Forever Evil #1

Writer:  Geoff Johns

Art:  David Finch. Richard Friend, Sonia Oback

The summer of the event is officially in full swing.  However, none of the current events have been as hyped as DC's Forever Evil miniseries.  This has been brewing since the inception of the New 52, and only gained momentum with this summer's Trinity War crossover.

First, I need to get something off my chest.  They least enjoyable aspect of this book is the "Justice League is dead!" trope.  We are never shown bodies, just various items belonging to a few heroes.  It seems this is just a plot point to set up a cliffhanger ending for a future issue.  I hope in wrong and the heroes' return is handled differently, but that is the way I see things happening.

Now that I've said my piece, I can get on to the rest of the book, which I quite enjoyed.  Johns writes a great villain. He must be part supervillain himself, that's how good this is in parts.  His Luther gives me chills, and setting him up as something of a hero of this series is a great approach that'll bring me back for more.

The cast of this story gives Infinity a run for its money in regards to scope.  The cast here is massive, and the art team handles the wide variety of requirements with an impressive ease.  I don't know much about creating art, but with the number of differences between the myriad characters, it hurts to think about creating scenes like those.  My hat is off to Finch and company for making those pieces without letting the rest slip.
 

The most refreshing part of this event is the motivations of the villains.  We've grown accustomed to murky storylines where things aren't always what they seem.  Trinity War was a perfect example of this.  However, it seems that the Crime Syndicate's motivations are that they are just plain evil, and do evil for evil's sake.  I really hope that Johns doesn't through any of his trademark twists into this aspect of the story.  I want to see bad guys being bad, and people rising up against them.

The Verdict...