Justice League #23

Writer:  Geoff Johns

Art:  Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Oclair Albert, Eber Ferreira, Rod Reis

Get Caught Up…

The conclusion of Trinity War.  It’s a mad dash for Pandora’s Box, which may or may not remove evil from the world, cure Superman and increase the volume for Villains Month’s 3D lenticular covers.

What’s Good?

We get a lot of payoff here.  Identities and secrets are revealed.  The all-out war that we’ve been anticipating goes down.  Stuff gets broken, I enjoy it.  There isn’t a whole lot I can say without giving away some manner of plot point.  A lot of things are touched on, and there is a great deal of setup going on here.  

Johns shows us here why he is great at what he does.  There are a multitude of characters involved in this issue, and no one feels like they are jammed in for them just for the sake of them being there.  Everyone’s involvement feels natural, and they all get their moment in the story.  Handling all of those characters has to be a task, and doing so well is why Johns is where he is in the DC hierarchy.  

Reis does his best to not get bogged down with the cast of characters as well.  This issue has a grand total of nine splash pages, a pair of which are double-page spreads.  The colors don’t bleed into each other, and everyone looks like individuals, not a big blob of characters.  A lot of work went into making this issue look as good as it does with so much going on.

What’s Not So Good?

We’re still left with questions.  This is far from a satisfying conclusion.  This is really more of the end of the first chapter of a much larger story, hence the upcoming Forever Evil miniseries and Villains Month in general.  It is somewhat frustrating that this title is billed as a conclusion, when it was just an extended lead-in.  Perhaps I wouldn’t feel this way if DC hadn’t branded each title with a “1 of 6,” “2 of 6,” et cetera.  An overall branding of “Trinity War” a la Marvel's “Dark Reign” might have been more appropriate.

There’s one line late in the issue that alarms me.  A prisoner is shown, and the big bads allude to the fact that they should be worried about him/her and they should have left him/her where they came from.  Why in the name of Great Caesar's Ghost, then, did you drag the prisoner with you?  It is the one plot point from this installment that really pulled me out of the story because it didn’t make sense for the characters.

The Verdict…

Trinity War did what it needed to do, not what I wanted it to do.  I would have preferred a self-contained story with a greater resolution.  

Oh, Yeah, And...

Using the main Justice League titles as opposed to releasing a mini-series was a great idea.  Hopefully it pays off for DC.  I’ll be interested to see the August sales numbers, and compare sales for Trinity War and its tie-ins to Infinity and and its tie-ins.  Maybe it won’t be the financial success DC was hoping for, but the fans appreciate the lightened load on their wallets.