of the classicist Superman fans who would have Superman literally running around in circles to remain perfectly pure. 

Wonder Woman is in a similar bind, trapped fighting two armies - Amazons and the US Army - to save her two appointed love interests - Superman and Steve Trevor.  Diana decries how the whole situation has left her paralyzed by her feelings, "simpering (and) weak".  These are the last things Wonder Woman should ever be and the idea of her fighting her own people to save a love interest - much less two of them - is similarly anathema though similarly rooted in the classic stories of the Silver Age.  Thus we have the problem of the modern Diana, who is also forced into contrived and unnatural situations based on what people think her character should be.      


As before, the artwork is largely excellent.  Doug Mahnke continues to show the same skill and quality that he did during his time on Green Lantern.  The only problem is that the general look of his work throughout the book is inconsistent due to four different inkers being employed to handle the shading and detail work.  None of this looks bad as such but it does make the whole affair seem erratic. 

Justice League of Ameica #7 - A Review

As with the previous chapters of The Trinity War, the best moments of Justice League of America #7 are those brief character moments unconnected to the main plot. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the opening scene where Pandora confronts an imprisoned Lex Luthor.  Lex is his gloriously snide self and Pandora is... well, a living plot device with no purpose but to push the story forward.


The action of the issue plays out well enough but the moments readers are most likely to find memorable are the quieter scenes where the characters are allowed to talk and play off one another.  Yet Johns and Lemire do find ways to sneak character-development into the action.  Consider the scene where Question's team of League members confronts Dr. Psycho and Martian Manhunter is given a chance to distinguish himself from Superman in terms outside of his super powers.  


The artwork of Doug Mahnke continues to amaze.  His pencils are clear enough and offer a goodly portion of detail without becoming cluttered in the smaller panels.  The book's inking continues to be it's biggest flaw, with a team of five inkers with differing styles rendering the final look of the book inconsistent despite there only being one penciler.

Justice League of America #6 - A Review

Justice League of America #6 is far less than the sum of its' parts.  This is not to say that the book is totally without merit - far from it!  Geoff Johns and Jeff Lemire give us many great character moments and some wonderful drama but all of this is incidental to the rather lackluster plot involving the so-called Trinity of Sin and Pandora's Box.


Honestly, this book would be much more enjoyable if Johns and Lemire were free to ignore the big epic battles between vaguely defined supernatural forces and just focused on letting the characters be themselves for a time.  Many of these characters are green and undefined, particularly in the case of the new Justice League members.  Throwing these characters we've had no chance to get to know and less time to care about beating each other senseless is nowhere near as interesting as watching a brief interaction between Wonder Woman and John Constantine. 

The Goddess of Truth and a magical conman being forced to work together?  Now, THAT is interesting!  I also have to give the writers credit for making Wonder Woman the main focus of this issue and letting her be the one to start investigating the case in earnest.  Diana rarely gets to take the center stage in these big events and I for one am glad to see her in the spotlight!    


The artwork of this issue is as uneven as the story.  DC Comics really needs to stop putting teams of multiple inkers to work on single books.  Doug Mahnke's pencils look decent enough from what I can tell but they are rendered quite differently depending on which of the book's four inkers are working on what pages.  Anyone who doubts the power an inker has on the final look of a book would do well to study this issue and learn the error of their ways.