Wherein Batman again proves he’s not the right one for this team.
Creative Staff:
Story: Steve Orlando
Art: Felipe Watanabe, Scott Hanna
Colors: Hi-Fi
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
“THE MAN FROM MONSTER VALLEY” part two! The hidden truth of Makson and his family is brought to the surface—as are his superhuman powers, which the Man from Monster Valley turns on the Justice League in this tale of treachery and revenge!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Justice League of America gives us another installment that makes me question whether I picked the right title to keep reading. I wanted something quirky and offbeat, and I get that here, but it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Steve Orlando is winning me over with short arcs, where this one is another two-issue run, as that makes for some potentially better storytelling and character work from time to time. And this issue has more fun with Felipe Watanabe delivering some enjoyable and dynamic artwork, particularly when it comes to Makson. But the series, nine issues in now, feels weak and listless as it’s hard to tell what the real direction it wants to take and a lack of actual team elements, something that takes time to build but not in the way it’s attempting to do it.
Makson’s story is one that works a familiar arc and even the League calls him out on a bit when it’s revealed that he’s here for revenge on the family that hunted him down in Monster Valley and killed his “real” mother, the dinosaur that raised him. His plan isn’t especially cunning and within the two-issue structure it doesn’t have anywhere near the spacing and timing to work well since he basically gets rich quick and sets everyone up for him to tear them apart in a sorta but not quite locked room. Watanabe makes those pages fun and you get a good sense of Makson’s anger over it and the way he’s relishing in what he’s about to do, but there’s no payoff to it since the League figures it out just in time and steps in to stop it – but not before Makson actually lands a solid blow on Batman.
Batman just can’t win in this book. There are some interesting supporting character moments throughout the issue, such as Ray feeling betrayed by Makson and some good material between Ryan and Lobo about things, but the problem continues to be Batman. Vixen calls him out on his poor leadership of this because of the secrets he’s keeping about himself and even Makson makes some fair points that could have made for some engaging discussion in talking him down. But Batman in this iteration is no leader. He is, perhaps, trying to angle things in a certain direction for the team to grow but Orlando is not making that clear if it is nor is it working if it is. While I’ve long liked Batman under a number of writers I’ve been tuned out by him in the last couple of years in his own book and in leading roles in others, instead finding the supporting fringe books better at portraying him. This series is just reinforcing that.
In Summary:
There are fun moments, some enjoyable artwork, and some solid supporting character material here. Makson’s story is too compressed to work well and needed to be a subplot over the run of several issues of other stories to be effective. I like the shorter story arcs in general but they either need to be seeded better or work with better concepts to execute in that space. Watanabe’s the real winner here as he has some really fun material for most of the cast, though Batman – like the character material itself – is the weak link with how he looks.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: June 28th, 2017
MSRP: $2.99
