So, here we are at the end of Young Justice. In the last two weeks I’ve reviewed final issues of three titles, and out of all of them I think Young Justice sends off its heroes most successfully. It still stumbles into the pitfall of trying to do a little too much, but it has fun doing it, and sets the team up for future adventures.
The main focus of the issue is to get the team situated in their new headquarters: Mount Justice! Between introducing the team to this new spot, the story also looks back in on Keli’s story, and attempts to tie up lingering threads with her by having her talk with a Green Lantern about the GL tech she’s been using.
Keli, like most of the new members of the team, has kind of fallen off my radar. Young Justice never really found a good balance between its original members, the new characters, and all the other characters it packed in. Because of that, it’s easy for them to kind of fall to the wayside, which is disappointing, because I really do like a lot of these characters and if the series had gone longer I would have loved to have seen more of them.
Still, I’m not sure how well trying to randomly tie up Keli’s loose end –which I had forgotten about up until now– works within the framework of this book. Especially since it’s also trying to wrap up the whole story of Young Justice at the same time. While Keli’s part of the story doesn’t quite take up half the narrative, it does pull away from the Mount Justice story enough that both portions feel rushed as a result.
The narrative feels a little lost as to how it’s trying to tie up her story. It plays with the idea of her having friends to back her up, bringing John Stewart in to act as judge/support to her adventuring, and also by trying to tie her to Mount Justice through having Red Tornado be her favorite Leaguer. That’s a lot to pack into one issue, let alone the few pages focused on her. Especially when we haven’t seen a lot of her lately. I would have really loved this particular tale if it had been its own issue.
That said, I did really enjoy Keli’s expressions through the book, and how consistently she’s shown with one part of her mask torn. Stay with me, because I know that sounds odd. But because it’s torn we really get to see her full expression with her eyes, and there’s something about the way Godlewski draws her this way that makes everything pop.
Additionally, Godlewski’s art and Eltaeb’s colors fit this issue well. It’s brightly lit, the action sequences look nice, and Godlewski really manages to capture the look of Mount Justice perfectly. The mountain is only shown clearly in one panel but it looks fantastic, and as someone who’s been revisiting the TV series, this moment actually made me pretty excited.
Most of this book is dedicated to the team exploring Mount Justice, and being reintroduced to it and its guardian: Red Tornado. This part is quite a bit of fun. Tim brings the team to Mount Justice, and he, Conner, Cassie, and Bart get to explain the mountain’s history to everyone else as they tour. I really enjoyed reading a bit about what they’d done there in the past, and I could have read a whole issue focused solely on this exploration and the team reacting to Mount Justice. The tour is peppered with some teen antics and eventually halted when the group has defend themselves in order to prove they are not intruders.
I think choosing to end the story by setting the new team up in Mount Justice is a nice way to tie this series both into its comic roots and back into the show by taking these characters and returning them to a location that both long time fans and one’s brought in through other media will be familiar with. I’m a little disappointed it was saved for the end, but I think it provides a nice send off by giving the team an HQ and the promise of many more adventures to come.
Recommended If
- A little nostalgia in a final issue is your jam
- The promise of future adventures is a good way to end things
- You’ve stuck with the team this far, and want to see where it all ends
Overall
I feel like with Young Justice I always want more out of each issue, and I’m left feeling that way here. I wanted a whole extra issue dedicated to Keli, and another one just focused on Mount Justice. I do like that it decided to give the characters a place to call home, lean into the nostalgia a bit, and show them once more as the team they are. And while I wish it had taken a little more time to do those things, I do think this send off was successful in that I can easily picture this group going on more adventures in the future.
Score: 6/10
DISCLAIMER: DC Comics provided Batman News with a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review.
