#16 Justice League: Cry for Justice

It took Linkara 3 atop the fourth wall episodes to cover this hellishly bad story. Watch me try and cover it in one, because I’ve got Spider-man to cover next month and I hate dragging things out. Also, I'm a glutton for punishment apparently

So, let’s dig into Justice League: Cry for Justice and see just how bad things really are, again

Before I start a little background. In Final Crisis Martian Manhunter and Batman were killed and that’s really all the background, on with the show.

We open with Green Lantern saying he can’t take all the death any more. Literally any character other than Green Lantern would’ve worked here. But Green Lantern is a member of the Green Lantern Corps, who have lost dozens of members over the years in battles that have covered half the universe. And as I continue, I’ll rant even more on this point.

Superman says that the only way forward is to start over, and stay to the true good path, Hal disagrees, saying that the need to be proactive, oh and he says justice a lot, this will become quite common in the first few issues of this series. Oliver is worried Hal might go over the edge, become Parallax again and begin slaughtering people. Again, WRONG CHOICE OF CHARACTER!

Oliver, wanting to keep Hal’s head cool, or something, agrees to join Hal as the leave the watchtower in search for justice or some such bullsh*t. We cut to new Mexico where old Atom Ray Palmer and new Atom Ryan Choi are fighting in the hideout of Killer Moth (one of the most pathetic villains in comics). They take down most of them, and they begin to interrogate Killer Moth.

Apparently some time pool technology was stolen, and Killer Moth was responsible for the torture of a scientist’s assistant Mike Dante. Killer Moth refuses to talk, so Ray says this “Have you ever had a sinus headache so torturous you thought your head’d explode? What if I shrank to microscopic size, entered your skull then began to grow. Imagine how that would feel” Are you f*cking kidding me!

OK, a little more backstory. In a story called Identity Crisis, Sue Dibny, wife of the Enlongated man, was murdered by the former wife of the Atom, Jean Loring. Cause of Death, Jean had shrunk to microscopic size, entered her skull and began to grow. So, not only would this most likely kill him, but it’s hard to think of a circumstance when Ray would EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! But James Robinson clearly never read this story. Because his next line “I’m Ray Palmer, welcome to pain” and he carries out his threat. God, I wish it was him that felt the sharp end of Deathstroke’s sword, rather than Ryan.

Killer Moth reveals that Prometheus was responsible (how the hell he survived is beyond me, but…) anyway, Ray and Ryan part ways with Ray saying Justice for no reason. We cut to Opal City. Wait, what Superhero lives there? So a guy comes into see another guy, who says he isn’t something, and we see a coffin, with a guy named Tony in it and… that’s about it (does this scene actually go anywhere?) we cut to Starman (because when you think Justice League, you think Starman) standing as a car explodes, and wanting Justice (of course) [research says that Tony was his boyfriend, couldn’t have hurt to explain that a little in the issue, Starman is hardly a well-known character]

We cut to the Congo, where we meet Congorilla (because when you think Justice League, you think Congorilla) His tribe has been slaughtered, including what looks to be B’wanna Beast (or possibly Freedom Beast, since that’s what Congorilla calls him) so he wants Justice. I am not kidding here, that’s the end of the issue.

Erm… What the f*ck? This issue was awful, and it gets worse.

 

Is that the Joker, Sinestro, Grodd and Lex Luthor in the background, because none of them show up in the book

Issue 2 opens with a scene done much better in another comic. Where Green Lantern claims that he never liked Bruce. I’m going to draw your attention to a better comic, where this discussion happened again. Blackest Night #0. In it Hal Jordan is talking to Barry Allen, one of the Flashes of this time-line (before Wally West turned into a Black Teenager – no I’m not letting that go) and his words are these “I may not have talked to him late into the night about forensics and criminal psychology, like you… We had our differences, plenty of them, but after all is said and done Bruce was my friend” here it’s “I didn’t like Bruce” and Green Arrow’s response “Bruce didn’t like you either. I think it was because you weren’t afraid of him” that takes the cake really, I need to reference another better comic. Batman: Face the Face, a trade from, I believe, Detective Comics.

In it Batman needs a day-time detective for hours he can’t operate, he comes to detective Jason Bard (who in the new 52 is completely butchered… yes, I’m looking at you Scott Snyder) and the line “I know men. Their fear. You have none for me. I like that. Men of good heart have nothing to fear” what a nice sentiment. Let’s see, who was the writer on that book? Oh James Robinson, the same writer writing this garbage. Nice to have consistency between books

God, I’m not even past the first 2 pages yet, and that’s 2 rants. Anyway, we cut to Blackhawk Island where Starman and Congorilla are fighting. So, they were fighting over what is essentially prejudice, our heroes ladies and gentlemen. But then they stop and talk. Apparently Congorilla followed a scent here (because a scent can travel across the ocean apparently) whilst Starman found some washed up villains here or something. Anyway, the trail (which they seem to forget to tell us what trail they’re following) leads them to Paris, so Congorilla commandeers one of the Blackhawk planes and they fly away.

Meanwhile, back in Gotham Green Arrow and Green Lantern meet Jason Bard on a rooftop, Hal complains about it being cold, again, this would work with any character other than him, who yields a power ring that could help him. Anyway, there’s a few villains about in Gotham waiting for their master, Prometheus (who he calls a cat, because cool? What?!) He says he’s giving this information as he owes Batman a favour. The pay-checks Batman gave him earned him a small fortune.

We cut to the Flash museum in Central City where Jay Garrick, the original Flash is investigating a robbery at the museum. (And Barry and Wally aren’t there because… ) Anyway, Ray Palmer pays them a visit, where he says the trail leads to Gotham (again, what trail?) The thieves stole some cosmic treadmill technology, and killed some guards who co-incidentally are friends of Jay (so he wants Justice too) they start talking legacies and history, and countdown when Freddie Freeman aka Captain Marvel arrives. If you’re wondering what happened to Billy Batson, he replaced the wizard Shazam on the rock of eternity after the Spectre killed him (I think).

Anyway, Captain Marvel is investigating a robbery in Fawcett City, where they stole zeta beam tech from Star Labs (and he came to Central City because… reasons I guess) so Freddy and Ray head to Gotham whilst Jay decides to work another angle, which will eventually go nowhere, so glad you were in this title Jay.

Green Arrow and Green Lantern have taken down nearly 2 dozen bad guys on their own, including “Prometheus” Ray (who’s in his atom costume, for some reason) and Captain Marvel arrive, saying they have a part of the scene. When asked what brought them here, they reply “Justice” and I call lazy writing, or avoiding the question, take your pick. And there’s some chatter about how the word keeps cropping up. And I won’t comment because it’s stupid. A villain named the Javelin throws a spear (what else?) but the spear is blocked by Supergirl. End of issue

A clustered cover for a clustered story

OK, we’re at issue 2, and Prometheus is up to something and gets ‘caught’ in Gotham. Also torturing people is AOK now, and Jason Bard is a cool cat apparently (still better than police-man whose partner was killed amongst Batman wannabes, and because of that he has a vendetta against Batman and… OK, if Eternal wasn’t such a good story, I’d be bashing it right now) 

Right, so issue 3. Green Lantern asks whether Supergirl is here as a hero or a villain (OK, there’s some new Krypton stuff that explains this, but dude, she just saved your lives, I think that question’s already answered) but I can’t concentrate, since the artwork draws your attention to Supergirl’s abnormally large breasts. I need a shower. So, I don’t know the full details of the story, but a new version of Krypton has appeared in our Solar System. Apparently her father was murdered (on new Krypton, how could Prometheus be responsible for that, he does not have that kind of access)

They talk some more and people say ‘Justice’ as if it adds anything to the meaning of what they’re saying. Here’s a hint Robinson: it doesn’t! Anyway, Starman and Congorilla fly in the plane and talk, meanwhile “Prometheus” is being tortured by Ray. Green Arrow is apprehensive about the idea of torturing people. He reveals that he wants to be the evil version of Batman or some such sh*t.

Back in the skies some giant robots are attacking the plane with Congorilla and Starman. They decide to ditch the plane and take out the robots by hand, which they do, and it looks awesome. They’re only 5 miles from the European coast (likely a long way from France, but…) and Congorilla can swim, while Starman flies

Back in Gotham, Prometheus reveals that he wasn’t himself, he was Clayface all along, and has a bomb inside of him, which the ring only finds out now. The bomb explodes. We cut to before because and it’s time for boring backstory about Prometheus. He wants the superhero community because one them, who is already dead at this point, stopped his scheme last time, by programming his helmet with the debilitations of Stephen Hawking.  He also managed to kill the global guardians and the Tasmanian devil. Lovely.

Moving on, we cut to Opal City where a man named the Shade, a former villain turned… Something calls upon a fortune from Madame Xanadu. She warns that death and danger is coming a long list of superheroes…. And that’s part 3.

Why has the title gone from Gold to Green, Hal Jordan is a central character, but he was in the last 2 issues too

Part 4 opens with the aftermath of an explosion, they survived because Freddy called down his lightning: of course he did, that’s totally how his powers work but we might get a better explanation later (hint: not really). So after some pointless conversation, we find that the explosive was laced with molecular nanobytes that reconfigure substance of the blast .000034 seconds. I believe you comic, but thousands wouldn’t. It created trace elements of kryptonite in case Supergirl would be there?

Also it contains trace amounts of Hal Jordan’s DNA which could possibly override his shield, erm… because that’s totally how that works. So, only Captain Marvel could possibly have survived the explosion, what are the f*cking odds? OK, now we know that massive explosion has attracted no attention whatsoever aside from Batwoman watching from the shadows (yeah, apparently she was supposed to be in the book but wasn’t) we cut to San Fransisco where Brick comes to kidnap a child. This is the wrong city for him to be doing this in. Turns out the kid was a disguised Miss Martian, who knew about the abduction for some reason. She knocks Brick out, in a shot that uncomfortably shows off her ass (let us not forget, in comic lines, she’s a teenager) Jay Garrick has come to talk to her, for some reason.

Meanwhile Starman and Congorilla have found the supervillains who murdered their love ones, they defeat them, but as Congorilla wants to kill them, Starman says this “No Bill! It came to me in a moment of -- I don’t know -- It’s like tony is here with me suddenly -- He wouldn’t want this -- Blood spilt in his name. Vengeance isn’t Justice, Bill. Blood isn’t justice” OK… so in other words that he has just discovered, by the powers of contrivance no less, that killing is bad… Our heroes ladies and gentlemen

Congorilla agrees to spare them, and interrogates them, as one prepares to talk, the other kills him and causes Starman to kill her in order to protect Congorilla. Well, so glad we had that killing is wrong speech, makes him look like such a good person now he’s killed someone. Anyway, the trail is cold (whatever the trail was, what was it again?) In a montage, Jay Garrick talks to some people.  Meanwhile Ray Palmer is torturing another guy, Green Arrow isn’t very happy about it and decides to end it by using a sonic arrow. Supergirl and Captain Marvel destroy the arrow. And Captain Marvel says that maybe Prometheus is getting in their heads and they need help.

Meanwhile Jay Garrick is confronted by the shade, who says he has answers and that’s it…On the watchtower, Green Arrow and co and arrived and the Flash (take your pick, Barry Allen was revived before this story) says they have some explaining to do…

Excuse me while I take a short nap. How can this be so slow? Not that the scenes of torture are any more entertaining.  And there’s still 3 issues to go. Oh boy…

Captain Marvel! World's mightiest mortal, with powers granted by 7 gods, and with a cape that blends seemlessly in with debris to make it look like spider-webs

Issue 5 opens introducing Starfire and Donna and because dignity is reserved for men they’re in bikinis (they have a pool at their own tower, they didn’t need to be swimming in the house of Buddy Baker, they’re there by plot contrivance) Anyway, Starman and Congorilla arrive, seeking Buddy’s assistance. That’s a long way to travel from Paris, surely there’s someone closer you could’ve looked up.  Donna agrees to call in the Titans but Congorilla says “at the risk of offending you. I think we need help from more than the Titans” as a fan of the Titans (before the reboot at least) I say f*ck you!

At the watchtower, Green Lantern asks for the league’s help but Black Canary decides she’d rather be pissy at Green Arrow for leaving instead, our heroes. Captain Marvel, Hawkman and Roy bring this to an end rather quickly, as they explain how villains are operating in cities unfamiliar to them for some reason. They get a communication from Gotham, but it can’t be Batman since he’s M.I.A. erm, no he isn’t. All of the initial Dick Grayson Batman stories I know of took place in Gotham.

Anyway, it’s from Batwoman. She’d encountered a villain called Endless Winter, she had her ready to talk but she was electrocuted to death by an unknown source. And I know this only because Batwoman said he boots were insulated, no indication in the artwork of the said electrocution. Firestorm leaves to try and recover the body.

We cut to Central City where the Shade reveals that the villains attacking the wrong cities are diversions (because heroes from the right cities wouldn’t be?) how he knows this, I have absolutely no idea. Anyway, Jay is summoned to the watchtower by Ray and asks the Shade to come with. Back on the watchtower, Ray is performing an autopsy, which shouldn’t be a specialty as he’s a physicist. Apparently Endless Winter was killed by a similar type of device Amanda Waller uses on the suicide squad.

They get a communication from Guardian (yeah, he's pointless in this story), stating that he encountered a villain named Plunder setting up some sort of device. Cyborg analyses it and says it’s an amalgamation of the stolen technologies and could teleport a whole city anywhere in time, space or alternate dimensions but to do so it requires a lot of power and a specialised computer system.

Supergirl who… what the heck has happened to her, her face is suddenly massive and she’s gotten skinnier. Anyway, she asks where Captain Marvel went. Roy looks at the clock and says he needs to go and call his daughter Lian and wish her good night. He walks off, the rest of the Justice League prepares to mobilise when Black Canary continues to be pissy.

“You left the team. You left me. I lost faith in everything… I dissolved my leave” OH FOR THE LOVE OF… OK, whatever anyone has ever said about Laurel Lance, I’d prefer her in this book over this version of Black Canary, who gets p*ssy because Green Arrow left. Not died, not broke up, just left (like on a business trip)!

Anyway, apparently in the weeks that they never bothered showing us they captured Black Manta and the Fisherman on a beach (even though Black Manta was amongst in unconscious IN GOTHAM CITY) So after another mention of the word justice. Animal Man and co arrive on the watchtower, and Captain Marvel is amongst the group that greets them. Given that Supergirl deliberately said he’d gone missing, this is MORONIC, especially given what happens in the next few scenes. Congorilla picks up a scent and follows it to Supergirl, they follow together and run into a trail of blood. Roy harper has his arm cut off and is bleeding and at no point SOUNDED THE ALARM.

Supergirl uses her heat vision to cauterise the wound, Congorilla Roars and they head off. Leaving the guy missing an arm ON HIS OWN! Thankfully the roar attracts the attention of the other leaguers who instantly track it to Roy’s location. Whilst Animal Man and female Doctor Light go and check security camera, the others decide they need to get whoever did this. And so issue ends with Captain Marvel fighting with Supergirl with the Flash and Congorilla knocked out off screen. (Because if you’re too lazy to write something, do it off panel)

 

Love and dismemberment? Well, you got 1 of the 2

So, issue 6. We begin with how Supergirl figured it out, except it’s bullcr*p, most of it. Apparently she realised she would’ve been seriously injured or killed by the magic lightning if it were real. It’s not like Kryptonite, the lightning would have actually had to impact her to kill her, and Superman has survived a direct impact before. Yeah, and a bolt of lightning countering an explosion is still bullsh*t. Also she notes that he was the one to help back on the right path every time they argued (OK) and she also thought she heard him mutter the word SHAZAM without transforming. Which would’ve been OK, if we’d seen that too. As it happens, no he didn’t.

Anyway, it’s Prometheus in disguise. Questions: 1. How did he fly? 2. What did he do to stop the blast? (If anything) and 3. How did he take down the Flash and Congorilla? Anyway. He takes down Supergirl with a Vulcan bullet sold to him by Amazon Mercy Graves (who in adaptation is the lowly assistant of Lex Luthor) The rest of the Justice League arrive but Prometheus begins ensuing counter-measures and takes out the entire league single-handed in measures that range from stupid to bullsh*t. And you know what takes the cake. HE DOESN’T KILL THEM!!!

He encounters the Shade but since he has no countermeasures for villains, which is stupid considering he HAD SO MANY IN HIS EMPLOY but he manages to have one anyway, one that insults our intelligence, as it’s a bright light. Donna troy escapes from her knockout and beats him senseless, punching him until, in an act I’m told is completely out of character, the Shade stops her. So, Prometheus is captured and… oh my god, tell me they’re not that dumb. They’ve put Prometheus’ helmet back on. THAT’S THE SOURCE OF HIS F*CKING POWER!

So, Prometheus wants on the watchtower, so he can wirelessly transmit power from the sun to his teleport thingimajig, that can teleport cities across the time stream without killing anybody and it will torture the heroes that… god this plan is needlessly complex. And now he’s ready to give it all up for his freedom. Good, glad we wasted 6 issues on this. Oh, and in the event of his capture, they devices begin to activate, with the rest of them activating in an hour but one is activating now, in Star City, which explodes.

My head cannot fathom Prometheus’ plan, his plan was to capture Captain Marvel, which all things considered would still have been difficult. Use holograms to take his place, somehow learn to fly, to come into contact with Ray Palmer, who would take them to Gotham, where they’d encounter more heroes, who he can save from a needlessly complicated bomb and persuade them to go to the watchtower. Why does he need them alive? He’s already disguised as Captain Marvel. Anyway and then plug into their computer to use powers to power the bomb using technology stolen from over a dozen locations, to teleport cities into other times or dimensions, and punish the heroes. Yeah… Going after loved ones is much simpler and Prometheus is smart enough to work that out.

And the destruction of Star City, I’m going to get to this. But Robinson isn’t entirely to blame here. The destruction of Star City and the subsequent deaths (which I’ll get to) and the maiming of Roy were all editorial mandates. With the destruction of Star City, to create the forest for Brightest Day, and the maiming of Roy setting the new direction for Deathstroke’s Titans series.

 

What has happened that made people allergic to backgrounds

But, let’s get onto issue 7. You know what I’m gonna be as brief as possible on this one, I don’t think my head can take its level of dumb after the last 6 issues. So the heroes try and rescue people in star City, and we find that Lian Harper, Roy’s daughter, has died among the casualties. OK, I’m not Linkara, I don’t have the history reading stories of Lian that he did. In fact, I’ve only read about Lian in issues prior to this story very recently in the Nightwing/Arsenal trade. But this is handled about as poorly as you can get.

Roy Harper barely features in this story, Lian Harper doesn’t feature at all. There’s no foreshadowing, no buildup, no character development between the two, or with any of the other characters impacted by this. Instead her death is purely a shock moment for the reader. But you know what? ROY BEING MAIMED WAS A SHOCK MOMENT, AND THAT WAS ONLY THE LAST ISSUE! And do you know what’s worse. In the scheme of this story. It means nothing! And it does little to establish the threat of the villain when he's already surrendered.

So, more heroes are dispatched to attempt to disarm the bombs but the bombs have countermeasures for heroes of their respective cities, including the Shade, who he didn't have countermeasures for earlier. They rescue the real Captain Marvel but he can’t disarm the bomb in Fawcett City. Apparently the devices had malfunctioned and turned into bombs. Anyway. Ray now proclaims he sees that torture is wrong (so something came out of this, no matter how contrived) Miss Martian tries to get the codes to disarm the bombs out of his head but he naturally has a contingency in place for it.

So, being desperate, they decide the best thing to do is let Prometheus go, he gave them the codes, and then they took him to the teleport (I know code of honour and everything, but you couldn’t just knock him out after he gave the codes, if he was still on the watchtower?) We cut to after Blackest Night, where Prometheus is standing in a realm between dimensions or something, talking to his IQ buddy. Green Arrow shows up and shoots him in the head with an arrow, killing him. He proclaims Justice, end of story.

OK, let’s start here. How did Green Arrow find Prometheus if he was between dimensions? How did the arrow penetrate Prometheus’ helmet? And why did Prometheus not have countermeasures? No, not gonna answer any of those questions. 

Final Justice!???? 

THIS SERIES GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES.

I can’t begin to fathom the level of dumb in this story. James Robinson said with what editorial wanted him to do and the fact that this was a finite series, he decided to make this story more like an event comic. Except it, rather ironically considering, lacks in scope. It’s one villain, who’s had maybe 3 appearances in his entire history (excluding those that apparently weren’t the real him, I’d recap those, but my head can’t take any more dumb) with a needlessly complicated plan for reasons that really don’t make any sense, except he’s now taken on uber-baddass levels of power, so he can take down the entire justice league. NOPE!

He tried to cram in way too many characters and the focus was on the wrong ones. Red Arrow and Lian should’ve been front and centre in this book if that was the planned ending, the fact is Red Arrow doesn’t show up until issue 5. Sure, he could’ve found out about this mandated in the midst of writing the book, in which case he still could’ve foreshadowed it.

Characters like Starman and Congorilla, Batwoman, Animal Man and Starfire are completely wasted in this book, none of them do anything significant. Donna Troy does manage to beat Prometheus but she wasn’t introduced until issue 5, choose a main character.

Then we have the torture issue. Torture is not an effective means of gaining information. Batman draws a fine line when he interrogates people. His technique is to scare them rather than physically attack them (sure he still grabs them by the neck and dangles them over building but…) Not to mention how out of character that is for Ray Palmer. But there’s no real resolution to this arc. No consequences of what was, at the beginning at least A CENTRAL THEME OF THE BOOK

The artwork is nice enough, except for when it’s drawing women in provocative poses. I don’t dwell on this as much as Linkara but god I can’t stand it!

I’m seriously tempted to rip pages out of the book to do scans, I suspect when you read this you’ll know whether I did.

Rage Rating: 500%

But sadly, it’s not over yet. In April, I’ll look at the stories that spawned from this… thing. The fall of Green Arrow and the Rise of Arsenal and oh boy is this gonna hurt.

In the meantime, prepare for my most controversial rage review yet. Spider-man 2

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Images used in this review are from Justice League: Cry for Justice #1-7 and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.