Justice League #42 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Geoff Johns
Art By: Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 15, 2015

Dibs On The Chair!

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's time to get back into the Darkseid War as we find out what our heroes are going to have to go up against.  In the last issue we saw Grail turn Flash into a Motherbox and literally crawl out of Barry's mouth........which I'm still having nightmares about and then Grail proceeded in kicking the ever lovin' shit out of the rest of our heroes.  Too bad we didn't have Superman handy there, he might have shown Grail a thing or two, but ole Supes was too busy getting boom tubed to Apokolips by Lex's crazy ass wheelchaired sister Lena.  Yeah, it turns out that Lena was the one who put the hit out on Lex and after not getting any satisfaction, she just went and shot him herself.  If that wasn't enough for you, Mister Miracle was getting his ass handed to him left and right before accidentally coming across Grail's mother Myrina Black and The Anti-Monitor has finally come to Earth and you know that can't be good for anyone.  Yes, it was a jam packed issue and hopefully we'll get some breathing room in between having our minds blown in this second part to the Darkseid War.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with us seeing Superman cauterizing Lex's bullet wounds, since Lena apparently shot him with some unrecognizable metal that was able to penetrate his armor.  This is about all the niceties that we'll see from this issue and as Lex realizes that the two of them are on Apokolips, we jump on over to Darkseid and we realize that this upcoming war is about a whole lot of things.  Darkseid's obsession to takeout Myrina Black for turning his daughter against him, destroying the Anti-Monitor and getting revenge on the Justice League for embarrassing him previously when he originally invaded Earth.  More than anything though, it seems that he wants to settle his grudge against Superman because when he learns that the Kryptonian is on his world, he has his slaves sent out to confront the Man of Steel with the promise that whoever kills him will no longer have to serve.......... So yeah, the slaves will die trying to kill Superman and with the inevitability of trying to stop these people from their actions, Superman will have to forfeit his soul..... or morals to put an end to the madness and that's exactly what Darkseid wants.  Ya gotta hand it to Darkseid........ That's some cold blooded shit right there.

Back on Earth, Wonder Woman rallies the League as she plans on leading the second charge against Grail, but with the Anti-Monitor getting her back and all, it's kind of a lost cause.  It's a good thing that Metron showes up and Boom Tubes the League to safety before we went and lost all our heroes right from the start.  Things aren't going to well for Mister Miracle either.  After boom tubing away from Kanto and Lashina in the last issue, Scot Free has found himself in the company of Myrina Black and while initially we could dig everything she was throwing at us, with her hate on for Darkseid and how she wants to take him down, we start to realize that this broad is a bit of a fanatic.  Myrina is the one who sent Grail into the Multiverse in order to find something that could kill Darkeid and I guess she was successful in her mission since she's now hanging with the Anti-Monitor, but Myrina wants Earth to be the final battleground for Darkseid's demise and Scot, like the rest of us doesn't really think that killing Earth in order to take down Darkseid is the best idea.  I guess Myrinia isn't one for criticism because when Mister Miracle makes his problems with her plan known, she tries to kill his ass........... and we end our section with Mister Miracle with him boom tubing away..........again.  Scot better do something more in this story than get his ass kicked and then running away because as of right now, that's all we've seen him do.

In the end, we jump back to our Justice League heroes and find out that Metron has boom tubed them to the Rock of Eternity because apparently they can't be seen there and Metron pretty much tells them that they should take this time to kiss their loved ones goodbye because shit is going south fast.  Of course our heroes can't accept that and after learning that the answers to the questions they seek are in the chair from Wonder Woman's lasso, Metron is pulled from the Mobius Chair and Batman takes his place upon it.............making him the all fabled Bat-God.  This is beyond awesome and a little annoying because all at once Batman sees everything that has transpired to get the events of this book going and to make sure that he's not just imagining all of this, he asks the chair questions.  The first question is a obvious one and it's no surprise, but the second one really gets ya pissed.  Batman asks the chair "What is Joker's true name?" and all we get is Batman saying "That is impossible" with a series of "PING's" going on around him.  I WANT TO KNOW THESE THINGS TOO BATMAN!  DON'T BE A KEEP IT TO YOURSELF KENNY!

That's it for this issue of Justice League and while I loved the majority of the book, there were a few things that got on my nerves.  One of those things being Mister Miracle's lack of........ well...... anything.  For two issues now we've seen him in a fight where he either got his ass kicked or was about to and him simply boom tubing away.  Three times with this in two issues and the only reason I could think that this is going on is for people to talk to Scot about what's going on........ so we can know what's going on.  I don't know, some might think that he's a cool narrative tool, but I just expected more from the character.  Another thing that is a semi-problem is seeing Steppenwolf in this issue after we all saw the Earth-2 Bizarro kill him a long time ago.  Yeah, you can go with the Multiversity answer, where apparently the New Gods have avatars throughout the Multiverse, but that doesn't jive with what we've seen, so I don't go with it.  Really though, the epicness of this book is purely in the beginning with seeing\how Darkseid plans on dealing with Superman and at the end with Batman taking his throne as the Bat-God.  I wouldn't go as far as saying that the middle was filler to make sure that everyone knows what's going on because it's quite enjoyable, but I could almost say that.  The art in this book was great as always and even though I might not have been as impressed with the middle of this book as I would have liked, this is still an excellent installment that really gets me excited for the next chapter.

Bits and Pieces:

The Darkseid War is heating up as our heroes are facing off against their worst nightmare while others are getting an upgrade.  Justice League continues it's trend of delivering awesome art while dealing out epic storytelling, but with stories this size you're always facing the exposition monster and it takes a big chomp out of the middle of this book.  Even with that though, this second part to the Darkseid War continues to impress and I can't wait to read more.

7.5/10