Justice League, Volume 8: Darkseid War, Part 2 Review (Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok)

Darkseid’s dead, the Anti-Monitor has bestowed New Gods powers on the Justice League for no reason, and chaos follows - it’s the final part of The Darkseid War aka Zzz… FART… Huh?!…Zzz...

The Darkseid War Part 2 is such a garbled mess. What was the point? What were anybody’s motivations for anything? Was there a story? I didn’t see one. This whole book was basically the modern day superhero event template where you just keep throwing in characters Royal Rumble-style and hope that something interesting will happen - and it doesn’t.

Most of the Justice League now have new powers like Flash is the new Black Racer and Batman’s sat in the Mobius chair - for no reason! Grail wants to punish her absent father, Darkseid, but even though she knows he’s already dead she keeps trying…? Here’s what the book is: Justice League fights obscure powerful characters; Justice League fights themselves; Justice League fights the Anti-Monitor and his cohorts; Justice League fights the Crime Syndicate (yeah, those bozos are back); Justice League fights Grail and a superbaby. Maybe that sounds appealing to readers who think fighting in and of itself is a great story but not me. 

Geoff Johns can’t write characters - or at least he seems to have forgotten how in this book. He doesn’t know how to make you care about any characters but he can dramatically introduce them well. And the only readers who’re gonna be excited about seeing whoever are established fans of the characters because Johns doesn’t give you a reason to like them.

It’s bad enough trying to keep track of everyone who’s joining the fight let alone understand why they’re fighting at all - I couldn’t tell you what any of the sides’ goals were! Nothing was accomplished and it wasn’t even remotely entertaining. Maybe fans of Jack Kirby’s DC work might enjoy the references; it might even work well as a colouring book if it were printed in black and white. Otherwise, this is boring drek from start to overlong finish.

While I think it’s a good thing Geoff Johns has largely left comics behind to oversee the DC movie universe (he’s coming back later this year to ruin Watchmen for everyone), we’ll likely only see a lighter tone to the movies going forward - they’ll probably remain as loud and dumb as they’ve been under Hack Snyder if Johns’ comics are any indicator.