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Review: Justice League #5

By | January 26th, 2012
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Written by Geoff Johns
Illustrated by Jim Lee

Now, with the teenaged powerhouse Cyborg at their side, this group of individual heroes must somehow put their differences aside to face the terror of Darkseid!

Finally! After five months of not being able to review this comic due to someone else taking it before me in the weekly review draft, I finally get to write about DC’s brand new and super shiny flagship title, starring all your favorite characters getting angry, getting beaten and still finding inner strength to man up and fight the evil lord of Apokolips, Darkseid!

Check behind the cut for some thoughts, and watch as I begin my review with a personal comment which takes objectivity away and transforms the rest into something that can only be referred to as an “editorial piece” as opposed to a “review.”Try it. You might like it.

I don’t think I’m meant to be laughing at this comic so much.

Not in a bad way. Ostensibly, anyway. I just can’t seem to take anything about this comic seriously, in any way, shape or form. 90% of it makes me laugh, from Green Lantern’s battle cry, to Bruce Wayne taking his clothes off in what is supposed to be a moving scene displaying humility. Instead, I pick up every issue because the comic collector in my mind can’t seem to switch off the “want to own” and “need to own” roads of consumerism, and every time I do, I find I am reading a much different comic than everyone else reads (or, at the very least, I am having a much different “experience”). I find that I’m reading a hilarious and fledgling attempt of a company trying desperately to seem “cool” and “hip with it” in an appeal to an audience with low standards, put together by two creators who should admittedly know better. I’m pretty sure I’m reading the comic book equivalent of a time capsule.

But enough about Justice League. Let’s talk about me!

In 2007, a few of my friends and I all got together on the 5th of July for a 10:40 PM showing of Transformers (I still have the ticket stub!). During the two hours and twenty four minutes that it ran, we laughed, groaned, and sat bespectacled at the film which attempted to revitalize a dying property for a new generation of kids who think flames on trucks are cool and that Megan Fox should be idolized and fawned over while she pretends to fix cars in sultry positions. I’ve seen a mechanic at work. He looked nothing like that.

We eventually left the theater under a singular consensus: this is absolute shit, but whatever, it’s not hurting anybody. Not really, anyway. It’s only hurting someone in the same way that over protective parents think that violent games are ruining their children. No, Transformers was just harmless fun, although it was clearly more fun for people other than us. It was a box office smash with two sequels, after all; clearly somebody out there enjoys this stuff, yet for us the most enjoyable thing was the brief teaser for Cloverfield before the movie, then referred to as 1-18-08.

In no short terms, this is exactly what I see and experience when I pick up the latest issue of Justice League — and please, keep in mind that despite all my derision, I am buying this title. Justice League is an absolutely mindless blockbuster comic inconsistent with the line it seeks to inspire put together by two creators who can make a blockbuster comic and sell it like hot cakes. It is nothing like the Justice Leagues of yesterday, as it is absolutely devoid of a true emotional core and instead consists entirely of Johns and Lee throwing crap on the wall and seeing what sticks. (They’ve done everything except put flame decals on Batman, although those lines all over his suit do come close.) But hey, you get what you come for — you’re going to pay a $3.99 entry fee to see the Flash run really fast, and god dammit, you’re going to get just that!

Continued below

But you know what? To quote Green Lantern’s new favorite phrase, DC’s GOT THIS! Honestly, this is what the people want (or at least, this is what I/DC executives think people want, based on the massive sales of the first issue). Geoff Johns writing quips and one-liners! Jim Lee drawing big powerful characters doing big powerful things! Bruce Wayne being humble (or something like it)! Green Lantern getting this! Flash and his sass! Cyborg getting his chance to shine (or something like it)! And other people fighting too! HEY! You guys want some Apokolips nastiness? Get a look at this Darkseid! And more!

If you want an introspective comic book which makes a true attempt at pushing the medium somewhere new and offers a story with characters you will love with blood, sweat and tears dripped blended together to make the pages, look elsewhere (and if you’re feeling lazy, the door to the Vertigo office is in the same building). DC’s sole intent here is to offer up some grandiose title that they can sell with brand recognition alone, and it is clear that they’re taking a firm page out of Hasbro’s book and creating a 20 page story to sell a few toys (Edit: I’m really not joking here). But you know what? Sometimes it is in fact ok to just sit back, stop watching classic foreign films and discussing politics (or whatever you do), and just partake in mindless, dumb fun. 2010’s The Expendables made over three times its initial budget in box office revenue after all, and don’t tell me you didn’t like seeing Stallone, Lundgren, Li, Statham and more all getting together to shoot guns. (Don’t lie. You loved it.)

Truthfully, there is only one element about the comic that bugs me, as much as I would like to pretend otherwise. In 2010, DC gave a new pledge to present 20 page comics for $2.99, only charging $3.99 for larger sized comics, and the endeavor was hailed by fans everywhere. Yet, in 2012, we are now paying $3.99 for a 20 page comic, and it is rather irksome that this is a subject generally mulled over. Sure, I personally pre-order my comics through DCBS, so I actually paid $2.39 for the comic and am not actually perturbed in any legitimate way, but one can’t help but notice the $3.99 price tag on the cover, the 20 pages of story material, the six pages of useless character design information that you could find for free online (and just as quickly not read) and the broken promises of yesterday.

I may never have seen any of the follow-up Transformers films (although I adore the 30 Rock lampoon), but I’ll keep reading Justice League for now. And why not? Next issue is almost certain to end with an off-the-wall deus ex machina that makes Darkseid trot on home, and I like to laugh. As I alluded to and didn’t follow-up on earlier, this comic is a time capsule, created from things that I would’ve liked as a kid, thrown in a box, and only unearthed in 2011. Sure, I’m older, and I’d like to believe (pretend) my tastes are discerning, but there is still a somewhat affable quality to the book. Make no mistake: this is a stupid comic book, and when looking at the rest of my pull I can only admit that Justice League appeals to the lowest common denominator of my interests based on my weird twelve-year-old desire to see grown man in silly clothes punch each other. Yet still, that inner twelve-year-old exists, so you know what? Punch on, my muscled friends! Punch on!

Congratulations, Geoff Johns, Jim Lee and everyone at DC who put together this book. You’ve gone ahead and achieved in 20 (overpriced) pages what Michael Bay needs two hours and twenty four minutes to do (for which cinema goers get charged upwards of $12 for a one time ticket and $20 for personal ownership), and you guys did it in roughly a fifteen or so minute read. You guys got this.

Final Verdict: Oh, what does it even matter?

As a side note and final thought before you go: The internet is a very silly place, and people get a huge kick out of writing and/or reading pieces which waste space by trying to bash apart silly things instead of promoting wonderful things. We’re all guilty of this, and this review is in no short terms a testament to that curiously addicting habit we’ve all seemed to form.

But I do want to make one thing clear: I don’t actively want to write reviews where I act like a dick for 1,000+ words. In fact, on a daily basis for this site, I do my best to promote things that I think are worthwhile. I truly, truly love comics, and I love writing about comics, and I swear I have a more intelligent and thoughtful review planned for tomorrow.

Yet still, I honestly just couldn’t resist hopping up on a soap box for a few minutes. We all have to every now and then just to get it out of our system, and this was just my day.


Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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