All is lost; heroes are scattered across the Earth and other planets and other dimensions as all roads lead back to darkness. Still through the power of reigniting the Forge and the casting of a tenth metal, thankfully not called Justice Leagueium, the heroes suit up and cast off their shadows and dance in to the final fight as the shinning examples that heroes out to be. Apart from the fact that, Superman once the key to Barbatos’s power barely does anything, the introduction of a fifty-third Earth and the lack of anything cohesive from the last issue or even the last one-shot, the books grand moments are lost to poor timing.
For whatever reason, DC saw fit to run with the New Age of Heroes before the end of the storyline that was meant to serve as an introduction, making the grand denouement towards the end of this book seem churlish at best. Back to this issue; I have commented on Scott Snyder’s “epic” world building before and how this storyline has felt like key points held together by contrivance and a heap of stuff happening off panel. As such, this book is pretty much more or the same.  There is a lot of dialogue to plough through, with a mix of cleverness and elements of triteness thrown in together. Maybe I am just too jaded to buy into the absurd team-up in the book that causes the “We never speak of this again” quote, proving to be just one moment that had my head shaking as is Darkseid throwing in an appearance. Contrivance occurs with tongue firmly placed in cheek as we are informed “I have spoken to the New Gods”; really? When? How? With the Batman being essentially kicked of the Justice League in the main book for a case of mistaken identity, it seems that the gang are ok with him being on the team after he almost caused the collapse of the Multiverse. The best part of the book is Kendra and Diana, with the pairing again showing how important Diana is to the DC Universe.
Greg Capullo’s art is on full chaos mode and for the most part, he does well. His Diana could be the next standard that everyone tries to hit. There are monsters, demons, Jokers, and of course the armoured up League. A couple of times the chaos gets the better of the panel layout with a couple of double takes needed to make sense of what is happening and the panel of banging bracelet to mace (I promise that is not a euphemism) has an odd look to the hand placement. These are little quibbles for an artist that, I have to say, has worked his socks off trying to keep the quality of the art high. It then doesn’t figure that the Epilogue pages art is so bland, especially when nothing much is said that, thanks to that timing problem, we don’t already know. Jonathan Glapion continues to work well with Capullo, providing delineation to help the overall flow of the art. One of the strongest part of the Dark Days / Nights / Knights has been the colouring and this issue is no exception with stellar work once again being provided by FCO Plascencia who works wonders across each page.
As I stated at the top, timing is everything. Consider the fact that this series has been going on since June 2017, thats a staggering ten months, all in order to push a new range of books that actually shipped before this issue. I have talked about how universes getting rebooted give the last few books a lame duck feel. Therefore, this book may well fall into this category in the grand scheme of things. The timing wasn’t helped by the numerous Tweets advising of the new League set up, again, sent before the end of this series, further diminishing the books impact and quite possibly showing a tad of disrespect to the fans who have been invested in the series for the last ten months and the seemingly countless one-shots and retelling of the same origin piece, with a twist.
Overall, I am left disappointed by the whole thing, a plot device for a series of books that don’t appeal to me seems like a waste of my time, despite some of the great art and colors that have been on show. Maybe, after all this, I actually agree with Batman, “We never speak of this again”.
Writing – 3 Stars
Art – 4 Stars
Colors – 5 Stars
[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Written by; Scott Snyder
Art by; Greg Capullo & Jonathan Glapion
Colors by; FCO Plascencia
Published by; DC Comics
Author Profile
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I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow
Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network
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