Review: Justice League of America #29

April 27, 2018

By Jonathan Edwards

As singer and songwriter Adele once wrote and sang, “this is the end.” In this case, it’s the end of a long, at times bleak, trek of a comic titled Justice League of America. I remember being really excited when first hearing about the book, its interesting cast of characters, and all of the possibilities that came with them. And, the first four Rebirth one-shots, focusing on The Atom, Vixen, The Ray, and Killer Frost, respectively, were all promising prequel tie-ins that each built up more and more hype for the main book. Then, Justice League of America: Rebirth #1 came out, and it was different. Everything suddenly felt less thought-out and put together and more superficial and contrived. However, this wasn’t an isolated incident. Justice League of America issues #1 through #4 followed the trend with a weak and irritating first story arc, and things only went further downhill as the series continued. Slightly over a year later and here we are with Justice League of America #29. And, long story short, the conclusion to “Dawn of Time” sucks, but the series finale afterward is marginally better.

Review: Justice League of America #28

April 25, 2018

By Jonathan Edwards

After reading and reviewing the absolute hot mess that was Justice League of America #27, I found a question prodding me from the back of my mind: had the introduction of Ahl, God of Superheroes, really been as out of nowhere and slipshod as I’d thought while writing that review? It seemed too poorly thought out for even Orlando, so I did some quick research and discovered that it might’ve very well tied into the recent Milk Wars crossover event between JLA and pretty much every book from DC’s Young Animal imprint. As such, I opted to verify those claims for myself. This led me not just to read the entirety of Milk Wars but also reread the first four issues of Doom Patrol, read issues #6 through #10 for the first time, reread parts of JLA #27 and #22, and, of course, read Justice League of America #28. It could perhaps be considered an excessive amount of reading, as Ahl is only relative to five of those eighteen issues. What’s more, only two of those appearances were in series other than JLA proper, and not even those make his presence here any less problematic.

Review: Justice League of America #27

April 13, 2018

By Jonathan Edwards

Well, here we are at the beginning of the end for Steve Orlando’s Justice League of America, and holy shit is this issue terrible. I mean, Jesus, this book’s been bad in the past, even awful, but this takes the cake. From the utterly laughable premise to the entirely clumsy execution, everything about Justice League of America #27 reads like Orlando isn’t even trying anymore and is instead phoning it in as much as possible. Maybe this is his way of being petty and getting back at DC for canceling his crappy book, or maybe he somehow thinks this is a quality idea. But, it really, really isn’t, and it kind of has to be seen (or at least heard) to be believed.

Review: Justice League of America #20

December 13, 2017

By Jonathan Edwards

Based on the first half of this issue, I was going to rate it a two out of five. Heck, I was even going to say that this wasn’t the worst way for “Precision Strike” to end. And then, I got to the second half. Suddenly, Justice League of America #20 changed from the flawed ending of a weak story arc to a nigh incoherent attempt to justify and explain away its bullshit premise. “All Prometheus needed to divide us was a video camera and a list of questions.” Yes, Ryan, but only because everyone he “interviewed” was written without the ability to detect his entirely obvious attempts to manipulate them. And, maybe it could’ve worked, at least a little bit if any of the previous issues put character development first instead of dedicating so much fucking time on superficial plots with one-note villains.

Review: Justice League of America #19

November 22, 2017

By Jonathan Edwards

It’s ironic that a book as clumsy and heavy-handed as Justice League of America would title one of its story arcs “Precision Strike.” What’s more, I think Orlando himself might be realizing that and panicking. Because, in addition to more of Prometheus’s cliché “I planned for every possible scenario” speeches, we get two back to back panels where first the Atom and then Black Canary comment about the “precision” of the latter using her supersonic scream to overload the former’s bio-belt, defaulting it.

Review: Batman #29

August 16, 2017

By Daniel Vlasaty

DC, man, you're killing me with all these "wars" and "events" and on and on and on. This is the ever-increasing problem I've been having with superhero comics as of late, especially those from DC. They're all trying to do too much. And in the process, we're losing little bits and pieces of the characters. We're losing the things we love about these characters to – what I'm going to call – the Hollywood movie mentality in comics right now. Big stories with action and energy but not much else. What ever happened to focusing on the smaller things. What ever happened to character development. Not everything has to be END OF THE WORLD motherfucking huge. Not everything has to be earth shattering. But I digress.