Things get colossal in Justice League #44 written by Geoff Johns, art by Jason Fabok, Brad Anderson on color, Rob Leigh on letters.
Grail begins her assault versus her father by facing off against her half-brother Kalibak (and Wonder Woman bent on s
topping Grail from her destructive solution), Scott Free faces off Steppenwolf, an Apokolipsian energy charged Superman faces off against Lex Luthor, Metron-Batman and Hal Jordan investigate the origins of The Anti-Monitor, formerly Mobius and the creator of Metron’s chair, all while the giant world destroyer himself. faces off Darkseid himself. Jessica Cruz takes a possible last stand in order to separate the hulking gods. Darkseid then summons The Black Racer…
POSITIVES
This is rather epic, solid work. Fabok’s art is impressive and colors are rich as always, making it hyper traditional, which is not my favorite but it’s cinematic and well done. Most comics would die to have this kind of artwork behind it. Fabok is hyper competent but his female characters do tend to look alike, something that with a little further practice he could really nix given his level of skill. I’m not sure why he continues do that because his Wonder Woman is definitely one of the better drawn Wonder Womans around.
NEGATIVES
Spinning off f
rom there Grail’s design was a lost opportunity to go full on Kirby and create a character, should she survive past this arc, that looks like she belongs alongside Kalibak and all the other New Gods which have under Johns retained heavily Kirby rooted designs. She just doesn’t look too much like a “New God” in the way we associate their aesthetics even despite her half-Amazonian heritage and I think that ultimately hurts her as a character.
Bary is given a rather grotesque short stick this arc, not only having Grail climb literally out of him, he’s ends up in another rather frightening predicament this issue. Poor Barry. I feel Shazam is under utilized given his powerset you could have allowed him
While this story is ambitious and over the top I question why we need such a story right now after just having “killed” Darkseid preboot in the wildly incoherent Final Crisis event. Granted that was quite a while ago and he was brought back and the like but it still stands as rather similar.
VERDICT
This marks a huge change for the Anti-Monitor, a new origin I think people may be very split on. But you can’t argue this is well done work. It’s over the top, it’s semi-classic clashes tipped in grit, it’s very much Johns.
