COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Justice League No Justice #4 (A New Beginning)

NO JUSTICE, PART 4: With the destruction of Colu, the Omega Titans have now targeted Earth. The League is trapped and only Green Arrow is left behind to stop a force that the entire League couldn’t stop.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE #4
Authors: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson
Artists: Francis Manapul
Colors: Hi-Fi
Letters: Andworld Design
Publisher: DC Comics

What You Need to Know:

The Omega Titans have arrived, set to devour planets throughout the galaxy. They’ve already destroyed Colu, home of Brainiac, and now have their eyes…er…stomachs focused on Earth.

Unfortunately, the League didn’t even come close to stopping the Titans and Starro, in a rare display of courage, paid the ultimate price. Now the League is trapped far from Earth with no way to return and save their own planet.

What You’ll Find Out:

The four Omega Titans have arrived at Earth. Arrow has finally managed to reach the Green Lanterns. And the heroes of Earth are trapped on a spaceship far away from their planet. Brainiac 2 refuses to help and teleports off the ship for Earth. Things seem hopeless, but J’onn has some inspirational words for everybody.

Brainiac arrives at the Fortress of Solitude and is ready to kill Waller and Arrow when the five Lanterns from the Earth all show up. Things still seem hopeless, though, and Waller is ready to blow them all up when a boom tube opens up and the entire Justice League spills out. The four teams then split up to each tree on Earth.

Waller releases the information she stole from Brainiac to Cyborg, giving him the final piece of the puzzle. Cyborg now knows what to do. The four teams absorb the energies from their tree, but the tree of Entropy is bearing a seed for the Titans to eat. Hal Jordan brings the seed to Cyborg so that he can alter the seed to accept the energies from all of the trees.

One from each of the teams then must charge the tree: Cyborg gives it wisdom, Wonder Woman gives it wonder, J’onn gives it mystery, and lastly, Lex Luthor charges it with entropy. They then fire the seed into the entropy titan. Entropy, charged with the energy from the other trees, is then targeted by the other three titans. Unable to stop themselves, they attack Entropy, devouring him.

With the titan dead, the other three vanish, no longer feeling the calling from Earth.

And so with the threat over, the villains depart and the League, Titans, and Suicide Squad all go their separate ways. It’s the start of something new as Batman and J’onn both make their own preparations for the future. And with the Hall of Justice completed, the new Justice League has its first meeting where Batman nominates J’onn J’onzz as the new League chairman.

What Just Happened?

So there we have it…Snyder’s mini-event follow-up to Dark Nights Metal.

I’ve enjoyed it, for sure. It’s had good art (and for this issue we see the return of Francis Manapul). It’s been witty and a fun read. Nothing too extraordinary, though. All this is was an event to tie in Dark Nights Metal with Snyder’s upcoming Justice League series.

And therein lies my lack of excitement with the series as a whole. As much fun as it was and as good as the individual issues were, it’s a filler story, and it feels like a filler story.

But all things considered, it was still a good story. It wasn’t terribly shocking, nothing mindblowing, and honestly very little of it was memorable, but it set up the new three Justice League titles perfectly, establishing why they exist and kind of getting me pumped for it.

The one thing that I really did love though: J’onn J’onzz getting nominated as chairman of the League. I don’t have much experience with him, but what little I’ve read really makes me like his character. And to see him in the lead is definitely getting me excited.

And seeing the final page finally reading “New Justice” instead of “No Justice” filled me with hope. Hope for the future under Snyder’s helm.

Rating: 7/10.

Final Thoughts: At the end of the day, the story is forgettable and the ultimate threat just doesn’t feel threatening enough, but it’s a good issue and does a good job preparing us for the next series of Justice League books. So by that metric, the story is a success, even if you could pass it up and not miss much.