the_mighty_monarch's Justice League International #5 - The Signal Masters, Part 5 review

    Avatar image for the_mighty_monarch

    Too Many Jokes I Could Make For This Title

    That cover. I could almost stop there. This is positively the worst cover of the series yet. Once again, David Finch's art style doesn't really compliment Aaron Lopresti's very well, but the one gets worse. Guy Gardner looks like the bastard child of every square jawed action hero and a monkey. Everyone is just a little too small, and seem so inconsequential to the cover. This could've been an effective style to suit the theme, but they're just TOO insignificant, I barely even remember they're on the cover. In fact, this cover makes me not even think about them too much, ruining the mood because in my mind they're not there for me to feel the insignificance of them. All of that is swept under the rug by its own flaw, but it's not helped by the biggest sin of the image. Peraxxes looks HORRIBLE. I mean, I hate the guy's design already, but Finch made him look even worse, and nothing like the normal design. Seriously, that looks NOTHING like Peraxxus. And it looks so heinously ugly. Look at that ridiculous.... nose plate? It goes up past to his forehead, and its skinny. And the stupid little side things on his helmet look like.... I don't even know. And his helmet is one incredibly smooth dome. It doesn't have the lines it does in the interiors. And his eyes look far too small, which clash with the eye sockets, and make him look dumber. OH. And Godiva has the wrong color scheme, or that's just the completely wrong character.

    However, Aaron Lopresti's interior artwork is as smooth as ever. Nothing to specifically gush about, but of undeniable high quality. It's some of the best of the more 'normal' comic book artwork.

    So as for the writing, there's a lot of pretty nice stuff here that evokes the feel of the old school JLI, but a little more focused. The approach to story isn't as scattershot with constant tangents to jokes and running jokes. Although I'm not saying that was a bad thing in the old series. It worked well because it used the characters so well as characters and not just figures to drive the story and fighting. This new series loses a little bit of that depth, but still does a decent job with the characters. I especially admired the spot on characterization of Guy Gardner. Certain people make him more irritable, Booster Gold being high on that list. And it evokes the feel of his former total asshole self, blended with the more modern likable 'jerk' who really just tells things like they are instead of being a cocky douche. Godiva finally shows herself to be more than just a flat sex joke because she IS a flat sex joke. I'll explain. That's he approach to being a superhero. She does plenty of heroic stuff, but when it comes to the big leagues, she KNOWS she doesn't have what it takes because she KNOWS she's kind of a fluff head. So she freaks out. She thought this would be a publicity gig, exactly what she's best suited for, so to see herself wrapped up in this cosmic stuff makes her seriously freak her shit out. It gives her an interesting depth to being an 'all flash no substance' hero. And Rocket Red is still nothing more than comic relief and I am more than okay with that.

    And as I've come to expect, the fighting was cool and well utilized each character. Some nice stuff was done to give this a different feel from the normal Justice League. There was a nice 'International' feel, with the global coverage of the worldwide events.

    There's a few minor flaws, Peraxxus still has a terrible design and a terrible name; and he's promised to return. A lot of stuff gets too little explanation and too little characters questioning the lack of explanation. Despite the global feel, we don't see any other heroes doing ANYTHING, which seems pretty odd. And Batman postulates that Peraxxus is "More than just a high tech miner" because he can strip a planet of everything down to bacteria or something. Unclear how he quite knows that much, and unclear as to how that makes him all that much more than a high tech miner. Maybe a super high tech miner, but still. Or I guess he's just a super high tech scavenger. Which still isn't 'far more' than a high tech miner.

    In Conclusion: 4/5

    It's a solid series. It's nothing I tend to get super excited about, but it doesn't really disappoint me much. It isn't really striving to incredible heights, so its kind of a really safe series to follow. I pretty much know I'm going to be entertained, but likely not blown away. Although David Finch should not keep doing covers, and Peraxxus needs to be banned from everything ever.

    Other reviews for Justice League International #5 - The Signal Masters, Part 5

      A Lackluster Finish 0

      Justice League International is a series that's suppose to be about a superhero team tackling larger than life or end of the world type of scenarios. In a sense it's suppose to be epic, yet it falls quite short of achieving that.  With the end of the world fast approaching, the members of the JLI are currently trapped within an inferno. Eventually they escape and then must decide how to take on Peraxxus. While reading this you just don't feel the sense of urgency from any of these characters. Th...

      2 out of 2 found this review helpful.

      Okay, I'm Done 0

      So we open with the giant robots destroying the planet, very slowly destroying the planet mind you but still destroying the planet, and several news stations report on the horror of these events. One guy asks: Where is Superman, Where is the Justice League? You know, that's a damn good question but we'll get to that at the end. Peraxxus sits in his ship destroying any military attempt to take out his ship and wondering why the second X in his name is necessary. The JLI have stayed alive due to B...

      2 out of 2 found this review helpful.

    This edit will also create new pages on Comic Vine for:

    Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.

    Comment and Save

    Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Comic Vine users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.