Posted September 1, 2012 by Earl Maghirang in Comics

COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Justice League # 12

Comic book review for Justice League # 12 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee

The latest issue of the New 52 Justice League concludes the second story arc “The Villain’s Journey” which teases us a major hookup between Superman and Wonder Woman. More importantly we officially wrap up the first year for Justice League.

An interesting thing about this issue is not with how the confrontation between Graves and the League went down. I could’ve sworn that the action was really dumbed down for this issue. Compared to the previous action-packed issues of JL (such as the throw down between the League and Darkseid) the new villain and the new story arc had very little fighting. Sure you could count the fight between Green Lantern and Wonder Woman as a “fight”, the actual beat down and ass kicking given to David Graves.

My problem with the issue was more towards the ‘lazy’ writing. Of course I won’t argue the beauty of Jim Lee’s art for the series, its really Johns’ writing that really made me frown. Don’t get me wrong I loved the book in general but if I go technical about it, it felt like this:

Johns had a lot of ideas and plans for the League that may or may not cross over with other books or other characters. Due to the sheer number of tie-ups and behind the scenes work, he’s got a limited space to work on. That being said, it looks like its not complete. It felt like a mean that didn’t have a fitting dessert.

The artwork is great. Nuff said about that.

Justice League # 12 also features several cameos towards the end including the appearance of Suicide Squad’s Amanda Waller (who also happens to be a former teammate of Steve Trevor in Team 7). Story wise the new issue also fleshes out new details about the team’s second year. So it would seem like the brewing relationship between Clark and Diana will lead to some cataclysmic results which leads to better stories (I hope so).

There’s nothing much I can say about Justice League # 12. So to recap:

- Art is good; Jim Lee and Scott Williams will always be on top in the art game

- A bit messy writing for my taste

- No satisfying battle/ action scenes

- Interesting shift in team dynamics. The traditional one-upmanship of Batman rears its head once more towards the end.

- Ish gave a nice excuse for Hal Jordan to be absent from the team. This could pave the way for Shazam joining the team and Baz joining the Justice League of America.