Wednesday 23 January 2013

Justice League #16 Review

While the Justice League/Aquaman Throne of Atlantis crossover got off to a great start, it loses its footing a bit in Justice League #16. The issue recovers by the end, but at that point the cliffhanger will either have you excited or make you roll your eyes. This issue amounts to a whole lot of piece-moving in a war of murky motivations and superpowered beings, but it’s not so bad when the pieces are so gorgeously drawn by Ivan Reis.

Reis carries this book with page after page of detailed heroes performing one dynamic feat after another. Ocean Master shows off his electrifying powers, Wonder Woman works her lasso better than Indiana Jones with a whip, and Superman uses his heat vision in a spectacular display of intensity. Although, some of the action and will have you backtracking to figure out who got thrown where and by who. The Atlantean horde looks particularly impressive with its many layers of progressively bigger sea monsters.

Geoff Johns does a fair job with the scripting, but he squeezed too much content into the opening pages so he could overindulge in some double- and full-page spreads in order to kick the war off. It feels overdone, and uncomfortably close to those first several issues of Justice League that gave us five too many splash pages per issue.

Too much time is spent explaining last issue’s unnecessary cliffhanger, and in fact this issue shows a moment that would have worked better: Batman setting Aquaman and Ocean Master on fire. Now that would have me clamoring to read the next one. There’s also a head-scratching moment from Wonder Woman when she chastises Aquaman for fighting his friends. Yes, the same woman who not too long ago brashly kicked Green Lantern and Superman’s asses.

This issue actually isn’t all that bad, especially considering the still top-notch Shazam backup, but it’s nowhere near the strength of its start.

Joshua writes for IGN. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl or on IGN, where he’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Green Lantern, Darth Maul, and Pokemon.


Source : ign[dot]com

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