Howdy folks, here we are again with the comics and stuff. It’s a super light week with only a couple books, but that forces me to pick one of the trades in my backlog to talk about after the credits roll. Let’s dive in!
Justice League #5
This issue focuses almost entirely on Lex Luthor, and his confusing plan to unleash seven primal forces of the universe using the Legion of Doom and a magic doorknob of Doom. The series is floating in this weird limbo of being really fun and really confusing. It’s pretty clear I missed some major stuff in No Justice so I may need to carve out time for that soon. The writing is really rad and keeping me super invested even when I’m not 100% sure what’s going on. I especially like getting a whole Luthor issue going into some of the background of this plan and how he recruited some of the other villains for the Legion of Doom. It’s also cool seeing them layer all of this old weird stuff on top of an otherwise contemporary plot. For example, they’re using the classic Legion of Doom underwater fortress aesthetic, but now it’s in a lake of lava and made out of special stone mined by an immortal that makes it difficult to see. It’s a fun update while still keeping the classic aesthetic in place. I also really like the team for Legion of Doom emulating the classic lineup from the show but with the scarier comic versions of the characters. The Joker is particularly dangerous, and Grodd is really intense too. I suspect the Justice League team will strike a similar balance, but we need a bit more focus on them together before I can say… for sure. This issue claims to be the start of a new arc, but it seems like since the series is new it’s just one continuous story, so the arc doesn’t have a ton of meaning. Being biweekly gives it the ability to move quickly which I appreciate for this book since it’s so fucking odd. Excited to keep up with it for a while.