Justice League #48 Review and *SPOILERS*

The Lesser of Two Evils

Written By: Geoff Johns
Art By: Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 24, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Goddamn, it's been a long time since we got an issue of Justice League...... I mean, it was last year!..... Okay, it was the day before New Years Eve but still, that's a long ass time.  Hopefully Justice League can get back on a normal schedule because we're dealing with some epic (holy shit, all my heroes are turning into gods) storytelling and I have a short ass attention span and it takes me forever to remember what the hell I read in the last issue when they're this far apart.  In our previous issue, our heroes really screwed up by going to Belle Reve to see what info they could get about the Anti-Monitor from the surviving members of the Crime Syndicate and all hell broke loose when Volthoom took over Jessica Cruz' body and Cyborg decided that linking up with Power Ring couldn't be as bad as it was the first time and of course it was worse and Grid was downloaded into Vic.  Bad shit all around, but maybe there's a bright side because as our issue ended, Owlman showed up and it seemed that the Crime Syndicate was willing to work with the Justice League to help stop this world threat.  Let's jump into this issue and see how well these two groups work together and if the Crime Syndicate can really be trusted.  

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with the new god-ed up Justice League wondering what the hell they're doing working with the Crime Syndicate.......... well, really it's only Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Shazam because the rest of our heroes are all beyond worrying about such things.......... you know, because of the god thing.  So yeah, the terms are laid out that the Crime Syndicate will help find and kill the Anti-Monitor because they want revenge for that son of a bitch destroying their world and after it's all done, they'll return Cyborg to the Justice League.  All our heroes have to do is come up with a Lex robot for Grid to be downloaded into, but Jessica is totally screwed though because the Syndicate says that she's lost to our heroes because the ring chose her......... So yeah, that sucks but I'm sure there's a loop hole somewhere and before we leave this little powwow, Flash being possessed by the Black Racer just mutters out like an asshole that someone is going to die............ you know, because he's all about morale.

In Gotham City, our heroes and villains find Mobius just blasting the hell out of everyone he comes across because apparently he's all about killing people up close and personal now that he can experience the satisfaction of it and the battle begins and I'm initially thrown off because he's using his shadow demons as weapons and I really thought that they'd be left to the wayside now that he's shed his Anti-Monitor persona and power.  I don't know, maybe it makes sense to others, but I always assumed that the shadow demons were specifically connected to the Anti-Monitor....... and when I say always assumed, I mean when I first thought about it when reading this issue.  This fight doesn't seem like our heroes have a chance because they're seriously getting their asses kicked and I have to wonder why they teamed up with the Crime Syndicate since they weren't able to protect their own world from this monster........... so what good could they possibly be here?  Not much because Super Woman begins going into labor and even after munching on a nice hunk of Kryptonite, Ultraman is the first to fall and I just assume that everyone stopped when he died to look disapprovingly at Flash and his jinx-y predictions.  

Even with the intervention of the entire Green Lantern Corps, I think our heroes should just pack it in and start looking for a new world because things look bleak after we see Lantern after Lantern just getting annihilated by Mobius.

In the end, Lex Luthor boom tubes into the battle with an army of Parademons at his command and I'm left in awe as I look at all the characters fighting this battle because it is beyond epic, even if things look bad for our heroes.  Our issue closes with Steve Trevor getting pulled away while everyone is focused on Mobius and after he comes to he's confronted by Grail, who apparently has some need for good 'ol Steve.

That's it for this issue of Justice League and even though it's a pretty straight forward battle between our heroes and the bad guy that really doesn't do much to move our story forward........ you know, besides for getting all our main players into position and making Ultraman look like a bitch, this was a really enjoyable issue for being exactly that.  We've had so little of our heroes actually cutting loose in this story arc and even less with them in their god personas and even though this entire issue was pretty much a fight scene comparable to Roddy Piper and Keith David from They Live, especially in length, we didn't get to see much of these god-ed up heroes doing anything except getting knocked over and then staying down like a turtle on it's back...... or a fat kid.  The Crime Syndicate and our everyday heroes were front and center though and that kind of seems like a cop out since we've been waiting to see what the others could do.......... Hell, Flash being all imbued with death had the idea at the beginning of the issue to just take out Mobius like he did Darkseid, but he spent the entire issue just watching the fight.  Even with these gripes though, it was cool to get down and dirty and as always the book looked amazing.  I guess all we can do know is hope that Super Woman's baby is the answer to everything or that whatever Grail wants with Steve Trevor will be a turning point for our heroes to finally kick a little ass themselves.

Bits and Pieces:

Good god, it's a battle!  That's right, the majority of our issue is played out as a big ass battle pitting our Justice League and the Crime Syndicate against the former Anti-Monitor and even though I have some questions about what the hell some of our heroes were doing during this battle, it was still enjoyable as hell and looked as amazing as it always does.  So yeah, not a lot of progression in story, but we've got a shit ton of characters coming in here and it was real fun watching them get down and dirty.

8/10