Before I begin talking about this issue I would just like to apologize and hold myself accountable for misgendering Kid Quick in my last review. Thankfully a fellow editor was able to correct the mistake but I shouldn’t have assumed that I knew their gender and especially when there are so few nonbinary characters it’s an even bigger shame to have posted a review that failed to gender them properly. I will do my best to not repeat these kinds of errors and am very thankful to the person in the comments section of my last review who pointed out the mistake. Now back to your regularly scheduled program!
Multiversity: Teen Justice is over! Or is it? Most loose ends are tied up with a neat little bow and a final confrontation requires help from the worst written character to have shown their face in this mini-series. I can imagine this might be satisfying to any reader with a love for the characters but I’m gonna talk about why this ending felt lacking.
This issue is definitely an improvement not just of the previous issue but of most issues before it. We do get to see the glimpses of great character dynamics that remind me of the wonderful writing in the first two issues of this story and yet with the majority of these issues having such mediocre and even at times terrible writing, the story’s conclusion here is just barely an improvement.
For example in the previous issue I felt like their confrontation was very arbitrary and that both sides just ended up getting an advantage whenever Danny Lore and Ivan Cohen felt like it. This issue does a much better job by delivering action heavy pages side by side with different characters sharing their thoughts and feelings about Kid Quick’s decision to fight the bad guys by themself.
There are more examples of how this particular issue feels like an improvement but after the big fight, it’s like, the stories being patched up are nice in this one instance but give me absolutely no desire to go back and read it from the beginning. I don’t want to go beyond the resolution presented in this issue and that’s what’s making me wonder if the reason I’m so much happier now is because I know that this story is finally over.
The original artist of this mini-series returns for the final issue and brings back the familiar world of Multiversity: Teen Justice that I’ve always really enjoyed. The strength of Marco Failla’s work for me has been the ability to make the world seem fun and light-hearted even when characters are actively displaying grief over fallen heroes. While there are plenty of panels that have energetic displays of the whole group there are also these panels where we get to empathize with the character grieving in the foreground while being amused by the facial expressions of those in the background. The range that Marco Failla’s art can contain is limitless and can constantly have elements of their work bounce off each other and inhabit each other’s spaces without anything seeming out of place.
My only criticism being that the art in this issue has very little to offer us in terms of background details for anything that isn’t the main characters. The lighthouse on Amnesty Island could’ve had the imprint on it (from the crashing wave from a previous issue) as a fun easter egg for keen readers to discover for example.
Recommended if:
- There was nothing to complain about so far so this neat ending won’t get tampered by past disappointments
- You want the most basic questions brought up by this mini-series to be answered and you don’t care how
- You’re from the future, super into Georgia Gardner, and can’t wait to be disappointed by her first appearances
Overall
Since this issue was able to answer many questions and provide an entertaining and well fleshed out fight I can certainly see the value in it for those who just really like Multiversity: Teen Justice. I thought I was one of those people too. Now I think that the mini-series is just pretty mediocre and will only be fondly remembered because the staff managed to do the beginning and end parts really well. If I was just passively engaging with this story I could see myself enjoying it a lot more but after trying to unpack and attempt to follow each thread this finale just feels kind of hollow.
Score: 6.5/10
Disclaimer: DC Comics provided Batman News with a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review.
