And with the fourth issue, the series gets me to drop it.
Creative Staff:
Story: Scott Snyder
Art: Jorge Jimenez
Colors: Alejandro Sanchez
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
What They Say:
What is hidden in the darkest depths of the ocean and farthest reaches of space doesn’t even compare to the insidious secrets buried in the pasts of Flash, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter! While the rest of the League battles to save their friends before all of reality unravels, the citizens of Earth make a startling decision…to join the Legion of Doom!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Four issues into this seven-issue run for The Totality storyline in Justice League and I reached my limit. I was struggling with it from the start and it got worse with the previous issue but this one just pushed me to the edge. I do like Scott Snyder as a writer but these sprawling style storylines in condensed form like this just do not work well as it seems like such a constant state of emergency is required. The big draw for me has been Jorge Jimenez’s artwork as there’s a lot to like there with how he handles the main cast and all the wide ranging supporting characters, but this issue just lost me in terms of story developments to the point where I’m walking off the whole thing. I get that Justice League has to go big, but there’s big and there’s ridiculous.
The main plot focusing on the Source wall and where Superman and the others are has Martian Manhunter hiding what he’s seeing from them from the rest of the team and it’s close to driving him nuts. As it turns out, we’re getting a new rewrite on what happened on Mars that brought everything to an end there and it feels like it’s being massively shoehorned into a place where it doesn’t need to be. That it could potentially upend everything we knew is one that. Having it play out at the same time that Luthor and Joker are miniaturized inside of their bodies and that we have Luthor taking over Superman completely through it just left me rolling my eyes in a huge way. There’s a large storyline going on here but it takes this odd turn in such a 60s space opera kind of way that I wanted no more of it.
We get some time with Grodd doing the mind control thing on Earth where he’s getting Wonder Woman and Aquaman to fight each other while gaining more control over the Still Force. That leaves the Flash desperately trying to save everyone but saving no one. That combined with what Cyborg and John Stewart are up to in fending off Sinestro and his Ultraviolet corps just added to the whole push out of the book. Converting John completely is one thing, revealing that the Corps that Sinestro has is larger than all the others combined is just ridiculous at this point. It’s such an overwhelming show of force and among all the stories it really feels like there’s no sense or rhyme or reason to any of it at this stage left me wondering why I’m reading it. And I’m reaing it for free, no less!
In Summary:
When a book is so overstuffed and complicated in a way to be so uninteresting that you won’t even read it for free, you know you’re lost on it. I may try skimming the other issues as they come up and potentially try with the next arc to get into it all again, but with this spinning out of No Justice and all its complications there that I haven’t read, Justice League is just a mess.
Grade: C-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via DC Universe
Release Date: July 18th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
