Justice League #5 Review

The Road So Far....

Written By: James Tynion IV

Art By: Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, Wil Quintana, Tom Napolitano

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: August 1, 2018

Lex Luthor has taken over the body of Superman, Joker has taken over the body of Martian Manhunter and the Still Force and Ultra Violet Spectrum have become fully charged......... Yeah, it seems like our heroes are royally screwed and with this issue feeling like a throwback to Villain's Month back in 2013, it seems DC themselves want us to feel that way.  Let's jump into this issue and see if we can gleam any of the answers we so desperately want out of this series when we take a look at what started Lex Luthor on his path to DOOM.  Let's check it out.

For this issue, we go back in time and see Lex Luthor start recruiting his Legion of Doom, but where I would have liked some answers about his doorknob of Doom and these hidden forces in the Universe or how he was even able to access them because he found a secret room under his father's old Legionnaires Club, instead we kind of just reiterate some stuff that we already found out in this series, while adding some menacing dialog to make it more evil.  Now, don't get me wrong.  There is plenty in this book to like, but it feels weird that we're taking a break in the middle of our story to go and essentially do nothing more than throw a few pages of a time travel story at us to get the Lex Luthor ball rolling, while just recapping what we already know.

As for the scope of the "evil" that we're dealing with from Lex....... Well, we do get some interesting pages that show that the whole Universe is trembling at Lex's deeds, but because we keep skirting the issue of what Lex is actually doing, except for throwing some names of things and concepts at us, it doesn't have the same impact that I think it should for the magnitude that this issue is telling me that we're dealing with.  

Overall, you get some cool villain interactions, a brief trip to the future and us seeing everything we've already dealt with over again, while getting no real forward progression to our story.  I really enjoyed the art this issue and I love seeing a villain doing what he does, especially when it's the shining star of this series, Lex Luthor, I just wish this issue would have done something to explain what's actually going on with the story instead of just saying names of things and thinking that I know what that means.  

Bits and Pieces:

While we don't move all that much forward in our story, we do get some cool villain interactions in this issue and some amazing art.  I just wish we got some more of the plot details out of the way here because at this point I need something a little more than an evil magic doorknob to keep me happy with Lex's plan of Universal domination.

6.3/10