A new challenge awaits!
Creative Staff:
Story: Steve Orlando
Art: Andy MacDonald
Colors: John Rauch
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
“HEART OF A BASTICH” part one! The JLA discovers a super arms dealer has transformed an entire city into his own massive militia force. And when the team can’t liberate its citizens from the outside, they turn to their own legendary master of mass destruction…Lobo!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The road to Justice League of America was a fun one for me with the character intro specials before it launched into the Rebirth debut and the series proper. The slow build was a big positive for me but what may have won me over more was Steve Orlando making the opening arc just four issues instead of writing for a six-issue easy to collect trade. The Kravnia adventure worked well but it was tidied up right and likely could have been a strong three-issue run as well. With this new arc, we get Andy MacDonald on the artwork and he’s definitely ideally suited for some of what goes on here, particularly when it comes to Lobo and just the design for Aegeus and the other mythical oriented material as it has a great kind of blockiness to it that just feels right, particularly with Rauch’s color work.
The start of this new arc sets a couple of different things in motion and part of me wishes they were their own arc. The opening segment is interesting enough as Vixen introduces the League to the world in Happy Harbor at Mount Justice and essentially says they’re going to treat the place like the White House in that people will be able to see what’s going on, transparency, and interaction. While one can see the thing as a huge and easy target for villains, there are so many places this can go just in who could show up and the dynamics of it all that I’d love to see four issues of that with some intrigue combined with seeing superheroes deal with it. I do like that the less reputable side of the team gets called out with Frost and Lobo, but I also liked how Batman isn’t there as he’s not going to be a visible member in that sense of things. It puts some real uncertainty and distrust toward the team and also a wariness because of the stated goal of going anywhere to do what’s needed and not just America, which I still think is an opportunity lost.
While Kravnia was the focus of the first arc, this one sets the team to Penn City where Aegeus has set up shop to sell weapons of folklore and myth. Naturally, the team is showing up to stop him, especially after Ray catches wind of it, and this leads into some of the problems of places where the industrial blight has hit. Though it’s very slim and not really looking to go into details, the idea of a place with 99% unemployment and no options means it’s easy to see why people would sign up with Aegeus just to make some ends meet without thinking of the consequences. The fun part with this part of the arc is getting to see Lobo in action, especially with MacDonald’s two-page spreads that let him barrel through a lot of Aegeus’ men, but also to see that he’s going to suffer a bit. It’s hard to say whether there can or should be some sort of redemption for Lobo here considering his body count, but I’m curious to see how the team dynamic handles it and the public reaction as it goes on if they tackle that.
In Summary:
As an opening to a new arc, it’s pretty busy and chaotic in the usual ways and I do wish there was a bit more background provided on Aegeus as that’s one that I don’t know much anything about. I’m definitely more interested in what Mount Justice will be like with the open policy in play and how that’ll factor with the team and just some of the dynamics there if some of them live there as well. The Penn City arc should be a decent bit of fun and I’m enjoying the back and forth between Lobo and Batman, though it feels like there needs to be a real pecking order established sooner rather than later so we can get a bit better team dynamic. This issue is light on some characters, want more Ryan!, but it’s putting some fun stuff out there once again.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: April 26th, 2017
MSRP: $2.99
