The Justice League have found themselves in another predicament (cue Benny Hill Theme) and are running around clueless while their enemies tap dance on their graves. By which I mean to say the League is screwed maybe probably.
Title: Justice League #4 (The Totality pt 4)
Writer: Scott Snyder
Art: Jorge Jimenez
Colors: Alejandro Sanchez
Letters: Tom Napolitano
Publisher: DC Comics
What You Need to Know:
The Justice League broke the Source Wall (See; DK: Metal) and in doing so unleashed forces the universe was not prepared for (See: No Justice) which in turn unleashed a seed of pure cosmic energy, The Totality. Now The Totality has created a field around itself that mutates anything within it into a twisted evil version of itself. Superman and Martian Manhunter have entered the field to attempt to better understand The Totality with miniaturized Batman in Superman and Hawkgirl inside Manhunter. There’s just one problem, they’re not alone! Joker is in Manhunter and Luthor is in his nemesis, it’s about to go sideways in a big way!
What You’ll Find Out:
We open on Grodd and a pretty disturbing tale from his childhood, he talks about his abusive father, who punished him for being small without knowing what the young telepathic gorilla was capable of. Grodd passes on his bitterness and anger to his unfortunate victim in the cave…
We cut to Superman and Martian Manhunter fighting what appear to be living Source Wall Statues (when a being is thrown into the source wall they become part of it, essentially becoming a statue when converted into the stone of the wall, notable source statues include Darkseid’s father Yuga Khan and Doctor Doom, it happened, look it up) Superman plays offense while J’onn tries desperately to reason with the Monoliths. (It seems wrong to pluralize Monolith)
We jump to Joker and Hawkgirl as Joker attempts to kill her with a chainsaw he somehow started without alerting her. Joker knocks her out with ease, I do like a minor callback to the Death of the Family arc of N52 Batman in Joker’s expressionless pupils. In Superman’s body, Batman wracks his mind as to who could be attacking him after he hears Joker laughing across the comms.
Meanwhile, on the Moon John Stewart and Cyborg attempt to fight Sinestro wielding the power of the Ultraviolet Lanterns, he swats them aside like flies and reveals a shocking truth, elsewhere Grodd toys with Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman using a newfound power I will leave you to discover along with the rest of the issue.
What Just Happened?
This story was paced really strangely, with about 6 or 7 majorly pivotal scenes taking place within one issue. It felt a bit overly crowded in my opinion, every page was a fresh crisis with little preamble. Most of the changes were somewhat interesting with the Still Force being the thing that I take the most interest in but it was hard to focus on any one scene when so many were flashing before my eyes. In fact, I had trouble choosing a featured image for this story because there were so many stories to focus on.
There are a couple other minor character nitpicks like Hawkgirl being knocked out in seconds and John Stewart being on the moon with no life support, (the Green Field around a Green Lantern in space) I’m not completely sure if Cyborg needs to breathe so I’ll give him in space with no gear a pass for now. Granted maybe they’re on a moon base with breathable air, but if the Justice League had a moon base don’t you think Barbatos would’ve thrown it into the sun? Also, their orbital platform crashed at the end of Priest’s run.
This arc has begun to take the typical Snyder Slide™ towards “all is lost whatever shall we do!” which Scott Snyder employs frequently, most recently in Metal, then No Justice, which is usually followed by half an issue of hopeful or whimsical banter between teammates after a simple resolution. (see: 10th Metal)
The art by Jorge Jimenez is great besides one panel where Aquaman and Wonder Woman punch each other, which does remind me of an infamous panel from Superman #75 (Supes and Doomsday, I’m sure you know the one) that I’ve never liked, it just looks anatomically impossible. If that was an intentional homage I’ll allow it, as the two people punching each other shot has never worked in my opinion.
The lettering in this issue by Tom Napolitano is pretty great, I like the inner monologue box format used by several of the leaguers, and there is one fantastic sound effect panel with Flash fighting Grodd (FWOOOOM) that I really love on a lot of levels.
Colors by Alexandro Sanchez are great as well, I especially love the shade of the Ultraviolet Lanterns constructs and Grodd using the Still Force, especially in the panel I described above, which is a masterpiece.
Rating: 7/10
Final Thought:
Amazing art saves this otherwise average read, I think Snyder needs to find his team book legs he’s trying too hard to set up 14 stories at once, I much prefer the route Tynion went in Detective Comics recently, making each arc a vignette highlighting a different team member. Not to say Snyder isn’t possibly building to that but I feel like this opening arc is starting to unravel a bit.
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