REVIEW: Justice League #23

Geoff John’s latest DC comics brain child, Trinity War, comes to an end with the latest issue of Justice League. How does the first event of the New 52 end up in a world where even Valiant is doing company wide crossovers? Find out after the jump! Warning: spoilers below.

SUMMARY

Pros
At least one genuinely interesting and surprising moment
Cons
The house style art feels dated
The endings to Trinity War does not answer anything and just raises more questions

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JUSTICE LEAGUE #23
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Oclair Albert, Eber Ferreira
Colorist: Rod Reis
Letterer: Nick J. Napolitano
Cover Artist: Doug Mahnke, Alex Sinclair, Mikel Janin, Vicente Cifuentes, Tomeu Morey
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99

Previously in Justice League: The three different Justice Leagues have all jumbled up into different groups, all fighting over Pandora’s Box which is believed to be the cause of all the recent madness, including forcing Superman to kill Dr. Light.

TRINITY BORE

Trinity War was marketed as an event that was supposed to answer everything set up in the beginning of DC’s New 52 universe. This was assumed to include the Trinity of Sin, made up of Pandora, The Question, and The Phantom Stranger. Instead it does none of that and opts to rather raise more questions. The big twist to this event is that Pandora’s Box is actually a gateway to Earth 3, home of the Crime Syndicate of America, the Justice League’s evil counterparts. They also do a quick fake out at the end with someone mentioning that that Trinity of Sin never had nothing to do with the three we had previously thought it was about, but rather was referring to Earth 3. Get it, it has a three in its title (hence the trinity) and is an evil universe. Heh. This also does not explain why the box released the seven sins (the literal avatars of each sin) into our universe when Pandora first opened it. There is a theory floating around that they are the evil versions of the Lantern Corps avatars, which would be incredibly clever if true, but for now just adds to the confusing mess that is the New 52 continuity. There was actually one really surprising scene where Cyborg’s robot body rebels against him and rejects his human torso. This genuinely took me by surprise and is one of the few seeds I look forward to seeing grow into whatever story comes from it. Unfortunately the rest of the issue left me wanting.

SINFUL STYLE

The art in this issue was perfectly fine and serviceable for what it was, with no noticeable errors, but is really just the DC house style, which I find kind of boring. Its unexciting and feels kind of flat. The effects used in the coloring are already starting to feel a bit dated, and really come off as a bit tacky. I hope DC eventually takes some risks with the the Justice League title and tries some other, varying, styles.

BOTTOM LINE: NOT WORTH IT

If you have been waiting for Trinity War to end before getting into it, save your money. Its not a particularly good event, and you can get much better company wide comic events elsewhere.

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