Review: Justice League Vol. 1: The Extinction Machines
Quick Summary
Pros: The concept behind this book is great and has the potential to develop into something even more interesting as the series progresses. Some moments throughout the story are fun and entertaining.
Cons: The story’s plot lacks a good structure to keep it grounded and ends up relying on tricks to solve its issues. Poor characterization leads to many characters feeling very off.
Overall: The core concept that this book introduces is very interesting and has the potential to be a great story sometime in the future. However, the story being told right here comes across as being very lackluster. It has a number of flaws that prevent it from being as good of a story as it could be, ultimately causing the comic as a whole to suffer. On an optimistic note, the core concept is good enough that it will hopefully be brought up in a better way soon.
Story
Justice League Vol. 1: Extinction Machines is a near perfect example of a great concept with mismanaged execution. The story here is very interesting and seems to be something that will go on to affect the team at a cosmic or multiversal level, yet this particular telling of it is not that great. Some moments shine throughout the collection and are genuinely entertaining, but overall poor characterizations and a poorly structured plot prevent this story from being what it should be. Simply put, this is a very interesting concept told through a very mediocre story.
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Starting with the book’s problems, the characterization throughout this book felt very off. Wonder Woman seems to be only able to talk about how powerful the Justice League is and how they will win; Jessica seems to go out of her way to make nervous comments; Aquaman’s sarcastic inner-monologue makes him sound like Nightwing or Spiderman; and Lois completely flips from being supportive and encouraging of Superman to blaming Batman for getting him wrapped up in everything. It feels like a character trait from each hero’s personality was enhanced in order to give them a distinct voice, but this only ends up making them feel even more bland and generic.
Another one of this collection’s problems is how messy the plot of this specific story is. The plot seems to lack a cohesive structure as characters bounce with some having specific and interesting purposes while others get stuck doing busy work. This leads to tricks being used to solve the plot’s issues. At the story’s beginning, Aquaman is able to interface with the creature and hear its thoughts and plans. Conveniently, Cyborg is able to do the same thing with the Purge in order to figure out their plan. Then, as the story concludes, Aquaman helps to save the day, not by using any power specific to him like everyone else did, but by listening to some magic stones which he randomly found. Overall the plot relies too much on convenience, chance, and deus ex machina in order to make up for its flaws. As a result, this only ends up making it feel less authentic.
This book’s biggest positive is that the story underneath everything and the potential plotline that things are building up to is very interesting. Why was there an extinction machine in the Earth to begin with and who put it there? Who are the Kindred and what was their purpose? Did Batman take the cookie Jon offered him? These are the big questions this book postulates and are also the most interesting aspects of this book. The narrative suggests that there is some primordial purpose behind these mechanisms that the Justice League has yet to discover; hopefully this discovery occurs later on in this series. I personally am wondering if the motivations of the Kindred are as nefarious as believed, especially since this story seems to be utilizing the “nothing is what it seems” approach to villains. Ultimately time will hold the judgement as to whether this set-up was worth it and how good this full story arc actually is.
An additional positive is that Jon offering Batman a cookie was one of the funniest moments from Justice League in a long time.
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Art
The art varies a little bit depending on the issue, as a couple of different artists worked on this title. The most positive moments in terms of art happen in any issue that Tony Daniel is illustrating. Daniel is able to draw the entire League very well. However his talents do not stop there. He is also able to depict some really epic scenery around which everything is happening. His best work in this collection though, is any scene in which he depicts the Kindred. The Kindred look great wherever they appear in this book. Sometimes putting a larger character in a scene takes away some of the detail from the surrounding landscape or characters; this does not happen here. Every page with the Kindred on it is excellent and is also scaled and detailed well also. All in all, Tony Daniel’s art looks incredible and is one of this book’s biggest highlights.
Continuity
This is the first volume of the Justice League Rebirth series. Rebirth is not a continuity reset at all; it is more of just a good jumping on point for readers. This means that, although there are stories that come before this, an in depth knowledge of the Justice League’s past is not really required to enjoy this series.
The story started here will continue in Justice League Vol. 2: Outbreak (Review).
This volume also references and continues the stories from other comic books, all of which are detailed below:
- The book references this Superman being different from the old one. The explanation for this lies in Convergence and in Superman: Lois and Clark (Review).
- A number of references are made to the Justice League’s past victories, specifically their defeat of Darkseid and Rao.
- Their encounter with Darkseid takes place in Justice League Vol. 1: Origin (Review).
- Their encounter with Rao takes place in Justice League of America: Power & Glory (Review).
- Simon mentions a mess happening with the Red Lanterns. This happens in Green Lanterns Vol. 1: Rage Planet.
- Simon also mentions the Justice League arresting him once. This happened in Green Lantern Vol. 3: The End.
- Jessica talks about attacking the Justice League. This happened in Justice League Vol. 6: Injustice League (Review).
- Lois talks about Superman finding out he can’t come back to life like he did before because “it doesn’t work like that here.” They find this out in the Rebirth Superman series which is collected in Superman Vol. 1: Son of Superman (Review).