Justice League Odyssey #2 Review

Looking Good

Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Stjepan Sejic and Deron Bennett
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 24, 2018

Review by: Joey Casco

Issue #1 left off with our team stranded on a planet within the Ghost Sector... with Darkseid! He had lured Cyborg, Starfire, and Azrael thereby becoming a voice within their heads and using different motivations for each one.  Jessica Cruz, the Green Lantern sentry for the Ghost Sector, joined them upon their arrival.

Face to face Darkseid tells them that these planets that were released from imprisonment on Colu were hidden for a reason, and that reason is that their people worship the three of them as gods.  To the image of different aliens (I need a better word for this because they're not aliens if they're on their home planet, right?) worshipping Starfire, Cyborg, and Azrael, Darkseid closes the issue by saying "You three are the old gods. It's your destiny to save the Ghost Sector. I called the Goddess, the Machine and the Angel... to finally bring forth a NEW AGE OF THE MULTIVERSE!"

So, of course, the second issue starts off with our team getting all riled up and trying to bring the fight to Darkseid, but he's not having any of it as he basically just deflects their attacks and tells them they're being idiots and they should join him... until Jess makes a badass construct of these nasty dragon/serpent things  and wraps them around him. Her constricting constructs don't contain him for long, and he tells Jess that she doesn't belong here but he'll spare her life because "the multiverse needs you, and therefore so do I." This is somewhat of a weird revelation since Darkseid was the one who kept breaking Jess’s security stations in issue #1. Maybe he was trying to keep her distracted so she wouldn’t get involved? Regardless, I don't know about you but I get the feeling that wherever this story is going it couldn't be done without their Green Lantern. 

Cyborg puts up a good fight against Darkseid and he knows he shouldn't be able to, and that leads him to believe that Darkseid is "losing his touch". So Darkseid shows him that he's still got it, and in the process brings them right next to an enormous statue of Starfire surrounded by dead bodies. He tells them that the clock is ticking on countless lives, that they should just cooperate for crying out loud, and then he literally just disappears.  Great. That was super helpful.

Jess tries to get a hold of the Green Lantern Corps but no signal whatsoever can break the barrier of the Ghost Sector, so they go ahead and check out the scene of the massacre.  Azrael is all pumped that there's a world that worships him somewhere, Jess calls out Cyborg for being a dummy, and Starfire is pretty upset for obvious reasons. I mean, there's an entire planet that worships her and they're all dead or dying.

Suddenly they're greeted by, like, the Pope of the Starfire Church or whatever and he brings them into a cave where there's yet another statue of Starfire. He tells them the story of his people; how they dedicated their lives to the goddess Koriand'r, they practiced kindness and love and cherished family and friendship just like her, how happy they were until they were imprisoned by Brainiac, and how horrible it's been since they were freed. He explains that "angels" came (silhouettes are shown but it could be parademons) and slaughtered them as they prayed to their goddess, but they didn't find what they were looking for.

So what were these "angels" looking for? Hey now, I'm not gonna spoil that!

Quick Recap: Cyborg, Starfire, and Azrael are "the trinity of the old gods", have been worshipped for thousands of years, and their return is part of a prophecy. They are in fact stranded in the Ghost Sector and cannot call for help. Darkseid isn't as powerful as he should be. The multiverse needs Jessica Cruz. And, as if the poor people of the Ghost Sector don't have it rough enough, there are "angels" going around killing them to collect something by force.

Please go check out Joey's awesome site TheWineStalker.net 

Bits and Pieces:

This was another fun read like the first issue but this one really showed the stakes involved. People are dying, they have no way of communicating with the Green Lantern Corps or the Justice League, and they don't even know if they can really get out at all. And again, the characters are true to their personalities, the dialogue is excellent, and holy freakin' crap the art is GORGEOUS. I thought Sejic was only doing the first issue but I'm glad that he's at least doing a few. So I'm giving it another high score. Even though we're only two issues deep, I'm loving this series so far.

8.5/10