‘Justice League #75’ Review
Written by Joshua Williamson | Art by Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Taragona | Published by DC Comics
From the cover alone I could tell that subtlety isn’t going to be a word associated with this book. The cover positively screams in your face. Death, destruction, anarchy, as a whole bunch of DC A-lister’s scream in pain. As a reader I’m torn between being intrigued and with hoping it’s not just a whole bunch of character deaths for no reason other than selling a few books. The fact that Joshua Williamson is writing is always, of course, a cause for celebration. He has shown he can juggle multiple characters and multiple storylines with ease, and deliver some outstanding stuff.
Let’s take a look.
We start with a lot of DC characters being teleported from where ever they are in the world, and turning up in The House of Heroes, the HQ of the Justice League Incarnate. All the usual characters, like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman are thrust together with the heroes of multiple worlds. Captain Carrot, from Earth-26, Aquawoman, from Earth-11, Mary Marvel, from Earth-5 to name a few. There’s a lot of power, and a lot of ego in one room, let’s leave it at that. So, what’s going on? It seems that the people who pressed the button to summon everyone are President Superman, of Earth-23, and Doctor Multiverse, from Earth-8. It’s as bad as you would imagine. The DC Multiverse is in, what else, Crisis.
Barry Allen has become trapped in a twisted reality, one in which Darkseid has been enslaved by The Great Darkness, and placed at the head of a powerful army. those forces are trampling over everyone and everything, and now plan to conquer The Bleed itself. The Bleed, of course, is the space between worlds, the place that interconnects worlds. As everyone digests this information, as well as the fact The Spectre is apparently dead (can he even die?), The Darkness strikes. When the smoke clears, they all find themselves in a dead, desolate wasteland, with multiple worlds hanging in the sky, a la Crisis itself. Crisis, of course, would not be complete without Pariah, and as if by magic up he pops.
Pariah is of course Crisis royalty, as from his antimatter chamber he was the first to witness the coming of the Anti-Monitor and the loss of a world. His curse was to be present time after time as one catastrophe followed another. He was always a tragic figure, and it is this sadness that The Darkness has exploited and used, convincing him the death of Earth-Zero will restore the true Multiverse. He has also been given quite the army. Darkseid, Eclipso, Doomsday, Ares, Black Hand among a who’s who of top level bad guys. After some pitched fighting, with some outstanding full page widescreen art from Sandoval and Taragona it becomes clear the bad guys aren’t quite themselves. They are powerful, but are being possessed so only brute force, with no guile. Beatable, in other words. A ray of hope.
Ah, optimism, our old friend, we didn’t see you long. Turns out The Spectre wasn’t dead after all, but the Spirit of Vengeance has become The Spirit of Darkness. Something of a game changer. Then things get even darker. Ollie, Green Arrow, saves the day, but makes a huge sacrifice in doing so. The price he pays is seemingly worth it, as Pariah’s machine is destroyed, the one that was going to remake reality. Unfortunately, it seems he doesn’t need that machine to do what he plans, so the danger is as great as ever. He decides the Justice League must be taken care of, so they can’t interfere. He does what anyone would do. He kills them all.
Ah, so that’s why this was called Death of the Justice League and a prelude to Dark Crisis.
First, the good. The art was outstanding. It was a little cluttered here and there, to be expected with such a massive cast of characters, but there were some incredible panels and double page spreads in there too. Visually a feast. Story wise, a mixed bag. I liked the use of Pariah, The Darkness, and the tying in to DC history, though it never felt as though Williamson ever had enough space to fully flesh out all his ideas and explain what was going on at the same time. It was all a little messy. I also don’t really like the direction this is all going, which is clearly just a way to clear the decks of the classic characters, and bring in the younger, diverse versions DC have been trying to push for several years. I’m just not sure they shouldn’t have just launched a new Young Justice book and featured them there, but then that’s me.
Entertaining? Yep. Good art? Yep. Interesting new direction? Yep. Good intro to a huge crossover? Yep. And yet, it never quite had that epic feel you wanted.
I guess time will tell if I’m just being too picky.
Reviews will live, reviews will die…
