Year of the Villain #1
Recap
Stories across the Batman, Superman, and Justice League titles have been building to this. The Batman Who Laughs edges closer to realizing his master plan. Bane readies to finally destroy the bat and claim Gotham. Leviathan prepares to become the supreme secret society. The Legion of Doom, led by Lex Luthor, ready to tip the scales in evils favor. All of this under the nearly celestial watch of Perpetua.
Review
You may not find out much, but you’ll see plenty of things happen in succession. There’s a lot about this concept that, under the surface, borrows elements from a lot of DC’s previous successes. The everything-goes-wrong-at-once of Infinite Crisis. The evil wins ideas Final Crisis and Forever Evil. Hell, even Underworld Unleashed gets a cribbing with the idea of villains getting everything they need to defeat the heroes.
Things happen at a fast, but the well-controlled pace, considering the level of big-name talent involved here. Big explosions and grand character moments are the cement slabs held together by the most base and blatant exposition. But this is designed for anybody to access so I guess that’s warranted.
If you’re expecting something with the intricate details of DC Rebirth (remember that?) don’t. This is one-part primer comic book and one-part hype-magazine with it’s backloaded articles and extras.
The strength of the DC Universe often is its villains. Some of the best nemesis and rogues’ galleries in all of comics live here so it makes sense to really push and showcase them on such a large scale. It just feels like the dents in originality harm what still pulls off the big event feel it’s going for.
It’s overwritten in parts and underwritten in others but the art is so gorgeous that it won’t do too much damage anyway. I still love me a pin-up page of every hero the artist can cram onto a page and there’s a really great example of that within. If this isn’t the perfect place for those I don’t know where is anymore.
There’s a huge chance this mish-mash of recycled ideas will work, but this book’s job isn’t to convince you of that. Its job is just to show you a lot of what you love and light the fuse for what’s to follow.
In that respect, mission accomplished.
Final Thoughts
You’ve seen this before and, while it doesn’t have all the intricacies of previous kick-off specials, it does what it sets out to do. It takes storylines that are already working on some huge scales and expands the scope. Do we need that? Is there a danger of convoluting things by cross-stitching them together like this? Is bigger always better? None of these answers are in this book, it’ll either get you amped for something you were already going to buy into anyway or, at the very least, will give you a truckload of great art and content to drool over.
Year of the Villain #1: The Most Dangerous Summer Event Starts Here!
- Writing - 8/108/10
- Storyline - 8/108/10
- Art - 9/109/10
- Color - 10/1010/10
- Cover Art - 9/109/10