There are basically two Justice League storylines: 1) fighting some giant monster/threat or 2) fighting each other/evil versions of themselves, both of which are usually unreadable sleeping pills in book form! In New Maps of Hell, it’s 1) - but it’s not terrible??
Warren Ellis doesn’t waste the reader’s time with tons of exposition. He knows the Justice League is bullshit and writes just enough for you to understand the story, then gets on with it. Some pages have no dialogue - it’s a good balance between words and art, and the pacing is pleasingly snappy as a result too.
The biggest flaw is also what makes the book work: the villain is completely amorphous. At first they think the Big Bad is literally Satan, summoned to Earth through ancient cursed texts, and then it turns out to be this other thing with constantly shifting power sets, physically, then emotionally, then mentally challenging the team. The final reveal is uninspired and pretty much ensures this as yet another unmemorable Justice League book.
But the villain also needs to be this fluid to actually be formidable enough for the team. Because this is the problem with the Justice League: they’re a horribly unbalanced team! Superman is overpowered enough to defeat the villain alone but (at least in this iteration) the League has a total of FOUR god-like characters: Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. What could convincingly threaten this lot really? And so Ellis has to come up with a baddie with vague enough powers to keep the story engaging.
Or at least semi-engaging as I wasn’t that taken with it. I never felt any tension in the narrative, the stakes are cliched and the ending is as predictable as ever. Still, I liked that they worked together as a team to defeat the villain in a way that utilised their various abilities. I like the idea that Flash’s costume melts onto him as he bursts through the stages of the Speed Force as opposed to it flying out of his ring and him physically putting it on, which always seemed goofy.
Jackson Guice’s art isn’t bad but didn’t look especially great either - the inked lines looked a bit too scratchy for my liking. And I wonder why he later changed his name to Butch Guice, which is how I know him from his Marvel work - unless he’s Jackson when at DC and Butch when at Marvel?
Anyways, considering almost no good Justice League books exist out there, you could definitely do much worse than JLA Classified (what exactly is “classified” about this?!): New Maps of Hell, which is a half-decent outing for this otherwise terrible team.
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