DC Comics & Justice League Incarnate #4 Spoilers: A Great Darkness Scheming Across 85 Years Of DC Publication History?! An Infinite Frontier Revealed!

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DC Comics and Justice League Incarnate #4 Spoilers follows.

A Great Darkness Scheming Across 85 Years Of DC Publication History?!

An Infinite Frontier Revealed!

Nine (9) pages that make sense of that publication history.

The promise of the issue is revealed in its solicitation.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INCARNATE #4
Written by JOSHUA WILLIAMSON and DENNIS CULVER
Art by CHRIS BURNHAM and ANDREI BRESSAN
Cover by GARY FRANK
Variant cover by JORGE FORNÉS
1:25 variant cover by CHRIS BURNHAM
$4.99 US | 40 pages | 4 of 5 | $5.99 US Variant (Card Stock)
ON SALE 2/1/22

THIS ISSUE…A HERO DIES!

Doctor Multiverse discovers there is a threat greater than Darkseid! Is the Justice League Incarnate’s only option to work with the Lord of Apokolips? Meanwhile, on Earth-7, Orion and Aquawoman lead the rest of the team to gain control of the Oblivion Engine! But by the time this issue is over…a member of Justice League Incarnate meets their end!

The book begins at the literal beginning; the cosmic birth of the DC Comics universe that eventually…

…begat the Crisis of Infinite Earths.

We then learn that there was a truce between the Great Darkness and the Light (presumably God), but that Darkness cannot be trusted and all the villains behind DC’s consequential cosmic events were unwitting pawns or influenced by the Great Darkness:

  • Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985)
  • Cosmic Odyssey (1988)
  • Zero Hour: Crisis in Time (1994)
  • Infinite Crisis (2005)
  • Final Crisis (2008)

There are other comics events that are left unexplained:

  • Armageddon 2001 (1991)
  • Flashpoint (2011)
  • Convergence (2015)
  • DC Rebirth (2016)
  • Doomsday Clock (2017)

However, more to come in the issue.

We seem to close over those post 2008 events to get to the post Flashpoint New 52 era that began in 2011.

We then pivot back to the end of 2008’s Final Crisis…

…to the seeming (re)birth of of DC’s super-heroes.

All capped off by other consequential events in:

  • Dark Nights: Metal (2017)
  • Dark Nights: Death Metal (2020)

That ended with a new Infinite Frontier signaling an infinite multiverse.

No longer locked into a Multiversity of 52 universes.

In this issue we also learn from Doctor Multiverse, who narrated to the Justice League Incarnate this seeming hidden history of DC, all with the purpose of noting that:

The JLI might even need to team with Darkseid to make it a successful campaign.

The book does have the Great Darkness appears and a super-hero does die which is interesting considering the forthcoming Flashpoint Beyond event.

Now you may also be wondering why I have cited 85 years of DC Comics publication history.

Well, it is because DC Comics’ first comic book, before it was even called DC, was Detective Comics #1 (March 1937).

In fact, the DC in DC Comics stands for Detective Comics.

It is quote evident that Batman in 2022 is DC’s most popular character, debuting in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939)

However, DC Comics’ first super-hero was Superman who debuted in Action Comics #1 (June 1938).

That’s a few months after Detective Comics #1 hit stands and almost one full year before Batman’s debut.

This issue of JLI – that’s Justice League Incarnate not Justice League International – raises some interesting questions heading into its finale.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INCARNATE #5 (OF 5)
Written by JOSHUA WILLIAMSON and DENNIS CULVER
Art by ANDREI BRESSAN
Cover by GARY FRANK
Variant cover by JORGE FORNÉS
1:25 variant cover by ANDREI BRESSAN
$4.99 US | 40 pages | 5 of 5 | $5.99 US Variant (card stock)
ON SALE 3/1/22

In this shocking conclusion, Justice League Incarnate must face their worst threat yet: each other! With half the team under the control of the forces of darkness, what chance do they have of stopping Darkseid from achieving his ultimate victory? No matter who wins, everyone loses because the real crisis has yet to come…

So, the finale comes in the month of March which marks 85 years since Detective Comics #1 launched a pop culture juggernaut in DC Comics.

The finale also marks the end of the second of three consequential Infinite Frontier tied series.

  1. Infinite Frontier series (6 issues)
  2. Justice League Incarnate series (5 issues)
  3. ???

The third is not Flashpoint Beyond as it is not written by Joshua Williamson, but we may know more about that final part of the trilogy with Justice League Incarnate #5 (of 5).

And, yes, all this Great Darkness language and antagonist appears inspired by the Darkseid centric Great Darkness Saga from the iconic 1982 Legion of Super-Heroes storyline.

John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!