Art By: Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson
Cover Price: $4.99Release Date: June 3, 2015
Bad Times Ahead
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Convergence is over and that means that it's time to get into the Darkseid War! That's right a big ass battle is ahead, in one corner our favorite ruler of Apokolips: Darkseid and in the other that destroyer of worlds himself: The Anti-Monitor........ Yeah, all of creation is screwed. In case you didn't read the Free Comic Book Day story Divergence, let me just que you in on what's been going down in DC. We've got a great big.....big bad, calling herself Darkseid's Daughter aka Grail and it seems like she has some "daddy" issues going on because she's allied herself with the Anti-Monitor.......... Oh and her mother was an Amazon..... that might be helpful to know later in the series..........Maybe. Anyway, all the terrible things that could lead to a war of this magnitude have come together and now it's up to our heroes to hopefully catch up and stop these threats before all is lost. Okay, let's check out the beginning of The Darkseid War and see what's in store for us.
Explain It!:
Our story begins with Mr. Miracle sneaking into Darkseid's citadel, as he explains who he is and how he became so good as escaping things............ but no mention of the events of Earth 2: World's End, which I find weird because that's where Scott has been primarily shown.......... In fact it seems like this Mr. Miracle isn't apart of that continuity at all. Now I know Dan Didio said that story trumps continuity, but I didn't think it would happen so soon or in the continued New 52 stories. Maybe I'm off base with this notion, but to me this isn't the Scott Free that we saw fight side by side with the Wonders of Earth 2........ Hell, he even mentions his love for Big Barda and their work in opposing Darkseid, but nothing of her betraying him, like we saw in World's End. So yeah, right off the bat, I'm a little disappointed. Hopefully this all gets cleared up in future installments. Anyway, Scott is narrating as he makes his way to Darkseid and he lets us know that Darkseid is after a power that would allow him to return to Earth-0 and finally defeat the Justice League and he wants to make sure that that can never happen........... Too bad that Scott goes up against Darkseid and gets his ass handed to him, but don't worry, before Mr. Miracle could get squashed under Darkseid's foot, he boom tubed out of there.
On Earth, we get the idea that the power that Darkseid seeks is actually a person and the Lord of Apokolips has gone all Skynet on our asses by sending....... soldiers?........assassins?......terminators? .... whatever you want to call the Fury: Lashina and Kanto, to find someone named Myrina Black and possibly kill her. I don't know, all we see here is that the two kill any Myrina Black they come across, who isn't the one they're hunting.
Since these killers are using boom tubes to get around, Cyborg goes and gets one of his special migraines, which puts the Justice League on their scent. As the team scour one of the Myrina Black's apartment, looking for clues to who these killers might be, all hell breaks loose when Clive Barker becomes a guest writer and scares the shit out of all of us....... Yeah, none of that is true except for the scaring the shit out of us part. Now, I don't know how she pulled it off, but somehow Darkseid's Daughter: Grail, went and turned Flash into a Mother Box and literally crawled out of his mouth to enter our heroes' world.......... nightmares forever. After her horrific entrance, she wastes no time in kicking all of the Justice League's asses....... except for Superman because he was with Luthor and Captain Cold at Luthorcorp and that shit gets crazy too. While Grail uses Power Ring to open a doorway for the Anti-Monitor to enter Earth-0, the person who put a hit out on Lex is revealed to be his own sister Lena........ who for some reason has a Mother Box and uses this power to Boom Tube Superman and Lex away........... Well, I didn't see that one coming. So before we move on to the end, we get a little sneak peek at Cyborg's tech evolving, Shazam gets impaled, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Hal get completely tromped and all looks like the end is nigh. So much going on here, it's crazy.
In the end, Mr. Miracle is transported to Earth, where he finds the dead body of a Myrina Black, but that's not the only thing he finds. Unlike the Justice League, it didn't take Mr. Miracle long at all to come across Lashina and Kanto and before he was put in jeopardy again, he boom tubed out of there and as we close this issue, our hero finds himself face to face with a griffon............ Oh and the real Myrina Black, who wants Scott to join her "Down with Darkseid" cause.
That's it for this issue of Justice League and let's just start this off by saying that Jason Fabok is an amazing artist and I don't think that I'll ever have anything negative to say about anything he gives us. So now that we've taken care of that........ Holy shit was there a ton of things going on in this book. I understand that Geoff Johns wants to tell a big epic story, but goddamn, spread it out man! Every time that I thought I was getting a handle on what was going down, he just went and added another aspect to throw me off again........... That and I didn't get any feeling whatsoever that this Mr. Miracle is the one that we've seen throughout the New 52 prior to this. As of right now, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with this story and I hope that the issues that follow pace themselves a little bit. instead of blowing all over our faces all at once.
Bits and Pieces:
Geoff Johns comes out firing with Part One of the Darkseid War and while it's very exciting and action packed, it felt a little over stuffed. So many things are coming at you in this story and just when you think they can't throw anything else at you.......BAM! A whole other development is dropped on your lap and you're just left with your mouth agape. Excellent art all the way through and my only hope for the future is that Johns' paces himself a bit with what he gives us because after this one, we've got a lot to digest.
7.5/10
Your honestly surprised about Mr .miracle being different ? You do know that you are reviewing a book where batman is alive and superman still has an identity. Anyway that Grail entrance was bat shit insane , the league better call Martian manhunter to mind wipe the experience from Barry's mind
ReplyDeleteI guess myrina black is harbringer while Grail is the Dark Angel
ReplyDeleteFirst, I'm just happy that Mr. Miracle is in this book. He is one of my favorite characters and really hasn't been used well since the New52 reboot.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I fully agree about your Mr. Miracle comments. But it would go against everything we know about Geoff Johns if he just ignores previous continuity. He's pretty famous for integrating past stories, good and bad (and WORLD'S END was BAD) into his own take on a character. He may very well write off the Scott Free and Barda that appeared on Earth 2 as some kind of doppelganger but past experience shows that he won't just ignore it.
Multiversity revealed that the new gods have avatars on every earth so this is likely just the earth 0 version of mister miracle
ReplyDeleteDidn't they just establish somewhere that Apokolips, Darkseid, the New Gods, etc. only existed once in the entire Multiverse? And that went along with the idea that Darkseid goes from universe to universe turning them into parademon factories (see: Earth 2), without ever worrying about running into an alternate version of himself?
DeleteI mean, if there are alternate versions of Mister Miracle from Earth 0 and Earth 2, then there must be Darkseids from both too, and that ain't happening.
Right there on the Multiversity Map, Apokolips is outside the "orrery" of 52 worlds. Hurm.
DeleteWouldn't be the first time DC did two incompatible stories about the New Gods at almost the same time (Death of the New Gods).
Actually, Geoff has a huge history of ignoring continuity, bot Pre-New 52 and Post-New 52. His Niles Caulder completely ignored the character's own established New 52 continuity (as well as Robot Man's).
ReplyDeleteGeoff's Superman: Secret Origin mini completely made up its own story, ignoring Geoff's own POST-Infinite Crisis Superman history. Hodge lodge made up shit left and right in that book.