Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Justice League: Road To Dark Crisis #1 Review




Aftermath


Written By: Joshua Williamson, Jeremy Adams, Chuck Brown, Phillip Kennedy Johnson,
Stephanie Phillips
Art By: Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, Hi-Fi, Rosi Kampe, Matt Herms, Fico Ossio, Sebastian Cheng, Leila Del Duca, Jordie Bellaire, Clayton Henry, Marcelo Maiolo, Josh Reed
Cover Price: $5.99
Release Date: May 31, 2022


Dark Crisis is coming, but first, we have to get there and for that to happen we're going to explore what's happening in the DC Universe after the Death of the Justice League. Previously, in Justice League #75, we saw our heroes sent away by Pariah to what seemed like dream-like worlds to keep them occupied while the Great Darkness went and decimated the Multiverse, it's just too bad that in that issue it looked like Black Canary was left behind on a dead world, while Green Arrow was actually killed from a devastating blow from Doomsday. With Black Adam's return from that fight, he told everyone that the Justice League was dead and now we'll see how the rest of our heroes and the world are dealing with that news and what they're going to do going forward. Let's check it out.


For this Road To Dark Crisis issue, we see a bunch of stories of our heroes picking up the pieces left behind by their dead friends and loved ones and trying to figure out what they want to do next. While I do love this concept, especially a Jon Kent who wants to put together a new Justice League, a lot of what we get here are our remaining heroes doing what they can to take out the villains that have come out of the woodwork since finding out that their biggest threats are gone and in that we see Wally West and Wallace West taking care of business and we even see a new Secret Society forming out of the chaos..... which hopefully is just a continuation of the one we already have from Deathstroke Inc.




The Jon Kent and Dick Grayson stuff is probably the best this issue has to offer, with Wally West's bits coming in a close second, but we have a story of Jackson Hyde and Hal Jordan that just feels kind of weird in all we really get is Hal finding out his friends are dead but everyone has a been there, done that attitude that feels odd, even if the stories themselves, while short are also fun. The strangest story is a recap on Pariah, but from what we get out of it I don't think it's going to do any new fans any favors and just shows that Pariah is a puppet of the Great Darkness, but if you've read anything about Dark Crisis previous to this, like the Death of the Justice League, you'll already know that.




All in all, this isn't a bad prelude to Dark Crisis because it showcases a bunch of characters that you want to see and shows them doing some pretty fun stuff in a dark time..... Hell, even Stephanie Brown gets some love in here, even if it isn't the most compelling story. With that though, we have great art in each of our chapters and while everything didn't hit as hard as I would have hoped for leading out of the Death of the Justice League.... and exposing how the Death of Superman makes little sense with the way it's depicted with current timeline characters, I still had a decent time with this issue and hope to see more like this before Dark Crisis hits... I just hope that if we do, the characters feel what should come off as real loss or a bit of despair, especially with what they know is coming.


Bits and Pieces:


We get a bunch of stories in this issue, where each one seems to hit less than the previous, but even with that, there's some fun to be had from this book with the characters it uses and some of the things it's setting up, like a new Justice League and a new Secret Society. The art is great throughout, but at the end of the day, I wish this just would have hit a little harder.


7/10

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