Justice League of America #19 Review

What's Happening Now

Written by: Steve Orlando
Art by: Hugo Petrus, Hi-Fi and Clayton Cowles
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 22, 2017

I am not a huge fan of this book.  I want to be, but the combination of poor characterizations, awful dialogue and stories that are nowhere near gripping have pretty much left me wanting...wanting anything different.  Since DC is not in the job of making me happy, at least with this book, I guess I have to just continue trudging onward.  So, is this issue the one that turns it all around?  Let's find out...




The issue opens with Afterthought beating the snot out of Lobo and after revealing that his main target is Black Canary, the Main Main goes all Hulk Hogan and the fight is on!  Unfortunately, Lobo kind of does Afterthoughts work for him and Steve Orlando continues to string together the worst Lobo talk I've ever read.

We go from the Main Man to the Main Hall and see what the rest of the team is up to.  Prometheus is fighting (and spouting what I hope is a misprint of dialogue) Vixen, but is more into throwing shade her way.  We've already gone through the forced idea of the JLA being a "powder keg" and now we get the forced bit of Vixen and the JLA being "above the people".  Yea, all these people who obviously were into the JLA enough to go for a tour of the Sanctuary hours before are now persuaded by an obvious bad guy who spouts nonsense after attacking Vixen.  He then gives her an ultimatum...destroy her Totem or die.

We suddenly head off to Angor to see Dreamslayer escape certain death and go to the Microverse to meet up with Blue Jay, Ray Palmer and Preon.  I understand the characters and what is going on, but I just want to know...WHY?!?!

We then head back to watch Afterthought continue kicking Lobo's ass, Prometheus talking more shit and Canary playing the worst game of charades with Ryan.  It leads to Canary making a precision cry to free Ryan (not sure how it really worked,though) and a nice little moment with the two heroes.

They continue by freeing Frost and then...well, somehow they defeat Afterthought.  Seriously, his power is to see 5 seconds ahead and I am not sure why he suddenly can't.  Oh well, we end the issue by finding out that all of this was setup for Prometheus' real plan.  I have to admit it...I really don't care.

This book is just plain awful.  Steve Orlando continues to struggle with setting up any sort of story and I can't say I like anyone in this book.  I'm not sure that some of the dialogue isn't actually misprints and the pacing is way off.  However, if you've been reading since the beginning, this is all par for the course.  Hugo Petrus' art is okay, but not great and certainly not enough to make this book worth buying.  Why does this madness continue????

Bits and Pieces:

This issue has it all...poor dialogue, awful setup and resolutions that just happen.  I don't care anymore and will just keep hoping a change is on the way.

3.5/10