Written by: Bryan Hitch
Art by: Tony S. Daniel
Publisher: DC Comics
Alright Justice League! A title that I constantly think will be better than it is (how I long for a return to Grant Morrison and Mark Waid’s JLA). The latest in a long string of world threatening catastrophe has been the siphoning of the league’s powers by ordinary people who have now transformed into Giants that embody certain characteristics such as Speed and Motion, collectively called The Kindred. I actually really like the Kindred, from their basic design to the large amount of mystery that surrounds them. They seem to talk in riddles, alluding to The Purge (not the film) and how they must sing together to end the Forever. It gives just enough to maybe give you some ideas into what their purpose is but nowhere near enough to clear up any confusion. Wonder Woman is the main member that appears to be focusing on these and gets absorbed into one, leading to some cool trippy scenes that wouldn’t be out of place from Interstellar.
Aside from that you have the team broken up each doing their own thing to tackle the problem and we don’t see much meaningful interaction between characters as you often don’t at the climaxes of JL stories. There’s missiles coming from somewhere in space and Barry is clearing them as they land while the Green Lanterns find the source, meanwhile Cyborg and Batman get Superman to the Earth’s core to destroy machines there set to bring about the end of the world.
There’s a scene here which seemed a bit clunky to me when Superman is having to convince Lois that he’ll be fine in the core. I just feel that it contrasts really strongly with what we see of their relationship in the Superman issues, Lois is allot more paranoid here, less trusting and the love between them seems very cliche and almost forced as Lois lays out how much he means to her and how she loves him with some very vapid uninspired lines. She says this is nothing like Luthor but isn’t this Post-crises Supes she’s talking to? He’s faced down way worse scenarios than this super-forgettable one.
There is a bit I love with cyborg where he tries to stop a mechanical swarm from attacking everyone by putting out a signal they’re emanating but just ends up attracting them to him.
I hope this was supposed to look this dumb.
This issue is pretty much par for the course of Justice League since Rebirth to me, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. While other series are trying new things and seeing what they can do, JL is content putting out some run-of-the-mill stuff the likes of which we’ve seen plenty of times before.
It’s not brilliant. It’s not horrible. It’s Justice League.
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