Justice League #46 Review and *SPOILERS*

Tell 'Em Big Barda Sent Ya

Written By: Geoff Johns

Art By: Francis Manapul, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 16, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

After one-shot after one-shot, we're finally back to the main Justice League story and we're only a month behind..... Woo!  I don't know if the one-shots were cash grabs or just thrown out there to try and satiate us while we wait for the story to continue, but it's a bit of a bummer when we get behind on comics, especially when we left things the way they were.  Darkseid has been killed and the majority of our Justice League have been transformed into Gods.  Batman now sitting upon the Mobius Chair has become the God of Knowledge, Superman soaking in the rays of a fire pit has become the God of Strength, Shazam getting a whole new set of Gods lending their power to him has become the God of Gods, Flash being merged with the Black Racer has become the God of Death and Lex Luthor taking in Darkseid's Omega Effect has become the God of Apokolips.  That's some crazy shit and even though this issue says that Green Lantern has become the God of Light, we all saw from the Green Lantern one-shot that he got rid of that role and is back to normal....... Pretty much all the one-shots got us back to where our last issue left off, so there isn't much else to do but get into this issue and see what's going down in the Darkseid War.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

As our issue begins we see the rest of our Leaguers, who weren't bestowed with God like powers, having to do the cleanup from Darkseid's death and that means taking out the forces of Apokolips, who just refuse to let go and accept that without Darkseid, they really aren't shit.  Really though, what I get from this is that Mister Miracle is a shit husband and Big Barda is a bad ass because Barda shows up looking for Scot because apparently they were supposed to be on their honeymoon and while everyone was kind of struggling with taking these Apokolips fools down, Barda just straight up takes them all down on her own.  As much as I love seeing Big Barda and Mister Miracle holding hands and sharing a malt down at the five and dime, it still irks me that these characters are different from the ones we saw in Earth 2.  I know we're still in story over continuity territory with the DCYou, but why did I spend all that time reading about these characters if it doesn't matter anywhere else........... Yes, it's probably because I'm a comic book fanboy and I don't have anything better to do, but that's not the point now is it?  

After our initial introduction to Big Barda and how bad ass she is, we then move on to a plan that involves getting information from the remaining members of the Crime Syndicate because they're the only ones who know anything about the Anti-Monitor, since Batman's off doing his God of Knowledge things and not answering any of his teammates' calls.  We've seen this before though and I imagine that it's going to be a lot like last time, where the Crime Syndicate aren't much help and if they knew anything that could be used against the Anti-Monitor, they would have done that instead of fleeing their Earth and trying to conquer this one........... I guess it will be nice seeing Super Woman again so we can see how far along she is with her pregnancy, but apparently it's not going to be as simple as getting a visitor pass because Steve Trevor informs our heroes that Ultraman and her have been put on a no visitors list at Bell Reve, so it's going to take some Mister Miracle action to get them in.  Maybe it's because Superman isn't around at the moment or maybe it's because we just saw Big Barda and Scot Free getting all smoochy smoochy, but while everyone else goes off to see about breaking into Bell Reve, Steve Trevor hangs back with Wonder Woman so he can talk about his feelings.  Dude should have totally picked a better time though because while Superman might be all negative colored now, his hearing hasn't been altered at all and he shows up looking like he's about to stomp Steve into the ground for hitting on his girl.  

In the end, we move away from our heroes and watch as Anti-Monitor begins........ Well, I don't even know how to really explain it.  He's floating in a glowing ball of energy, looking like a big baby, while his shadow demons protect him and as our issue closes we see that this act has dispelled the Anti-Life Equation from his body.  I guess Darkseid needed to die for this to happen.......... I'm not quite sure why yet, but apparently one man's trash is another woman's treasure because Grail seems really interested in getting her hands on the Equation and somehow making her father Darkseid suffer more with it.

That's it for this issue of Justice League and as much as I love this title, I have to say that not much goes down here.  Besides for Wonder Woman coming up with a plan that our heroes have tried before, getting Big Barda in on the fight and Grail apparently having more up her sleeve than simply helping Anti-Monitor purge himself, it's just a lot of the same things we had in the previous issue.  Our heroes have become gods and are only used as filler for this issue, where we periodically have panels depicting them doing nothing to move this story along........ Well, that's not entirely true.  We do have Superman showing up and starting a jealous brawl with Steve Trevor and that's really interesting to me because it's been brewing for a long time.  As for the art........... man, I hate saying this because I'm a fan of Manapul, but I'm not really enjoying his work on Justice League because nothing is as clean as I've come to expect this series to look and the colors are so washed out that I find myself just glancing over the pages instead of staring at them like I could become a part of it........ Yeah, that's a weird thing to do, but I don't judge the way you read comics.  It's just not for me and I wish I could get behind it more because like I said, I'm a fan....... just not in this book.

Bits and Pieces:

While I was really anticipating this issue after having all those one-shots and that bad ass cliffhanger from the previous issue, this just left me wanting more because........ Well, because not much went on at all.  Our God like heroes are off doing other things and the heroes that we're left with are just grasping at straws in trying to figure out what to do next.  It's just not that engaging and Manapul's art, while I normally enjoy it just doesn't do anything for me here except make me wish that Fabok was on this instead.  

5.5/10