Daxamite Be A Problem
Written By: Robert VendittiArt By: Doug Mahnke, Richard Friend, David Baron, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: February 5, 2020
The Justice League is back!..... The only problem is, we have no idea how, why or when this run of Robert Venditti's is taking place after our heroes were blinked away by the Quintessence at the end of the Justice/Doom War, where we saw them make one final run for victory against Perpetua. Yeah, it looks like we're going to have to wait for that story until the summer event, but right now we have a back to basics Justice League book and it's time to jump into it and see what Robert Venditti plans on doing in the interim to entertain us and show us just how great our heroes are. Let's jump into this issue and check it out.
So right away things seem weird for how we ended Justice League #39, but going into this we find out that these stories are taking place in the current timeline of our heroes in that Superman has revealed his identity, Alfred is dead and it seems like Flash may be worried about using the Speed Force as we've seen in his books lately....... and with these aspects being pointed out, it seems like we actually might deal with how these characters handle what's been going on in their lives, in their own separate books, which seems amazing because for the most part, beyond what we got last issue, it seems like this book has a ton of continuity going on!
As for our possibly out of time story, we have our heroes going up against The Eradicator, who apparently got fed up with waiting for General Zod to create New Krypton and moved on to his own plans, which we see he's using the cousins of the Kryptonians, the Daxamites to recreate his perfect Krypton. Too bad that it seems that he's chosen Earth for his home world and it's going to take our Justice League team..... minus Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl and Aquaman, to stop him and his army of cloned Daxamites. Thankfully though, they have the former Green Lantern Daxamite, Sodam Yat to possibly help them fight back their foe.
All in all, I really enjoyed Doug Mahnke's artwork on this issue and as of right now I'm digging the entire creative team for what we got here. Even with a world ending threat like the Eradicator, this was a story that felt more like what I've been wanting out of a Justice League book because while I do love a huge cosmic story, the one we got previously seemed to go on a little too long and this lesser scale threat was just what the doctor ordered in my mind, not to mention that I love how Venditti is taking each of the character's personal issues into consideration here as he writes them. Yeah, I wish that we had a clear timeline of how any of this is going on and felt that some of the dialog was a bit off at times, but overall I had a good time with this book and look forward to see where it goes.
Bits and Pieces:
Who knows for certain how any of this is playing out after our conclusion to the previous issue, but with that aside this is a cool issue with a pretty interesting plot that I can't wait to dive further into. The art is great this issue and the personal touches to each of the characters to what they're dealing with in their own individual books was a great touch too.
8/10
Um, is nobody going to address the fact that Batman was talking to Alfred in the Batplane on his way to London then a few pages later Superman mentions Alfred's death? Or was that just the digital copy (Which is how I read my issues these days)?
ReplyDeleteThat's what I was talking about with the heroes' personal problems, where Alfred is dead, but apparently Bruce is dealing with it very well.
DeleteAfter rereading it I realize the Alfred cameo was meant to be a flashback but they could have made that clearer.
DeleteGrant, I'm glad you explained Alfred is supposed to be a flashback. I didn't get that at all, and was really confused. But I enjoyed the issue overall. First issue of Justice League I've bought in years. And I really enjoyed it, but... I have a feeling in a few months that pretentious douchebag Snyder is gonna step in and f*** things up...
ReplyDeleteBasically, Snyder is getting the Johns/King treatment. He'll continue his own continuity over in Metal 2. And the rest of the universe will kind of fit, but not really.
ReplyDeleteYep... the timing is frustrating though
DeleteJust read this. This issue felt like a proper Justice League story in a way that Snyder's run simply hasn't. The Eradicator and an army of Daxamites feels like a solid, less existential, threat for the JL to deal with than Perpetua and the Legion of Doom. I thought the characterisation was very good - particularly for John. His conversation with the Daxamite at the start was well-written. Batman's "dishounourable discharge" and the lines that follow were the kind of subtle reminder to the reader of John's military background that other writers could do well to emulate. As Eric rightly says, there's a lot of continuity here which means that the book feels (as it always should given its status as DC's flagship team book) very much connected to the rest of the DC Universe. (It's just a shame that that universe is itself in the process of disintegrating into a loosely connected group of creator-controlled fiefdoms, but never mind, eh?) And I liked the art, too. Not sure why Bats went in costume to contact Madame Xanadu. He'd surely have been better taking a more subtle approach? Nevertheless, I thought this was a really strong issue.
ReplyDelete