Future Flash and Future Firestorm show up to help the resurrected League, but it’s not enough to save a disappointing issue of “Justice League 3000”.
Written by J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen
Illustrated by Wayne Faucher and Raymund BermudezCadmus tries to add a new member to Justice League 3000. We say “tried to” because the last thing Firestorm wants to do is join what he considers to be a group of losers. It gets complicated.
The most common criticism aimed towards DC’s New 52 line is that there was a homogenization of titles, where an attempt to create a unified universe resulted in everything sharing the same faux-gritty feel. “Justice League 3000” is definitely an attempt to present something different; a new time, a new setting, a new Justice League. It’s definitely a pretty big swing for the company, and those often result in an equally big miss.
As Future Batman tries to protect Ariel, the secret leader of Project Cadmus, Future Superman and Future Wonder Woman battle Kali, self-proclaimed deity and purple menace. Meanwhile, back at Project Cadmus Headquarters, the Wonder Twins (just a nickname) have resurrected one more member of the Justice League. Firestorm, however, he’s not like the other heros as he is formed out of two separate people. Meaning that Cadmus scientists had to deal with two DNA strands, two sets of memories, two personalities, and wow did they ever fail hard. Firestorm has no interest in joining the League, and helps out the other only to further his own ego. But it seems like no matter what Firestorm or the other Leaguers want, there may be someone with bigger plans for all of them.
When “Justice League” #1 was released way back in 2011, one of the most common criticisms directed at the issue was that it relied on the old trope of having everyone not like each other. “Justice League 3000” does the exact same thing, and explains it as imperfections arising during the Cadmus cloning process. This removes any potential for interesting debate regarding goals and methods based on each character’s unique history, and instead reduces Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the others into malfunctioning robots. Throughout the issue the characters are angry and mean, but their origin takes away a real character motivation, and just isn’t interesting to read.
If the point of the series was to give Giffen and DeMatteis the opportunity to create an entire new world, “3000” doesn’t really try to accomplish this. The DCU in 31st century feels a lot like the one of 21st. There is a bad guy that recruits a group of henchman, there are some betrayals and backstabbing, and then a bigger bad guy shows up. The dialogue basically amounts to whining and bland posturing, and while there are some attempts at humor (they gave Flash the wrong colored hair! Tehehe!) it’s just not enough to save the plodding book.
The art for this issue was handled by two different artists, but the reader could guess this even if it wasn’t on the credits page. The book is a messy mashup of two different styles, like neither knew how the other planned to draw similar scenes. The character designs are all over the place. Wonder Woman and the Flash look like completely different people from panel to panel, and unless one of Superman’s powers is growing sixty years older on one page and de-aging again on the next, something went wrong here.
The villain Kali is the most visually interesting thing in the issue, and is also the most consistently drawn. She looks like a mashup between a giant purple spider and the dead girl from The Ring, and the result actually manages to be quite unnerving. It feels as though the artist were the victims of a rushed deadline, particularly when looking at the backgrounds. While some show a fleshed out and detailed future city, just as often they became only a dark shadow or monotone shade. And every single person in this book looks like they’re constipated and it is incredibly distracting.
“Justice League 3000” #5 is not a good comic book. It doesn’t do anything new or interesting with the characters, and their status as malfunctioning clones removes any chance for real character motivation. The art feels rushed and incomplete, and the weird faces that abound in this issue are definitely off-putting. “Justice League 3000” #5 is weird, and not in an interesting way, instead it’s just a mess.
Final Verdict: 3.0 – Skip.
