Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad #4 Review and *SPOILERS*

Heart of Darkness

Written By: Joshua Williamson

Art By: Fernando Pasarin, Matt Ryan, Alex Sinclair, Jeremiah Skipper, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: January 11, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Now that the Justice League and the Suicide Squad are pals, it's up to them to take down Maxwell Lord and his Lost Prisoners, which shouldn't be too taxing.... at least in the whole finding them part because as we left the previous issue we found out that Amanda Waller is housing a weapon at Belle Reve that Max desperately wants to get his hands on and with that, the Lost Prisoners and old Maxy boy are on their way to our title teams.  Now Jim and I came off with a crazy theory about what Maxwell is up to and while I'd love to go over that here........ I'm not going to because I've already read this issue and it looks like we were completely wrong.  Who knows though because we still have two more issues after this and anything could happen, but for now it looks like the him/it that Max was looking for is something that us at Weird Science never saw coming.  Let's jump into this issue and see what Max's big plan is for saving the world and what at Belle Reve will help him achieve that goal.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Maxwell and the Lost Prisoners breaking into Belle Reve and confronting our heroes.......... and pretty much, a big ass fight ensues.  You get Simon being bitch slapped through a shit ton of walls by Emerald Empress's Eye of Ekron, Rustam taking on Katana, Johnny Sorrow unleashing a army of hellish nightmare creatures for the rest of the team, but mostly Wonder Woman and Harley, Lobo going after Waller and Deadshot and just for good measure, Doctor Polaris taking on everyone else.  Even with all this going on with all these powerhouses........ they all get their asses kicked by the Justice League Suicide Squad team-up. 

It's weird though because while the Eye of Ekron messed Simon up, for some reason it doesn't attack Jessica, which gives Simon the chance to really do some damage to it, causing Emerald Empress to retreat because if the Eye is destroyed she'll be stuck in this time and would much rather go after Saturn Girl.  Johnny Sorrow gets his ass sent back to the King of Tears along with his army when he tried to show Wonder Woman his true face and she went and pulled a Medusa on his ass and cast his reflection back at him with her bracers.......... which was actually the best part of this fight because when Johnny Sorrow took off his mask, Harley looked straight at him and only laughed....... which while this seriously diminishes Johnny Sorrow's effectiveness, it was still funny as hell and made me smile.  So yeah, Lobo's after Waller and Batman shows up to take him down by injecting the Main Man with a brain bomb, which incapacitates him when Amanda activates it and frags the hell out of his head and Rustam is simply taken out by Katana forcing his sword up to his face.  Finally though, Doctor Polaris goes out like a big nothing when Cyborg cancels out the villain's powers by putting a charge through his own body.  What did we learn from all this?  The Lost Prisoners were all hype and no substance.

In the end, while all the fighting is going on, Maxwell Lord made his way to the secret vault within the bowels of Belle Reve and after pushing Killer Frost to help him out with his quest, we find out what Max was looking for all along........ The Heart of Darkness and with his ability to manipulate, it looks like he's using this gem and becoming what I'm calling "Lord Eclipso" and turning all of our heroes into darker versions of themselves, who will obey his every command........... Not the Suicide Squad though because as Lord Eclipso puts it, he don't want no damn losers on his team. 

That's it for this issue of Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad and since it seems like we've been working our way up to this big fight.......... after having our initial fight with our titled teams, this outcome comes off a bit lackluster because for as much as Amanda Waller hyped these Lost Prisoners up in the previous issue, they went down pretty damn fast and now seem to be out of the book for the rest of the event........ not to mention, we never get an explanation about how Emerald Empress or Lobo make sense in the timeline to be the first Suicide Squad.  So yeah, while I'm a bit disappointed for the part of this event that I was most into being completely gone now, I can't help but be excited to see the new development of Maxwell Lord taking control of the Heart of Darkness...... I just hope it doesn't simply lead to another fight between the Suicide Squad and the Justice League.  While I liked the turn in story, even though I had to sacrifice another, I can't say that I enjoyed the art that depicted it.  Everyone's face just came off fat and the colors weren't as vibrant as they've been in past issues.  Ultimately, I just wanted more and the way it looks right now........ each issue just keeps slipping in quality when it comes to look.

Bits and Pieces:

While the action ramps up in this issue, it's more style over substance because while this was a fight that I've been looking for, it's wrapped up way too quickly just to get us to our next plot development.  This is still an enjoyable issue though that I like more than the previous one, I just wish I could say the same about the art because it seems that with each new issue we get the quality in art just goes down.

7/10