Forever Evil #7 – Review

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

The Story: Nothing lasts forever, and that includes evil.

The Review: I’ve heard people complain about the delays on this series, but relatively speaking, seven issues over ten months aren’t so bad, compared to the ridiculous dry periods between issues of Jupiter’s Legacy or The Sandman: Overture. But maybe it’s easy for me to be blasé about Forever Evil‘s delays since I don’t actively care about all that much. Why complain about not getting something you’re not really looking forward to anyway? I might as well rant about not getting my tuition bill right away.

Part of my general dissatisfaction with Forever Evil is it hasn’t really fulfilled its goals of exploring the nature of villainy, much less the even more abstract idea of evil. If anything, the conflict between evil and really evil reveals just that: some people are evil, and some people are really evil. As for how evil arises, Johns provides no answers through the Syndicate, who mostly seem to be born that way, nor through the various DCU proper villains: Sinestro, Manta, Cold, Deathstroke, etc.

Justice League #25 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Doug Mahnke (art), Christian Alamy, Mark Irwin, Keith Champagne (inks), Gabe Eltaeb, Tony Avina, Rod Reis (colors)

The Story: Owlman exchanges one family for one of his choice.

The Review: I’m not the biggest fan of Big Events from the Big Two, but I have to admit that there’s no better way to capture the collision of worlds than to have the effects spread to a large swath of titles.  A story with that kind of scope requires more than just one title to squeeze in all its material.  Forever Evil, for example, would have been a far shallower affair if it didn’t have Justice League to flesh out its more interesting parts.

The Crime Syndicate would have suffered especially in their credibility as antagonists.  When paired against the less extreme villains of Earth-Prime in Forever Evil, the Syndicate seems caricaturized, even campy.  Their appearances in Justice League moderate these problems somewhat by placing the Syndicate in the overall seedier context of Earth-3, but still leave room for confusion.  Contrary to how it presents itself, Earth-3 doesn’t simply reverse the morality of characters on Earth-Prime.  There are slight hiccups in Earth-3’s ethical scheme producing what you can only call an interesting inconsistency to its denizens.

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.

Justice League #23.4: Secret Society – Review

By: Geoff Johns & Sterling Gates (story), Szymon Kudranski (art), John Kalisz (colors)

The Story: Whether for good or evil, every man can use an excellent butler.

The Review: You know the most disappointing thing about the Secret Society?  The fact that it’s been an incredible misnomer, for despite its brief existence, it hasn’t been much of a secret (as A.R.G.U.S. knew about it when the Society was Signalman and a bunch of robots) nor much of a society.  Ultimately, the Society was rendered moot the moment the Crime Syndicate entered our lives, and we haven’t had much reason to care about the group or its mastermind ever since.

Still, since the Outsider was ostensibly the man responsible for the state of Forever Evil, it made sense for Johns-Gates to at least dot their i’s and cross their t’s on this still largely mysterious figure.  So in a way, naming this issue Secret Society is something of a misnomer, too, since the villainous group features in only the most indirect way for all of a page.  To make up for it, Johns-Gates reveal that the Outsider may have a more crucial, lasting role in this Event than expected, making the issue more worthy of a read.