During this regular comic drought that DC has going on (sure comics are coming out, but they are all Convergence related), it is releasing three comics in the last week of April: Batman, Superman, and Justice League. We’ll be looking at Geoff Johns’ Justice League, which is said to be building things up towards the next big storyline, Darkseid War. Is it good?
Justice League #40 (DC Comics)
This is a prologue to Darkseid War, introducing Metron and what is essentially recapping and highlighting a lot of the past stories involving world threatening crises (Flashpoint, Infinite Crisis, that sort of thing). Then the comic ends with us getting a glimpse of what is to come and what a bit of the setup will be for this story.
In other words, as a prologue, I would say it does its job well enough. It sets up the themes and the scope of the story fairly well, what the major antagonists will be and what some of their motivations are, and shows to have some interesting potential with how it can play out. It does at the very least pique your interest slightly and should make you kind of curious about how this will all play out. Outside of the ending pages, where the majority of the setup is, the issue isn’t all that story heavy and the whole thing goes by pretty quickly otherwise.
There’s not a whole lot to say about the writing in the issue. It’s not particularly strong on characterization outside of Metron and the Anti-Monitor, since the majority of the issue is just Metron talking about the Multiverse and how he has been involved in it (sort of reminds me of the Watcher from the Marvel universe). Speaking of which, the dialogue and narration are both good and work. Despite Metron monologuing a majority of the issue, it never comes across as being all that boring or even pretentious like other writers’ attempts at making something sound grand and epic. The pacing is okay and there’s no real problem with any of the writing mechanics here. Honestly, all of this stuff was pretty good for the most part, but hopefully things will pick up when the arc really gets underway.
The artwork is done by several different artists (Kevin Maguire, Phil Jimenez, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Scott Kolins, Jason Fabok, and Jim Lee) and it looks pretty good overall. Now many different artists on one book may sound like a disaster, but honestly it does come out fine. Kevin does the opening scene with Metron discussing who he is and his interference in the war between New Genesis and Apokolips, Jim does the ending scene, and the other artists are used to draw different pages and panels depicting the many different crises of the past (Jimenez does a nice double page spread of Crisis on Infinite Earths for instance). All of the artwork looks great in the end and it does make for a pretty stellar looking book at points.
Is It Good?
Justice League #40 does its job as a prologue well. It sets things up for the big event coming soon as well as it can, the writing is pretty solid, and the artwork looks great. The comic does lack in the sense that it is very quick read, it’s not particularly exciting, and a few other things. However, as a prologue, I would say it does a fairly good job all things considered and if you are interested in Darkseid War, definitely give this a look.
Join the AIPT Patreon
Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:
- ❌ Remove all ads on the website
- 💬 Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT
- 📗 Access to our monthly book club
- 📦 Get a physical trade paperback shipped to you every month
- 💥 And more!
