Forever Evil #6 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), David Finch (pencils), Richard Friend (inks), Sonia Oback (colors)

The Story: Not only is morality topsy-turvy on Earth-3, the spelling is off, too!

The Review: After I reviewed the first issue of Forever Evil, commenter Invasionforce and I had a slight disagreement about its merits.  Invasionforce was of the mind that the storyline served as a kind of political allegory, with “evil” as a stand-in for social Darwinism, where one’s fitness for survival need not include scruples or any humanist sentiment whatsoever.  I was of the mind that Forever Evil was just another splashy event drenched in mindless superpowered battles.

No offense to Invasionforce, but at this point, I’m convinced that history will validate my perspective on things.  It’s been many months since we’ve seen the Ultraman, Luthor, or anyone else espouse their views on anything; they’ve been too busy fulfilling their intended roles in this melodrama, either killing or getting killed as most befits their stature.  And that’d be hunky-dory with me if only the plotting and character work had a little more going for it.

Justice League #26 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Ivan Reis (pencils), Joe Prado, Eber Ferreira, Rob Hunter, Andy Lanning (inks), Rod Reis, Tomev Morey, Tony Avina (colors)

The Story: Grid tries to learn more about his new friends.

The Review: The past couple issues did a fairly good job splitting time between fleshing out the backstories of the Syndicate and budging the Forever Evil story forward.  This issue is a lot heavier on the backstory, but then again, it’s covering quite a few more Syndicate members.  Even on a parallel Earth, if you aren’t a Batman or Superman analogue, you’re not important enough to merit a whole issue to yourself.

That said, the jumble of characters makes the issue feel even more packed, if anything, and while the origins of Grid, Power Ring, Johnny Quick, Atomica, and Deathstorm don’t really have much of the complexity that Ultraman and Owlman’s did, there are things worth noticing.  Besides, it’s hard not to enjoy seeing the twists on familiar characters play out.

Forever Evil #2 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), David Finch (pencils), Richard Friend (inks), Sonia Oback (colors)

The Story: So we have to turn to Lex Luthor for salvation?  Well, beggars can’t be choosers.

The Review: A commenter on my review of last issue pointed out the premise and tone of Forever Evil represents a more sophisticated style of writing than we typically associate with Johns.  I confess that I didn’t give the observation much credit at the time.  A few quotes of evolutionary theory does not a high-concept comic make.  But after reading through this issue, I’m starting to believe that Johns may be at least aiming beyond his usual literalism after all.

Mostly, I see this in his more nuanced approach to the characters.  For my part, I’ve always felt that with few notable exceptions, Johns tended to struggle with antagonists.  Their powers and goals varied, but they didn’t have much of an identity.  Quite often, the more powerful the villain, the less dimensional they became (e.g. Nekron, Krona, Volthoom).  Their characters are subjugated to their roles in providing the heroes something to fight against.  Forever Evil’s absence of heroes thus forces Johns to find more specific motivations for the featured villains.