Are you ready for evil? Well ready or not, DC is giving it to you. This entire month DC comics has decided to do nothing but villainy, and at the core of treacherous scheme is Forever Evil. Unfortunately it has to compete with not one, but two different events from Marvel: Infinity and Battle for the Atom. Find out if DC has what it takes to get your event dollars with your Major Spoilers review!
SUMMARY
Pros
The hook at the end was intriguing
The rogues and Luthor are written well
Cons
Clashing tones
Uses the house art style
READER RATING!
[ratings]FOREVER EVIL #1
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: David Finch, Richard Friend
Cover Artist: David Finch, Richard Friend, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
FOREVER JOHNS
This issue, and I have a feeling the entire event will follow suit, is pure Geoff Johns with all of his signature faults and strengths as a writer. Flash’s rogues gallery is written perfectly on character, the Bat-family characters are crude caricatures, Lex Luthor is almost scarily evil, the Crime Syndicate of America feel powerful and menacing and every other character falls on a narrow spectrum of shallow mediocrity. The little moments of intended characterization between villains fall completely flat; everyone addresses each other by their full monikers so as to keep it new reader friendly- but at the expense of dialogue flow. Another of John’s trademarks that pop up in the issue is having a silver age style central conceit that is treated in a very serious and overly grim way. In some places it works, like for showcasing Luthor’s un-wavering evil, but otherwise its just sort of immature and awkward. Despite all of its flaws, I am still excited to see to where this event goes- assuming they don’t retcon the issue’s ending reveal that could have some serious implications in the future.
EVIL STYLE
The art is perfectly serviceable throughout the issue, no glaring mistakes to make note of, but it just follows DC’s house style, something I am not a fan of. It uses a lot of heavy shadows and conveys a feeling of treating itself a little too seriously. On top of that, all of the character re-designs from the New 52 already feel outdated and clash with the silver age feel of the concept, while those that have kept a classic design are at ends with the dark tone of the issue.
BOTTOM LINE: NEVER EVER
I just cannot recommend this book, especially with two other superhero events going on that I feel both outshine Forever Evil in terms of, well, everything. But if you already bought it, I would say you should seriously consider getting the next one and then deciding from there whether to drop it.
4 Comments
“Are you ready for evil? Well ready or not, DC is giving it to you.”
Sounds about par for the course, haha!
I’ve never been very big into DC’s superhero line-up, but I always liked the villains. I also really dug the Crisis on Two Earths crime syndicate story, so it was a fun read for me. I don’t have the money to buy the ridiculous number of tie-ins, so this book will be my only taste of this year’s DC gimmick.
I don’t like how they made what happened to the Justice Leagues a secret. It leaves a big hole in the timeline and that makes it hard to follow. I kept searching through comixology for a comic I missed.
Hopefully after this is done Martian Manhunter will be back in the Justice League where he belongs.
Oh, I also hate when they do exposition through speech bubbles! Bring back the narrator already. It’s so lame when it sounds like they are repeating stuff because the first time the camera wasn’t rolling.
The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The 23.x Villain Month issues I’ve tried have been pretty lame; Forever Evil was a bad start — an obvious “big changes” gimmick that feels like most of what it accomplishes will be undone within a year. Can we have a year with just some quality stories in each of the books, please?
I liked it better when they did it in Crisis.