The Fight Continues...
It's time to jump back into some Justice League, where we'll undoubtedly have more Super Friends references while spotlighting Brian Michael Bendis' past characters and creations while leaving the majority of the Justice League sounding off and or looking like chumps. Previously, we saw Synmar take out the entire Justice League, while Black Canary and Green Arrow fought the out of nowhere brother of Lois Lane and a fake Deathstroke for some reason but now it's time for Naomi to continue to show off her power. Let's jump into this issue and see if things have gotten better both in situation and story from where we were previously and also see what the Justice League Dark backup gives us this issue. Let's check it out.
For our Justice League story, we learn that Synmar Utopica has come to Earth less for revenge against Superman and more for the idea that he plans on giving the Earth to his planet as a way for paying for what he did previously, but because this character barely ever felt defined before, let alone his people, this aspect does little to make you care about Synmar Utopica and just makes him look more like a villain even though he was supposed to be the Superman of his planet. It doesn't matter though because beyond this aspect we essentially have Black Adam and Naomi just spending our page space kicking the crap out of Synmar Utopica, while the Justice League has past leaguers come in, whether they make sense to be there or not. Not to mention, there are some transitions between pages from one scene to another that really come out of nowhere and feel weird as hell to the flow of the story.
As for the JLD backup, this story has been a miss for me lately since we've been spending our time not with our team but with Elnara Roshtu and Batman as they try to enter the mind of a psychic who's been put into a dream state by the followers of Merlin and while we do end that bit and get back to Merlin's assault on Atlantis, I was hoping that we would have more to do with the latter but the focus was split here and it didn't feel like we did enough with either part of this backup's story.
All in all, the Justice League Dark backup art remained strong this issue, while the Justice League took a bit of a turn in my mind. I'm sure Phil Hester's style has its fans out there but I'm not one of them. Usually, if a story is strong I can look past the way that the art looks but since we're dealing with Bendis' idea of what a Justice League should be, there was nothing to really focus on except how much I wasn't liking the story or the art this time around, which is a shame because even though I haven't been liking the Justice League writing, I could at least say that the art saved a lot of what was going on.... and that's just not the case here and I don't know how long DC is going to let Bendis continue to besmirch the good name of the Justice League with his lame jokes, Super Friends references and the idea that he's only willing to push other stuff that's he's doing instead of telling a good Justice League story, where it comes off like he actually knows and or likes the DC characters that he's writing. Sadly, the JLD backup didn't do much for me either where we didn't really do much in either parts of the story it was telling but thankfully I loved the art in that section of the book.
Bits and Pieces:
There's something about the way that Bendis writes the Justice League that just comes off wrong in so many ways. Whether it's the way the characters sound, act, the idea that it seems Bendis doesn't know who he's writing, or even the way that the story transitions so that it feels awkward and jarring. I'm not enjoying this title and the JLD backup can only take us so far and sadly, where I've been loving the art in this book, this issue I can't say the same and need something more out of this book overall.
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