Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad #5 Review and *SPOILERS*



Brave New World


Written By: Joshua Williamson
Art By: Robson Rocha, Jay Leister, Daniel Henriques, Sandu Florea, Oclair Albert, Alex Sinclair, Jeremiah Skipper, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: January 18, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Poor, poor Lost Prisoners.  Here I was thinking that the team that Maxwell Lord sprung from the Catacombs would be the focal point of this series, but since they got their asses handed to them in the previous issue by the Justice League and Suicide Squad....... Well, I guess they're pretty much out of the picture.  Well, all except Lobo that is.  Yeah, even though Batman went and blew his head to holy hell, we all know that it takes more than that to take the Main Man down.  As we left our previous issue we saw Maxwell Lord take possession of the Heart of Darkness, become what I'm calling "Lord Eclipso" and then take control of the Justice League.......... All except for Batman that is because he was too busy doing all that head blowing up.  Let's jump into this issue and see how Maxwell will save the world now that the Justice League are under his control and now that there's nobody to really stand in his way.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with us seeing that Maxwell Lord really had a plan in saving the world....... or at least to start out with, securing America.  You see, in thirteen minutes he had the Green Lanterns create a barrier around the world, Aquaman secure the waters, Wonder Woman put all the leaders of the country under her protection, Flash disarmed all the nuclear weapons and Cyborg took control of all communications, while Superman flew Maxwell right into the White House and took out all the security so that he could sit in the President's chair and bask over all he's done.  Too bad that he's a bit bored with his achievement since there's no one around to bask with him........ since Superman's a bit of a bore since being taken over by Eclipso........ so he orders Superman to go and get Amanda Waller so that he can show her all he's done and gloat a bit about how the U.S. is now a perfect place in under fifteen minutes of his rule.  


As for Amanda....... Well, she's stuck under the rubble of Belle Reve with Deadshot, Batman and the headless body of Lobo  but she's soon taken by Superman, who tells Batman that there's nothing he can do to stop them, even with his kryptonite ring because now Superman doesn't feel pain and pretty much because he's just a puny mortal with no powers.  This really gets Batman's goat and after finding out that the rest of the Suicide Squad have Cyborg apprehended and that his machine side is stopping Eclipso from totally taking over his mind, Batman uses the information that Cyborg gives him about Max and teams up with the Suicide Squad and with Lobo, who had recently regrew his head, so that they can save the world.  Now, while I didn't think it was that cool of a cliffhanger when the Justice League were captured by Amanda Waller and she told them "Welcome To The Suicide Squad", I find this bit where Batman tells this motley crew that they're now the Justice League a hell of a lot more cooler and it makes me look forward to the conclusion of this event.


In the end, Amanda Waller is brought to Maxwell and he does the gloating that you'd imagine he'd do, but goddamn does it come off as a shock when he walks out onto the balcony so that he can show Amanda his new perfect world and we see that Washington D.C. is burning and that people are just screaming in the streets.  It seems that Maxwell sees this world as a utopia, but it's really because Eclipso has taken control of his mind and when Amanda gets him to snap out of it for a second and he sees what's actually going on.......... Well, Max isn't too happy about what he's done.  Too bad that he won't have a chance to fix things because even though he was given a tattoo by the shaman he tortured to help keep Eclipso at bay, Eclipso's decided that it's his time to shine and transforms Maxwell's body into what he wants to look like........ and it seems that Eclipso this time wants to go for a more bad ass look as opposed to his normal Green Goblin style.  So yeah, Maxwell is now lost to Eclipso and as we end this issue we see Batman and his new Justice League storming the grounds of the White House as his possessed friends are about to meet him in battle.


That's it for this issue of Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad and right away I realized that I was having more fun with this issue than I have been having for the past two because of the stakes being the highest they've been so far.  Yeah, I'm upset that the Lost Prisoners are just gone and that we're just ramping things up for another big fight scene, but even with the fact that I'm really not a fan of Eclipso, I have to say that this current predicament that our heroes find themselves in finally seems dire and it's something that I really need to see the outcome of.  Plus, we get to see the continued redemption of Killer Frost, not to mention the beginnings of Batman putting together the JLA here.  This is just a really cool issue, with visuals that are back up to where we started this event with and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Bits and Pieces:

This issue really ramps things up for our conclusion next issue and I'm thankful as hell because where I was really starting to fade on this event, I'm right back to the hype that I had when it started.  We've got a great setup for our final conflict and great visuals depicting it all, not to mention the pieces coming together for Batman to assemble his new JLA.  Just a lot of fun and it looked great the whole way through.

8.5/10

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