The unpredictable nature of gods.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Buccellato
Art: Bruno Redondo, Juan Albarran
What They Say:
His warnings were ignored and now he’s taking matters into his own hands—Zeus returns to lay down the law and make a proclamation that will not sit well with the world.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This series has certainly gotten a bit more engaging with the fights that have finally started to hit a bigger level, even if it did take Superman out of the picture temporarily. The real fun began with Shazam getting himself involved hard and heavy and involving Superman along the way that resulted in the death of Hercules upped the ante. But would the fallout be mostly gods that aren’t exactly the best or well known characters within the DC Universe? We know them of course but as characters they’ve long been bit players in the grand scheme of things. The arrival of Zeus, however, changes the equation in this fight.
With him revoking Shazam’s abilities and returning Billy to normal, it’s made clear that he’s plainly had enough of all of this and refuses to let it go any further. Though the gods have been minimized for a long time, there was a sense that most of them were all right with it as they fiddled among themselves. But with Ares’ scheming all of that has been blown wide open. And Zeus is making it clear he has no patience for any of this. Which comes quickly as Harley does her best to put him in his place since he’s manhandling Billy and she doesn’t like that .His quick elimination of her (if that’s what it actually is) is cold and it really makes an impact on everyone. So much so that even Diana acknowledges that things are now out of favor for her and the Justice League, forcing her to align with the All-Father for now. And that’s the extra push Superman needed to realize that there’s no winning here.
Having Superman disband the League isn’t exactly a surprise, nor is it that it’s temporary as he’s heading off per Zeus’ demand. Telling the others that survival is key now and to return home and wait for his move makes a lot of sense and you know that in the end it’ll require working with Batman and his team because Zeus has gone so far beyond the line. So far, in fact, that even Ares realizes that it’s not going to go well at this rate. That’s setting up some odd bedfellows to be sure, but that’s pretty much what makes this series so much fun. We get characters that wouldn’t align together forced into it because of the reality of the situation and then having to deal with the consequences of it. There’s obviously going to be a big blowup to come but it’s all moving in a very fun, if grim, direction.
In Summary:
I fear for the creative team at this point with their elimination of a very popular character. While that’s a given in a book like this, we haven’t had too much of it in this particular year of it and even in the third it felt a bit light. The game has definitely changed here with Zeus involved and his scale of power is certainly intriguing to see how it adjusts the field. But you also wonder what other powers out there his involvement is going to awaken to the battle at hand, or whether it’ll be kept to those that we know are currently active in all of it. All in all a very fun book, outside of that death. Definitely enjoying the way that Superman’s side is having to really deal with how the events are unfolding.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 11th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
