Review: Justice League Vol. 3- Timeless
Quick Summary
Pros: The beginning of the story is enjoyable. The time travel is handled well and allows for some extremely cool worlds to enter the storyline.
Cons: The ending of the book is bad in many different ways. The whole book feels like a shallow prelude to the next volume.
Overall: This is a book with a solid beginning but a rotten conclusion. It pulls you into a rather interesting storyline with promises of an even more interesting conclusion. However, none of this ends up panning out as the conclusion is boring, rushed, and just sloppy in general. The end result is a book that feels like a setup for something bigger while offering nothing on its own.
Story
While the last volume of Justice League was a bit of a disappointment, Justice League Vol. 3: Timeless starts out rather promising. It has an interesting premise, cool character moments, and some unique connections to past storylines. However, by the book’s end, none of this is capitalized upon. The ending of this volume is generic and bland in a way that leaves the whole thing feeling like a lame prequel and little more. Maybe this means that something better is in store next volume, though Bryan Hitch’s track record with the League is not reassuring.
(spoilers start here)
The first issue of this collection is a decompressed story that mostly features the Justice League talking with each other. They discuss their personal problems, team dynamic, and overall trust for one another. It is a solid issue that helps demonstrate why these specific characters make up this team. In particular, it was nice to see the rest of the League reassure Jessica and Simon that they are right where they belong.
From here, the action and drama ramp up significantly. The Infinity Corporation building from Justice League of America: Power and Glory (Review) shows up again and signals to Batman and Superman that this story is going to involve some time travel. Meanwhile, the rest of the Justice League are attacked by villains calling themselves “The Timeless.” However, they are rescued by a, seemingly, young girl named Molly, who sends them all to different time periods in order to stop the Timeless.
At this point, I was very hopeful for how the book was turning out. The villain was a little generic (his motive of “destroying superheroes because they are a threat to the universe” has been done time and time again) but hints throughout the book indicated that he was not the true villain and that the real evil lurked around the corner. Even the time periods the League were sent to ended up being cool. They were so unique and real that they felt like something Grant Morrison could have written, with the death of Cronos and the post-apocalyptic Green Lantern-run worlds being the best of the bunch.
At this point, the League makes their final stand against the Timeless. Batman and Superman fight them at their headquarters while the other League members plant a device in the time periods they have been sent to. These devices all seem to link up and defeat the Timeless, yet don’t fix the time stream.
This is where the story starts to fall apart. It turns out that the villain the entire book has been hinting at is not coming yet, instead the villain is revealed to be Molly. Her plan is the same generic villain plan that was talked about earlier, leaving her as bland and boring as the Timeless. However before she is able to do anything significant at all, she is defeated. It is an ending so simple and quick that it does not come close to matching the hype the rest of the book created for it.
Also, the writing at the end of the book just feels sloppy. Molly’s entire plan hinges on the Justice League not simply destroying the device she gave them. Instead, they all do this with zero difficulty, most of them don’t even have to leave the room in order to do it. In addition, before destroying the devices, Vincent tells the League that by doing so they will be stuck in the time they are currently in. Yet, at the end of the story, the League shows up in the present with absolutely no explanation as to how they got there. Despite the majority of the book being a fun read, stuff like this ends up ruining the book as a whole.
(spoilers end here)
Art
Fernando Pasarin’s artwork may be one of the most consistently good points in this collection. Right off the bat, it bears a striking resemblance to Hitch’s own artwork, which is something that helps to preserve the overall style of the book. It also just looks nice in general, characters are detailed and environments look nice. There isn’t anything groundbreaking or particularly special here in terms of visuals, however there is also not much to be said in the negative either.
Continuity
Justice League Vol. 3: Timeless flows directly out of the events of Justice League Vol. 2: Outbreak (Review). The story then continues in Justice League Vol. 4: Endless. In addition, this book is also a significant continuation of the storyline started in Justice League of America: Power and Glory (Review).
This volume also references stories from other comic books, all of which are detailed below.
- The death of this universe’s Superman is mentioned. This actually happens in Superman Vol. 2: Return to Glory but an easier way to read the entire story can be found in Superman: The Final Days of Superman.
- Batman keeping contingency plans against each member of the Justice League is a reference to the “Tower of Babel” storyline, collected in JLA Vol. 4.
- A crisis and Flashpoint are both mentioned. The crisis could be Crisis on Infinite Earths or Infinite Crisis and Flashpoint is obviously Flashpoint (Review).
- The Infinity Corporation makes an appearance and Batman says he has worked with them before. This happened in Justice League of America: Power and Glory (Review).
- Wonder Woman mentions that “much of what (she) thought (she) knew was hidden.” This is a small reference to the events of Wonder Woman Vol. 1: The Lies.