Concluding my review of the twelve-part DC Comics series Justice this week and these final issues draw a lot of parallels in the background stories to that of Kingdom Come. Which is not surprising considering Alex Ross’ involvement in the story and the fact that the overall story maintains some similarities; end of the world, heroes vs. villains on a massive scale, etc.
What impressed me about where Ross and Kruger took the story was how they intricately wove together the myriad characters and stories taking place. Brainiac captures Aquaman, cuts out a piece of his brain and when he determines he is not useful goes and steals his son. All the loved ones and partners of the heroes are captured in an effort to be used against them; though this never really comes to fruition. And it goes on from there.
Where I felt Justice was lacking some was deliverables. There’s this subplot of The Joker and how he’s being excluded; the level of depth they go into on this isn’t my issue. Clearly he’s a total loose cannon and keeping him otherwise engaged would be the best way to go, but they don’t do that. He breaks out, predictably, and wreaks havoc on the Villains magical floating cities. But even that is tempered and barely has any impact on the story itself.
It’s hard not to get sucked in to the beauty and quality of Ross’ work; his art is just outstanding, there’s no denying it. But, as I am reminded every time I read a comic from the 60s; amazing art plus terrible writing does not a good comic make.
Justice isn’t terribly written, but in my opinion it should have been shored up a bit. There are some lose threads and aspects of the story that get glossed over because they either didn’t want to deal with it or ran out of space and pushed it through to fulfill other commitments in the story.
I will say that the battle between the heroes and the villains is worth the price of admission. It’s well written and choreographed.
Overall Justice gets a B grade from me. I would have hoped for more as a follow-up (not directly, but in many ways) to Kingdom Come. But the art is sensational, the story, despite its issues, is still high caliber; just not top class.
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Till next Wednesday…
This is your Bin Fodder Guru Tim Blacksmith signing off.