JUSTICE LEAGUE #35 by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and Ivan Reis on pencils, Keith Champagne, Mark Irwin, Christian Alamy, Ray McArthy, and Joe Prado (whew) on inks, Brad Anderson on color and Carlos M. Mangual on lettering, ultimately asks the question; what’s Lex Luthor’s real plan. Who’s bad?
Justice League is something I’ve been wavering in and out on. A lot of cool characters that were teased as Justice League members at the start of the reboot (Lady Luck?) or were for a while, at least, such as Element Woman have just up and disappeared. What did happen to her? She seemed cool. Doom Patrol? Lame. Maybe. Aw now I feel bad.
Anyway. Bruce and Lex have teamed up and the rest of the team is bent on finding evidence to can him. Can we really buy him trying to go legit? I’m not sure. Lex sure has it out for him though because Neutron, contracting or rather being blackmailed into being a hitman is set upon LexCorp building by an unknown contact directing them. His mission? Assassinate Lex Luthor.
POSITIVES
Johns obviously have his plans set out and this issue is actually for the most part pretty good. It balances the weirdness of having Lex as a strangely effective good guy (I actually really like him as a grouchy anti-villian) as Bruce and Lex form a partnership all while the rest of the Justice League more or less spies and waits. It’s clear they don’t fully trust Lex, and I don’t blame them. Johns writers rather “comicbooky” but in a way I guess I can stomach. It’s neither here nor there. The most interesting parts here is seeing the rest of the team waiting and seeing Lex share his labs with Bruce. Billy Batson continues to be a source of comedy, which I appreciate that they treat him as such given the character’s history and his true age that belies his superhero form, but they really need to be careful about not making him a punching bag.I like all the scheming. Just scheming left and right. I like Billy. I like Bruce here. Curious if Sun Yen will turn out to be anyone in particular or was just a one time character. There is more humor here than I thought there would be and I like it. Jessica is cool.
NEGATIVES
I really would like more ladies on the team. This issue’s pretty sedate and dialogue heavy for the most part. We get some Lex backstory, which of course is a sob story too, can’t have it without the drama. No really there’s not much to hate here besides the wonky art. Sometimes it looks really really good, like hey that’s pretty attractive, most the time it’s just not working. With split art duties and more inkers than I’ve ever seen it’s no wonder the art sort of looks all over the place. Less is more people. I will say I do like the environments. They looked better than most science labs in comics. I hate Jessica’s costume.
VERDICT
I think this is interesting. I’m not excited for the Amazo Virus. Bruce is doing like 500 things right now he’s really going to have to deal with a rampant virus. I think it’s pretty solid, maybe a bit boring of an issue but still solid. Had the art been a little less wonky I’d be a bit happier, its really nothing special. It’s not that offensive either. Just there. Competent. But just there. That’s not a…bad thing either.
