Justice League of America #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

Ice, Ice, Baby

Written By: Steve Orlando

Art By: Jamal Campbell, Clayton Cowles

Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: May 24, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

I'm already sick of this title and it kills me because I love strange teams like this one and I thought that we'd get something like a spotlight of lesser known heroes coming out of this series, but instead we get a shit ton of nonsense and a story that merely takes place so that our heroes can get all preachy about the woes of the world by the end.  That doesn't interest me and neither does cheesy stories with bad dialog.......which we're getting in abundance here on top of continuity being completely thrown out the window with each issue it seems.  In our previous issue, we saw our heroes take down Aegeus and save Penn City from the villain and also poverty, but now it seems that Ryan Choi has found a means to save Killer Frost from herself in the form of a cure for her "I must suck all of your heat to survive" sickness.  Let's jump into this issue and see if that's indeed the case and if we can get something decent out of this issue.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Ryan Choi and Killer Frost at the Museum for Unnatural History so that they can analyze a mummy of a baby, who they believe had the same ice generating powers as Killer Frost and Ice, but without the need to suck on heat the way our hero needs too.  Weird part is, nothing in this issue tells you why they believe this child didn't need to suck on heat and I'm left wondering if they think the baby's an ancient ancestor of Ice then why don't they get Ice's help for this test?  Anyway, the issue continues to baffle me because even though Ryan and Killer Frost have the museum to their self that day, a party crasher comes a callin' in the form of Terrorsmith, who was a part of the "Bloodlines" story......... only problem there is, he's not a part of the six issue mini that we just had last year that people may know about.  Instead, he's from the one from 1993 and just spouts out things about the aliens that made him and what he can do, but unless you know that story you really get nothing out of this from the dialog he delivers here.  Pretty much though, he's a meta that was created by aliens who has the power to turn people into monsters........... even though that continuity isn't a part of this one anymore.  So yeah, more butchering of the continuity with every issue!

While Ryan and Killer Frost are our main priority with this issue, we see little snippets of the rest of the team, but they really do nothing for the story.  Lobo is fighting with aliens in Mammoth City with Black Canary and The Ray and Vixen are doing a press conference.......... Yup, the end.  Anyway, Ryan and Killer Frost come up empty with the ice baby, but before they could throw in the towel, two security guards that have now become monsters break in the place and Ryan is forced to fight them while Killer Frost tracks down the third heat signature she feels within the museum.  When she finds Terrorsmith, he's talking to the skull of one of the parasites that turned people like Terrorsmith into the meta he is today and he believes that if he can get more of its venom that he'd finally be remembered........ since his shtick seems to be that people don't take him seriously or remember him.  So Killer Frost approaches the villain and he tries to put his whammy on her, but like we saw in the Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad event........ pretty much exactly like we saw, Killer Frost can't be turned into her worst nightmare because she already is....... yup, just like Eclipso did.

In the end, Killer Frost makes Terrorsmith turn the security guards back to normal and the day is saved, even though we didn't get a cure for our new hero.  As our issue closes, Black Canary tries to tell Killer Frost that she should ask Ryan Choi out, but because of her sickness she thinks she's too dangerous to date.......... which seems right to me and we see that Amanda Waller has her sights on Terrorsmith.

That's it for this issue of Justice League of America and I'm really wondering who Steve Orlando is writing this book for because we had the Rebirth one-shots leading up to this series so that people could become familiar with characters they might not know, but he's been throwing so much old continuity at us that on top of not making sense with where our current continuity is going to leave people scratching their damn heads...... i.e. The Extremists, Aegeus, Terrorsmith.  Yeah, we didn't get an over the top preachy ending here, but even with that being omitted, this issue was just terribly written and like I've previously stated, I don't know who it was written for.  The only real positive I can give this issue is that it's showing some decent growth in the character of Killer Frost and her would-be relationship with Atom and the fact that I thought the art was decent here, but besides that it's just not good.

Bits and Pieces:

Continuity is thrown out the damn window again in this issue and Steve Orlando brings in a villain that new readers will have no idea about and by the end of the issue....... I don't think they'll really care.  The art in this issue is decent, but that can't save the mess of story and dialog and the fact that most of our heroes have nothing to do in this issue but make cameos to fill up page space.

4/10