Comic Info
Comic Name: Justice League (Volume 2)
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ivan Reis/Doug Mahnke/Joe Prado/Jesus Merino/Vicente Cifuentes/Scott Hanna/Oclair Albert/Christian Alamy/Keith Champagne/Eber Ferreira/Rob Hunter/Mark Irwin/Andy Lanning
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2014
Justice League (2) #27 Variant
Reprints Justice League (2) #24-29 (December 2014-May 2014). The Justice League is dead and the Crime Syndicate has overtaken Earth. The Crime Syndicate’s bonds are loosely woven and their weaknesses could be their own destruction. Owlman works to seduce Dick Grayson out of loyalty to the Dick Grayson of his world while Ultraman and Superwoman have their own plans. Beaten and broken, Victor Stone is barely alive and separated from his other half which has become Grid, but Cyborg must be reborn if the Syndicate can be defeated…and he’s going to need help!
Written by Geoff Johns, Justice League Volume 5: Forever Heroes follows Justice League Volume 4: The Grid. The collection is a tie-in to the DC event series Forever Evil.
I’m not a big fan of event series. I think the “event” took something that was once an occasional thing or relegated to comic annuals and turned it into something kind of destructive to both Marvel and DC. The event comic often messes up all of a company’s comics’ storylines and throws the writers of solid comics into a problem by having to find a way to merge their stories with the event or ignore it. Fortunately for DC, Johns is the one crafting most of DC’s “big picture” stories so he can do it a little better, but Justice League 5: Forever Heroes is still a bit rocky.
Justice League (2) #28
The first half of this collection feels a bit unnecessary. It essentially gives a background on the Crime Syndicate (which isn’t a bad thing), but I feel it should have maybe been in its own mini-series, the actual Forever Evil comic, or perhaps the one-shots that DC put out as part of villain month. It kills any momentum of the comic and leaves you struggling to get through it.
The second half of the volume I kind of enjoyed. I always liked the Metal Men, and they aren’t often part of DC’s popular titles. To see the Metal Men in Justice League is a fun twist, and the fact that the Metal Men are going to play a integral role in the storyline is bonus…unfortunately here, the New 52 version of the Metal Men need a bit more fleshing out instead of a quick one issue introduction (since a lot of readers might not even know them).
Justice League 5: Forever Heroes continues to tell the lack-luster Justice League story. I had hoped for more from the Justice League since I liked Johns’ work on The Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman, but it doesn’t seem to have the extra push it needs. The Forever Evil storyline continues in Forever Evil and in Justice League 6: Injustice League.
Related Links:
Justice League 2: The Villain’s Journey
