Justice League Vol. 2: The Villain’s Journey
Quick Summary
Pros: The banter between the heroes is great. Green Lantern’s character is written well. Jim Lee’s art looks great.
Cons: The Green Arrow story feels like an advertisement for Justice League of America. The main villain and major story arc for this collection are both boring and poorly executed. The Superman/Wonder Woman relationship feels forced.
Overall: Though there are a few entertaining and even funny moments in this book, the overwhelming majority of the collection is distinctly below average. The main problem lies in the book’s main villain, who’s unexplained powers and flimsy motivation prevent readers from truly getting invested in the book’s central arc. Overall this is a book with a few positives and many more negatives.
Story
After Origin (Review) introduced the Justice League, everyone expected the first real story to be good. After all, introductions are often the most boring part of the story, as the real fun begins after the exposition is over. Unfortunately for Justice League Vol. 2: The Villain’s Journey, this is not the case.
Justice League Vol. 2: The Villain’s Journey is half advertisement for other books and half boring story featuring an awful villain. It is a dip in quality from the first volume and a below average Justice League book in general. Hopefully Vol. 3 will pick things back up again because right now the Justice League is in pretty poor shape.
(spoilers start here)
This collections starts off with the Justice League taking on a quick mission designed to show readers how they interact and how the rest of the world sees them. It also shows Steve Trevor’s role on this new Justice League and indicates that he is still in love with Wonder Woman, despite saying otherwise. All of this ends up being pretty enjoyable to read but nothing too special. It is fun seeing a young Justice League where the power scheme hasn’t been fully established or explored yet.
The next issue details Green Arrow’s multitude of attempts to join the Justice League. Honestly this issue does little to advance the overall story or character development within the League and feels a little out of place here. This makes it seem more like an advertisement for Justice League of America than anything else.
Then the rest of the volume focuses on David Graves and his misguided attempt to destroy the Justice League. This is a boring and convoluted story that does little to excite while taking far too long. It sees the Justice League fight each other in another generic, low-stakes hero battle and be tricked by some simple illusions before quickly defeating the villain. The only good part of the story was that some of the banter was funny and Green Lantern’s scapegoat exit was thoughtful and well done.
Perhaps the biggest problem of this entire arc is that the villain himself is so poorly written. Starting out, his motivation for everything is weak; he wants to kill the Justice League because an infection from Darkseid’s invasion killed his family, something the Justice League would have had no role in causing. In addition, his power set is completely unknown and seems to fluctuate dramatically; one minute he has the power to defeat the entire League with ease, the next he can barely do anything to them. And somehow, even after realizing how misguided his plans were, he still works against the Justice League in a teaser at the book’s end.
The final bit of the book focuses on Wonder Woman and the men in her life. She decides to completely push Steve Trevor away and start to become romantically involved with Superman. Maybe their kiss was great for some people, but I personally thought it felt forced and awkward. These are two characters who have had barely a few pages of personal interaction who suddenly feel like they are perfect for each other. Their relationship has little substance to it and seems to only exist because of how marketable it is. Overall it made for a rather sour ending to an already poor book.
(spoilers end here)
Art
The majority of this book is, once again, drawn by Jim Lee. Which means that the majority of the book looks great. Character designs are on point, backgrounds are detailed and impressive, and every splash page is worth it. This is even an improvement from Lee’s work on Vol. 1, which was impressive on its own.
The first issue of this collection though, is not drawn by Jim Lee and does not look nearly as good. Gene Ha’s work is less detailed and more chaotic. Characters’ faces look weird and the main villain lacks creativity. However, keep in mind that this is only one issue and is definitely not something that greatly effects the book as a whole.
Continuity
Justice League Vol. 2: The Villain’s Journey flows directly out of the events of Justice League Vol. 1: Origin (Review).
The story here continues in Justice League Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis (Review).
This volume also references stories from other comic books, all of which are detailed below.
- Batman voices his disapproval of the Justice League International but admits to going on a mission with them in the past. This happened in Justice League International Vol. 1: The Signal Masters.
- Early in the book, the League faces off against a small army of Talons. These villains first appear in Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls (Review).
- Green Arrow makes a few appearances in this book. His relevant background is detailed in Green Arrow Vol. 1: Midas Touch (Review)
- Steve Trevor offers Green Arrow a position on another team, this is detailed in Justice League of America Vol. 1: World’s Most Dangerous (Review)
- At one point, Batman is shown looking at a note in the Batcave. He received this note in Flashpoint (Review).
- Aquaman’s friend Vulko is shown in this issue. He starts appearing in Aquaman comics starting in Aquaman Vol. 2: The Others (Review).
- Batman mentions Aquaman’s “other team.” This team starts making appearances in Aquaman Vol. 2: The Others (Review).
- The book’s epilogue has a quick cameo from “the wizard” who mentions the events of Shazam! Vol. 1 (Review)