The Good
There’s something to be said for a good, solid, traditional superhero story, particularly amidst shake-ups, events and crossovers that are seemingly becoming the new norm, leaving thee status quo in a state of perpetual shakeup, and robbing the notion of any kind of logic or consistency. This is a return to form for the Justice League and I think it couldn’t have come at a better time. Geoff Johns is, of course, a seasoned veteran of these characters and this title, so he writes the story of Lex Luthor’s virus gone amok with an effortless skill. This issue gives us a closer look at how the virus works and, perhaps even more importantly, why Luthor developed it in the first place. If he’s telling the truth, and that is of course a massive IF, it not only makes sense, but it rescues the mad genius from the pit of returning to his old “world domination” ways. I’ve always thought Luthor was at his most interesting when he truly believed that what he was doing was helping, that he WAS a hero and I think one of the best changes that spawned out of Forever Evil was him actually joining the Justice League. It’s good to see that, at least from this, Johns intends on keeping him there.
Jason Fabok handles the linework and does a simply amazing job. He’s an interesting choice for a Justice League title as those tend to skew more toward the epic and bombastic visually while Fabok is more known for grittier fare, but he fits right in on this titles dark, dreary post-The Stand look and feel. He brings a sense of grit and grittiness to the issue, but still manages to make the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman look upright and dignified, nearly brimming with hope even as everything is crumbling around them. There’s not a lot of action in this issue, but there’s an absolutely savage intensity that permeates everything that’s going on and Fabok communicates the desperation as well as the intensity of the situation in every panel and on everyone’s faces. Brad Anderson provides the colors and it would be difficult to imagine the desperation and the dreariness of this title coming through nearly as well without his dreary-yet-razor-sharp style. The fact that it’s raining through most of the issue and it still looks this good and clear and detailed is a credit to his work.
The Bad
This issue, unfortunately, opens with a multipage recap that, while visually interesting, doesn’t advance the story a great deal (of the three pages, only one is advancing the plot, the other two are simply recapping it) and it feels like wasted space. It’s visually interesting, at the very least, but it feels like these same visuals could be applied to something other than what happened last issue.
There’s also a flagrant deus-ex machina that robs a lot of the previous issue’s cliffhanger of its bite. The whole sequence isn’t bad, but it comes off as sloppy where one or two things happen because they must rather than because they should. It hardly ruins the issue, and it’s cool in the moment, but it doesn’t hold up to critical scrutiny.
The Verdict
This issue may not be setting the world on fire, but frankly the world could use some cooling off anyway. What we get is a solid, Luthor-focussed issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE (still feels weird to type Luthor and Justice League without talking about them battling) that helps answer a few questions, but leaves a few tantalizingly open, and does a great job cementing the character’s role in the League. Hopefully he’s there to stay, because he brings a certain something to the title and the team that strengthens it on a lot of levels.