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A review by hilaritas
Justice, Volume 3 by Alex Ross, Doug Braithwaite, Jim Krueger
2.0
This was a disappointing end to the arc that started very strongly. As all stories like this must, this conclusion to the "Super Friends"-esque story centers largely on the big, all-hands-on-deck battle where the heroes right the wrongs and return things to the status quo. Unfortunately, that means tons of splash pages and big battle scenes, which are my least favorite parts of comics. Despite providing nice opportunities for the artists to strut their stuff, those parts are largely boring because they often devolve into celebrations of physical violence and flatten out the personality differences between characters that make reading these stories so fun. This book definitely suffers from those weaknesses.
Further, it loses a lot of the humor and winking references that made the first two volumes so entertaining. The bombast is dialed way up here, but the humor, heart, and sense are drowned out. I still don't really understand how the big plan worked, other than that Green Lantern apparently has an annulus ex machina that can somehow hit the reset button on all of the villains' machinations. Oh, and that kryptonite loses its efficacy if crushed into powder, I guess? Honestly, I don't know. This book made a hash of a lot of things and I lost interest in places.
The end hints at some sort of higher-order resolution to the eternal return of comic book life, but it lacked punch and felt off using Batman as the mouthpiece. This was a big let-down as the earlier volumes were fantastic.
Further, it loses a lot of the humor and winking references that made the first two volumes so entertaining. The bombast is dialed way up here, but the humor, heart, and sense are drowned out. I still don't really understand how the big plan worked, other than that Green Lantern apparently has an annulus ex machina that can somehow hit the reset button on all of the villains' machinations. Oh, and that kryptonite loses its efficacy if crushed into powder, I guess? Honestly, I don't know. This book made a hash of a lot of things and I lost interest in places.
The end hints at some sort of higher-order resolution to the eternal return of comic book life, but it lacked punch and felt off using Batman as the mouthpiece. This was a big let-down as the earlier volumes were fantastic.