Beautiful artwork, but a whole lot of nothing happens in this issue.
The first page recaps how Madame Xanadu is being held captive, Batman’s team failed to find any answers in the underworld, Shazam was tricked by Constantine, ARGUS was blown up, and Wonder Woman is now corrupted by the ring box. What follows is page after page of your heroes arguing about what exactly is going on (5 chapters in and none of these character have figured it out yet) and wrestling over who gets to hold the box next.
If you like comics where all your favorite superheroes fight one another then you’ll probably enjoy this but if you want actual plot development then you’re going to be frustrated with how horribly paced this whole “event” has been. From the looks of it you really could’ve read chapter one and then skipped all the way to chapter 6 because this whole thing is one overly-stretched prologue to the real story that’s going to be coming out next month called Forever Evil.
Overall
Mikel Janin and Jeromy Cox’s artwork is astounding. This comic is full of beautiful imagery, but writer Jeff Lemire doesn’t push the plot forward enough and instead we get an issue full of hero vs. hero brawls that feel like fan-service and not much else.
SCORE: 5/10
