Review: Future State- Justice League

Quick Summary

Pros: The majority of this collection’s stories, specifically the Justice League, Aquaman, Justice League Dark, and Guy Gardner stories, are great. Most of the stories also contain well-written themes and emotion. The artwork is positive throughout the book.

Cons: Some of the stories, specifically the Flash story and a few of the Green Lantern stories, range from lackluster to downright bad.

Overall: This is a collection with several great stories and a few disappointing ones. The great stories are entertaining, written well, and have a nice level of meaning to them. They are also more prominent than the bad stories, as the collection contains more hits than it does misses. In the end, this is a book for readers who want to see the Future State adventures of the characters within this collection’s good stories.

Story

Future State: Justice League contains plenty of great stories but also contains a few disappointing ones as well. The Justice League, Aquaman, Justice League Dark, and Guy Gardner stories are all wonderful. Each of them contains an interesting narrative that has heroes, both young and old, rise to the occasion and deal with the intense problems they face. Each story also contains a healthy dose of either action, suspense, or, in Guy Gardner’s case, humor. Unfortunately, the Flash story and the rest of the Green Lantern stories are pretty disappointing. Ultimately, this collection is worthwhile for the good stories, as long as readers are ok with a few bad stories within the mix.

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The majority of Future State: Justice League contains entertaining and interesting stories. The Aquaman story is a thrilling tale of survival, the Justice League Dark story is full of tension and sacrifice, the Guy Gardner story has some of Guy’s characteristic humor, and the Justice League story is a neat take on a future Justice League that manages to also pay homage to the past. Each story is compelling and interesting in its own way and is also inhabited by a great cast of characters.

The entirety of Future State: Justice League also contains some well executed themes and messages. The Aquaman story is about family and finding your way in the world, the Justice League Dark looks at the necessity of sacrifice, the Guy Gardner story examines the futility of conflict, and the Justice League story is about learning from the past while improving the future. Even the lesser stories within this book manage to achieve some success in this way, as the Flash story has some great emotion from the Flash-family and the Jessica Cruz story looks at Jessica’s ongoing struggle with fear. These factors improve a collection of already worthwhile stories.

Unfortunately, there are a few pretty significant misses in this collection. The volume’s opening story, about the Flashes, is mediocre at best. The narrative feels contrived and the way characters are written turns small bits of dialogue into over-the-top speeches. The majority of the Green Lantern stories, outside of Guy Gardner’s and maybe Jessica Cruz’s, are also lackluster, especially when it comes to their conclusions. In a similar way, the Justice League Dark story has a lackluster conclusion, though the rest of the story is solid. Overall, these misses take up an unfortunate amount of the collection as a whole but still do not distract from the hits found throughout the rest of the book.

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Art

The artwork in Future State: Justice League ranges slightly but is beautiful for the majority of the volume. The visuals in the Aquaman story are stunning. Daniel Sampere’s art is a perfect match for the aquatic and occasionally tropical adventures within and this art is dramatically enhanced by Adriano Lucas’s vivid colors. Later on, Marcio Takara provides visuals that perfectly complement the Justice League Dark story. Here, creepy magic and stylized characters set the mood for the narrative. The last major success is in the Justice League story. Robson Rocha provides detailed, energetic, and aesthetically pleasing visuals throughout this portion of the read. In addition to all of this, Sami Basri and Andie Tong’s work on separate Green Lantern chapters are noteworthy.

The collection also has a few chapters that are just alright. The visuals in the Flash and John Stewart stories are fine but not as striking as the rest of the collection. This makes for a book where the vast majority of the visuals are worthwhile and help make for a better read.

Continuity

Future State: Justice League, like all Future State comics, flows from the Multiverse altering events taking place in Dark Nights: Death Metal (Review) (Reading Order). However, understanding Death Metal is not necessary to understand this volume.

The larger narrative surrounding the stories contained here is told through the rest of the Future State event.

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• The way superheroes are treated in Gotham is mentioned. This is further explored across Future State: The Next Batman (Review).
• Zatanna’s (Reading Order) association with Wonder Woman (Reading Order) is brought up. These two were close across the entire second version of the Justice League Dark’s (Reading Order) existence, starting with Justice League Dark Vol. 1: The Last Age of Magic (Review).