Justice League Odyssey #3 – “Ghost Sector” Part 3

The trick to correctly writing a team book is, no matter how disparate the characters, their personalities have to bounce off each other effortlessly, creating dynamics and relationships that tether the whole group together. Comics’ best examples of this are, of course, the Fantastic Four, followed by Claremont’s X-Men, and Wolfman/Perez’s New Teen Titans. You read these books, and almost immediately you’re struck by the notion that you’re reading about not just a family, but characters whose lives and motives feel completely lived in. But it doesn’t happen overnight, and sometimes a reader must be patient for the payoff to happen. Such is the case with Justice League Odyssey.

To be sure, Cyborg, Starfire, Jessica Cruz, and wild card Azrael are not the most organic bunch of characters ever grouped together, but that’s the point. Their haphazard group dynamic is a metaphor for the Ghost Sector as a whole: a wide array of contrasts, forced to be together despite having little to nothing in common.

And then there’s Darkseid.

Many fans cried foul when the Master of the Omega Beams was announced as being a part of this book’s lineup. Could a kinder, gentler Darkseid be in the offing? Was DC going to do the unthinkable and make him… one of the good guys? And what was up with Darkseid’s svelte, almost youthful new look?

Fans needn’t have worried. Writer Josh Williamson knows what he’s doing. Everything is a little chaotic up front here – but I’m convinced that’s the point. In focusing on the innate randomness of the Ghost Sector, Williamson is in actuality setting us up for what we’re to expect – a wild ride of a book where anything goes.

Cyborg and Starfire, of course, have an almost built-in camaraderie that’s long a holdover from the NTT days (even if that book doesn’t officially exist in-continuity anymore), but Jessica Cruz and Azrael have yet to mesh, although they do have an exchange wherein she tells him “Just… try not to be weird” when they’re forced to work together to scout for Coluans. That sort of little exchange may seem meaningless, but it’s exactly the sort of small, human moment that a book like this needs to keep it grounded amid all the wacky space shenanigans. And then there’s Darkseid – not in the least a force for good, but rather an omnipresent threat, manipulating from the shadows to his own end.

There’s also the budding mystery of why the heroes are known and worshiped as gods, suggesting upcoming time-travel and a much wider scope than we’ve thus far been given. This is a good, solid hook to invest readers for a long-term haul, as long as Williamson keeps the relationship between his four leads as the foundation.

On the art side, Philippe Briones is a decent artist in his own right, but a jarring change from issues one and two’s Stjepan Sejic. Issue-to-issue it isn’t such a big deal, but looking ahead at reading it in trade form, such a stylistic shift could certainly take a reader out of the experience. However, he needs to work a bit on his expressions – there are some odd ones throughout that besides looking strange, aren’t consistent from panel to panel. He does, though, excel at conveying motion, which is a must for an action-heavy book like this one.