This is going to be a tough book to review, because there are so many surprises in it so I’ll likely keep things short. Geoff Johns brings back the idea of there being a traitor in the Justice League’s midst, a surprise cameo by a much loved character SHOW SPOILER ▼

Plain and simple: it’s a book that’s going to give fans A LOT to talk about. It’s an issue that stirs up all kinds of debate and fan theories and most importantly it’s going to get you a little more excited for Trinity War, which is actually starting to feel real. I know I have gotten tired of waiting for this thing to happen, what with it being hyped for well over a year.

The only thing that disrupted my complete enjoyment of this issue would have to be the artwork. There’s a guy doing layouts, three guys doing pencils, three guys doing inks, and two handling the colors. It’s amazing it looks as good as it does with that many cooks in the kitchen, but still, a few of the transitions are noticeable and the quality overall feels a bit rushed with the line work being overly dense. I simply find the heavy lines and frequent cross-hatching to be unappealing. SHOW SPOILER ▼

As for the Shazam backup, the artwork by Gary Frank is as lovely as usual and he even got to draw more of Kahndaq with some neat flying carpets and everything! The story is, as always, very captivating only it felt even shorter this time… or maybe it was even more of a page turner than usual and I blew through the thing even faster. It’s good and it definitely has some surprising elements. It’s a whole book of surprises!

Issue #20 picks up where we left off last time only it takes the time to better develop the new recruits Element Woman (who I think I actually might like), Firestorm, and the Atom while pushing the story ever closer to Trinity War. It’s a fast paced issue with a lot of twists and turns and more than enough action to satisfy everybody. Add that with the Shazam backup and you have a winning combination that’s worth your $3.99. Had the Justice League portion featured artwork that I could label anything higher than “passable” this would’ve been a 10/10.

SCORE: 9/10

The post New 52 – Justice League #20 review appeared first on Batman News.

Beyond that we get to see more from the new recruits, Atom and Firestorm, who add levity to an issue that deals quite heavily with team politics. Superman and Wonder Woman’s romance is causing more problems and for some reason these characters are being portrayed as naive teenagers who don’t seem to grasp how a union between the most powerful man and woman on the planet could make folks uneasy. And the way Wonder Woman talks to Superman in their alone time is definitely reminding me of the video game and tie-in comic Injustice: Gods Among Us. It’s beginning to look more and more like their union will play a major role in the much anticipated Trinity War. Wonder Woman and Superman need to grow up and have a stronger presence on the team. As it stands, Cyborg and Batman are the most mature and responsible players while Aquaman and Green Lantern are both MIA because they have their own problems and Flash continues to struggle to find anything worth doing on this team.

The Justice League portion of the book flies by and as always, Ivan Reis’ artwork looks amazing. Some of the pages with Atom and our surprise villain were the most breathtaking for me. However, the “WTF” cover of this issue was quite misleading. There really isn’t anything all that shocking to speak of in this issue. Easily one of the most tame comics to come out of this month’s event.

As you can imagine, the Shazam backup continues to be beautifully illustrated and incredibly fun and entertaining. Now that Billy is running around with the rest of the kids, the book has taken on a bit of a Goonies quality and there’s nothing wrong with that. Who doesn’t like The Goonies? But most importantly, we get a glimpse at Black Adam’s origin and that could definitely surprise some people. I know I’m sounding like a broken record here, but the Shazam backups are consistently the best part of buying this comic and I wish the character had his own solo series.

This is a comic worth picking up I think. The twist at the end of the last issue is hardly addressed so in a way this feels like a fresh new start and a good jumping on point for new readers. Great art, cool action, and as this arc chugs along in coming months it looks like we’re going to have a pretty formidable bad guy. It’s not as impressive as the Throne of Atlantis saga, but it’s entertaining enough.

SCORE: 7.5/10

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Awesome cover, eh? Shame Cyborg doesn’t have his own book yet. The guy has easily been one of the most important members of the team in every arc so far. He has total access to all the world’s intel, he’s incredibly powerful, and he’s basically the Justice League’s bus. The boom tube effect is a pretty cool power and a helluva dramatic entrance.

So what is the actual comic about? Well now that the epic Throne of Atlantis story is over we’re in for a bit of a cool down and a return of the Shazam backups (yay). The Justice League portion is perhaps too slow though. It’s basically just a big group of costumed grownups sitting around a table for several pages SHOW SPOILER ▼

Things do get more complicated near the end so the issue isn’t just witty banter and fan-service SHOW SPOILER ▼

You’ll notice quite the change in artwork from previous issue. Filling in this month is Jesus Saiz who really does a supurb job of giving each character their own unique look. No two faces look the same and in a room full of square jaws and perfect hair, that’s saying something. I particularly liked his Wonder Woman. However, the Watch Tower hasn’t had a whole lot of life breathed into it. There aren’t many backgrounds at all and for a story that takes place almost entirely in one room it would’ve been nice to have had a bit more scenery. The colors are also quite pure and the tale has an overly clean look. It makes for an interesting contrast between this series and the dirty, dingy appearance of JLA.

As always, the Shazam backup is glorious. Gary Frank’s artwork is phenomenal, the characters are all likeable (there’s a Goonies reference– and if you listened to Geoff Johns’ Fatman on Batman interview then you’ll get a bit more out of that neat little nod). I really wish that this story was it’s own series. I know I’ve said that time and time again, but it kills me every time I reach the end of this brief 8 page look at what could be one of the best ongoing series in DC’s entire lineup.

Justice League #18 is a nice little breather after the all-out-war of Throne of Atlantis but it’s more fun for die-hard DC fans looking for familiar faces than it is casual readers looking for story. Some exciting stuff is thrown in at the end that could lead somewhere great but only time will tell. The Shazam backup is still a joy to read but if you haven’t kept up with that since the beginning you won’t know what’s going on.

SCORE: 7.5/10

The post New 52 – Justice League #18 review appeared first on Batman News.

So going into this I had a pretty good feeling that it would be better than Volume 1. I liked Volume 1, those stories didn’t quite resonate with me as monthly issues but it worked really well in trade format. Looking back at The Villain’s Journey, I felt as though I enjoyed those episodes more from month to month so naturally it would make an even better trade than ORIGIN. But after re-reading The Villain’s Journey here and now in this hardcover collection I realize that my affection for this arc was due in large part to how well it ended with issue #12 and how much I loved the Shazam backup tales, which aren’t included! I still found it to be an enjoyable read, but without those Shazam stories for support I think that ORIGIN is a step above and the recent Throne of Atlantis storyline is easily the best of the Justice League stories the New 52 has seen yet.

Presentation

The cover for Justice League #11 was used for this hardback novel and I don’t think it was the right choice. This isn’t really a big deal at all, but the image puts a lot of the focus on The Flash and he really doesn’t do much at all. In fact, he’s been the weakest contributor of the entire team in all of the 18 issues that have been published so far. ORIGIN was more of an ensemble and the cover for that release gave each hero equal billing, but when it comes to the Villain’s Journey the two characters who stand out above everyone else are easily Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman. This is their book more than anyone’s. It’s a shame Flash hasn’t been used better in this series yet. It makes me curious about his own ongoing series. I’d like to see him do something useful for a change and I understand that the artwork in The Flash has been top notch.

The real problem with the book’s presentation isn’t the cover though. I just wanted to address The Flash. The problem is the binding. This is something I’ve complained about with far, far too many graphic novels in the past, but usually when there’s a binding issue it never crops up until midway through the book. Sadly, that’s not the case here. Imagery starts to vanish into the spine right from the get-go. One of the worst moments of this happening was this awesome two page spread of the League battling Martian Manhunter. Here’s what it should look like:

And here’s what it looked like in the hardcover edition:

As you can see from the photo I’m even trying to pull the book open as much as I can and we still can’t see Wonder Woman’s head. I had to do this quite a bit throughout reading the book and if felt like I was trying to break-in a baseball glove.

Content

The Villain’s Journey collects issues #7-12 of The Justice League. These issues were the very first to actually take place in the current New 52 timeline because ORIGIN, the arc that came before it, took place 5 years in the past. While all 6 issues of the Graves arc are included the Shazam backups are not. Those shorts were a HUGE part of what I enjoyed so much about reading theses stories as monthly floppy comics so not finding them here is a bit of a bummer. However, it is reassuring to know that this must surely mean that all of the Shazam backups will eventually be collected in their very own graphic novel and I cannot wait for that to happen!

Now, as for The Villain’s Journey, the real story doesn’t begin until chapter 3. Chapters 1 and 2 seemed to be there only to establish a foundation for the newly released Justice League of America series. The first issue introduced us to Steve Trevor for the first time, a character who quickly became a favorite of mine. I found him to easily be the most well written characters in the book and I really empathized with him. Graves, our villain is hardly touched upon though. Instead we focus on Trevor and learn more about the level of celebrity the Justice League has today. The same group from ORIGIN has never expanded their ranks and they’ve also never faced a real challenge since the invasion of Darkseid 5 years ago. They’re quite unstoppable. Even after an apparent brawl with Amazo that leveled a couple of buildings in chapter 2 not a single member of the team has a scratch or scuff mark to show for it. They are perceived as godlike and living in serving in perfect harmony alongside one another by the public that loves them so well. This of course is not true.

If you’ve read ORIGIN you know that in the beginning all the team did was squabble and bicker and they sounded like snotty high school kids more so than heroes. Well, surprisingly their relationship hasn’t exactly changed over the past 5 years. At all. They still squabble and bicker and they’re all very sarcastic toward one another. And while they’ve been up against countless obstacles over the years they are still totally disorganized. Batman tries to bark orders but nobody listens, and why should they? They’re the Justice League. They’ve got Superman plus a guy who can create anything with a thought! Five years and they haven’t matured. Cyborg actually seems to be the most mature and most developed member of the gang and he’s the youngest. I mean, Cyborg really seems like he has his stuff together and I can’t help but wonder why on earth he hasn’t been given his own solo series yet.

The second chapter is entirely about the League’s unwillingness to include more members and it’s a comedic episode for the most part. It’s all quite amusing as we watch Green Arrow get shunned time and time again by the cool kids, but as I said before, the real heart of The Villain’s Journey never starts to beat until we reach chapter 3 and Jim Lee comes back on board. Before now these chapters were illustrated by Gene Ha and Carlos D’Anda who both did a fine job but had vastly different styles from one another and from Jim Lee who carries the rest of the story from chapter 3 onward. Since those opening chapters didn’t have the same level of importance as everything else that followed, it’s likely that that’s why Jim Lee took those issues as an opportunity for a break.

Overall the artwork in the book is quite good from the fill-ins to Jim Lee’s work. There are some absolutely stunning splash pages here like the Martian Manhunter one I posted, but there’s definitely nowhere near as many as there were in Volume 1: ORIGIN. The first graphic novel to come out of this series far exceeds The Villain’s Journey in the visuals department. Also, there was an awkward mistake that really should’ve been fixed before this went to print: issue #3 has a panel that shows Flash colored as the Green Lantern and Green Lantern colored red like the Flash.

So as for the actual Villain’s Journey… yeah, the villain this time around is more developed this time around but being more developed than Darkseid was in the last volume isn’t that great of an achievement. I think Darkseid’s only line was “I am Darkseid.” and then he just stomped around like Godzilla for a few pages. It looked cool, but that was about it. Graves, our villain in this book, has an origin story, a pretty good motivation for hating the Justice League, and a unique super power. And to be fair the actual journey he takes to become a villain is interesting but it doesn’t have quite as much time devoted to it as it probably could have. His plan for bringing down the Justice League isn’t that exciting either. But in the end the repercussions of his attack makes for some interesting changes in the group and throughout the DC universe in general. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the final chapter is a must-read. Even when it was published as a single over-sized issue (Shazam was left out that month) I declared it to be a good jumping on point. How’s that when it’s the conclusion of a 6 part arc (really more like 4 parts because we spent time with Steven and Ollie to kick things off)? Because there’s three pages worth of exposition at the beginning of that chapter.

Three pages worth of TMZ (Yeah, that TMZ) talking about all the gossip surrounding the Justice League and their fight with Graves, which is exposition to catch all the new readers up on what’s been going in the story so far. The new readers I’m talking about are all the people who rushed to buy Justice League #12 due to its cover and if you don’t know what I’m talking about then I won’t spoil it for you here. It was a pretty smart idea because like I said it made it easy for the uninitiated to jump on board but when you’re reading the graphic novel? It doesn’t work well at all. In fact it was downright annoying to reach the final chapter of this book only to have a surprisingly accurate depiction of the cast of what I consider the most obnoxious show on television summarize everything I’ve been reading so far. After those pages though it’s all smooth sailing toward an enjoyable and surprising finale that ends The Villain’s Journey on a high note.

Notes

• Great artwork
• Funny
• Quick read
• Hero vs. Hero fights (I don’t care about ‘em but I know many like to see good guys duke it out)
• Sucks for Flash fans
• Great for Wonder Woman & Steve Trevor fans
• Batman doesn’t have much to do
• Villain with an interesting origin but a lame plan
• Pathetic attempt to make the bad guy seem cool by having him whoop the entire League in like a page or two. The good guys just stood there and took the beating.
• Defeat of the villain is rather cheap and forgettable
• Huge changes for the future of the series
• It’s called the Villain’s Journey but it’s the heroes who truly grow as characters over the course of this book. It’s ridiculous that they never developed over the past 5 years as a group or as individuals but it happens here and now so it’s better late than never.

Supplemental Material

Variant cover gallery. It is what it is. They’re great covers, don’t get me wrong, but I want something more substantial when you’re depriving people of Shazam.

Value

Is it worth the full price of $24.99? Nah. At $4 bucks a pop for the single issues that actually included more content with Shazam backups you’re actually getting less comic for around the same money at that price. Is it worth the The Amazon price of $14.75? Yeah. That’s fair. That’s an all around good deal for the amount of fun you’ll have reading this book. And it’s got a pretty decent re-read value to it too.

Overall

It’s slow getting started and then rushes to a finale, but Justice League: The Villain’s Journey even with all its faults  and lack of Shazam goodness is a fun read with great artwork and some pretty important developments for the DC Universe that fans will need to see.

SCORE: 7/10

The post Justice League, Vol. 2: The Villain’s Journey review appeared first on Batman News.

Whooooooooaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Although The Throne of Atlantis storyline wrapped up a lot sooner than I expected it definitely went out with a bang.

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As a Batman fan it sucks to see the Dark Knight get slapped around and Gotham get devastated the way they do in this issue but as a reader who needed a good action comic after reading Catwoman #16, this was awesome.

I think I might start listing how well the League members do in each issue. Like this:

Batman – Not a good issue for him, but he was way, way outmatched. It doesn’t exactly make sense how he could survive what happens to him and the rest of the league here either.

Superman – It looks like he’s going to get a cool moment, but gets whooped

Wonder Woman – Gets a nice “back off my man” moment, but gets whooped

Flash – Where was Flash? What’s happened to Flash? I don’t remember him quitting when Green Lantern left. (Good friend and longtime reader @KyleLofton says that Grodd is taking over Central city so I guess Flash has his hands full)

Aquaman – Of course he comes off great, it’s his event.

Cyborg – Probably his best issue yet. He’s very proactive here as opposed to simply being used for his teleporting ability like he’s the Justice League’s talking bus.

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If you’re going to continue reading Justice League for the Throne of Atlantis storyline then you’re going to need to pick up Aquaman as well to get the full story. I’m sure they’ll try and write it so  you’ll be able to follow along well enough if you only pick up Justice League but if you ask me you should be picking up Aquaman right now anyway. It’s a buck cheaper than Justice League and I’ve found it to be one of the best, most consistent series to come out of the New 52.

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This was easily the best quasi-bat-title from Wednesday. However, the thing that made it good wasn’t so much the Justice League side of it as it was the terrific Shazam backup. The backup was all about Black Adam adapting to a new era and wrecking lives and causing property damage in the process. Great artwork, great villainy, great fun. It was also probably the longest backup story so far. Usually those last for 7-8 pages but this one was around 11 pages long. That means that the 2nd and final part of the Cheetah story in Justice League was quite short.

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This comic has no Bat-anything in it whatsoever. Does it have some important stuff in it that will affect Batman in the future? Yes. But for now Justice League #0 has little to do with the league and instead is totally a Shazam comic… and it’s pretty great.

I’ve made it pretty clear how much I’ve enjoyed the Billy Batson backups by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank these past few months and to finally get a full issue devoted entirely to one of the most underrated super heroes is a delight. I can’t wait for all of these backups to finally get collected in their own TPB–which better happen. Issue #0 of Justice League didn’t give me chills like Batwoman #0 did, but it definitely had me laughing out loud. Seriously, I chuckled. I’ve always thought Shazam had incredible potential to be a very entertaining ongoing comic and he could even carry his own movie if the creators keep in mind that when Billy turns into an adult superhero, he’s still just a kid at heart. The Young Justice cartoons do a great job of executing this. Shazam (still called Captain Marvel on the show, last time I checked) stars in some of the best episodes.

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