Review & Spoilers: Justice League #39
“Chapter Four: The Infected”
Published by DC Comics
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Jason Fabok
Coloured by Brad Anderson
Note: There are some spoilers within this review.
The Plot
Wonder Woman talks about past crisis and states that they’ll stop the one today. The infected members of the League attack her, Superman, and Lex and also have their powers back now. The infected all appear to belong to some sort of hive mind. Wonder Woman gives Lex the benefit of the doubt to come up with a cure for the Amazo virus even though Superman does not trust him at all now. She fights to contain the League while Superman and Lex leave to find a cure and is close to being overwhelmed until Captain Cold and Steve Trevor arrive. Lex maintains that the key to defeating the disease is within Superman. Wonder Woman and company are luckily able to find a way to contain Patient Zero. Superman abandons Lex and helps with the containment. In the aftermath, there are some serious repercussions with the virus. Patient Zero also reveals himself and his new identity. Neutron is ready to talk to Lex about who put the hit on him. Finally, in order to help Power Ring gain more control, Flash has called in an old friend, Hal Jordan! Up next, the Darkseid War!
The Breakdown
This was a decent issue of Justice League. This issue had a good balance of action and character moments. I enjoyed the team-up with Wonder Woman and Captain Cold. They worked well together and I think this will continue because they both do whatever it takes to win a fight. It was good to see that Captain Cold played a large role in stopping the threat. I liked that the infected members weren’t operating at their usual levels so the fight between them and Wonder Woman was more enjoyable. The action scenes were done very nicely here too as they were coherent and easy to follow. Also, it wasn’t just a bunch of pinup poses that look good, but don’t really convey the fight well. The action visually made sense and told a good story. Even though Lex doesn’t appear to be held accountable by the government for his actions, he’s still being held responsible by Patient Zero who does not fear him at all. The subplot with the bounty of Lex does have me curious and I was actually hoping to see who was behind it all. Either way, it looks like we’ll be getting an answer to this pretty quickly. I’m also liking the continued tension between Superman and Lex (even though it is a pretty obvious storyline) because it might bring some answers to their relationship when the upcoming Darkseid War occurs. I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of some of the victims of the virus and who could be introduced by it. The biggest highlight for me was the return of Hal Jordan, Green Lantern. He hasn’t been a part of the team for over two years now (since the dreadful Villain’s Journey arc). This might not be a big deal to some people, but for me it’ll be nice to be able to read a Green Lantern character and this is something I haven’t been able to do in some time. I read Green Lantern for many consecutive issues starting with the latter part of Kyle Rayner’s run and had to tap out after Johns left the title (I did give it a couple issues after that though and I also read Green Lantern Corps consecutively after Green Lantern: Rebirth until around the same time I dropped Green Lantern and this sentence is way too long to put into parenthesis). None of the GL-verse is appealing to me anymore and hasn’t been for awhile, but now I get some sort of fix. Also, I’ve always been a fan of Hal and I chuckled at him immediately looking forward to getting under Batman’s skin. The work by the art team was well done once again and I think they’ll do a really good job at handling the Darkseid War and making it look epic. This title has been picking up some steam and I’m looking forward to the next arc.
BUT…
So I know that Lex bargained for a full pardon concerning his role in the outbreak. However, he seems to be getting off a bit too easy with everything. Maybe there will be repercussions in upcoming issues, but that part just seemed to be a bit too neat and tidy for the time being. I was glad to see Hal, but was a little bit nervous when he was talking in the third person. If it’s just a quick nod to the first arc of the title then I’m good with it. However, I hope that he isn’t the exact same person that he was six years ago (in comic time) and hasn’t grown because that would be a bit disappointing. Ok, I hope that we get at least 24 pages for 4 bucks next month. It wasn’t 20 pages, but still feels a bit on the steep side. I’m willing to overpay a bit here and there for some indie titles (which can go up to 3.50-4 bucks a book for roughly 20-22 pages), but am a bit hesitant to do so with a Big Two book. Either way, it does beat the 20 pages for 4 bucks crap from last month.
Editor’s Notes:
Before we get to Joe’s final verdict, there are three important take-aways from Justice League #39 that I’d like to reiterate.
- Amazo ends the arc is humanoid form.
- A small residual element of the population have Amazo virus induced powers. How that will impact the balance of power in the DC Universe has yet to be revealed.
- Hal Jordan is back just in time for the Darkseid War Post-Convergence.
Now, onto Joe’s verdict for Justice League #39!
Buy It, Borrow It, Shelf Read It, or Ignore It?
Buy It. This title has been solid and I’m glad that it continues to receive the support that it should from DC as one of their flagship titles. The talent that has been placed on this title have been good and there hasn’t been an issue released that has looked like it was thrown together to make a deadline (many long running titles have had an issue or two like this). The main antagonist for this arc was a virus and that made the approach to this arc a bit different, which I enjoyed. Justice League has been straightforward, well-written with a good, clean art team and I’ll take that over a lot of other stuff out there. I’m looking forward to next month because some of these prologue issues have been pretty good reads so far. I’m curious what Green Lantern and Power Ring will both bring to the table now that they’re on the same team.
