Review: Justice League Odyssey Vol. 1- The Ghost Sector
Quick Summary
Pros: The book has lots of fun, space-faring action and adventure. The main storyline is tremendously interesting and closes on a tantalizing conclusion. The artwork is gorgeous in some places.
Cons: Small plot details don’t make sense. The quality of the artwork dips in a few chapters.
Overall: This is a fun book that does a great job in hooking you into the series. It immediately introduces great characters, a compelling plotline, and some entertaining action. This leads to a wonderfully fun space adventure that is continuously steeped in mystery. Readers who want to see DC take on a space adventure or who enjoy this comic’s main characters should definitely check out this book.
Story
The first volume in this new series really hits the ground running. Justice League Odyssey Vol. 1: The Ghost Sector, by Joshua Williamson, is an exciting and interesting opening to a series that is already showing plenty of promise. The main storyline running through this book is a wonderfully successful combination of action and intrigue. It has the heroes fighting off foes and dealing with problems, while also having them uncover secrets and mysteries that have the potential to impact the entire multiverse. Watching all of this unfold is highly entertaining and the book’s conclusion only makes me want to come back for more.
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The opening chapters of The Ghost Sector are fantastic and serve as a great way to hook in readers. Within these first few chapters, the heroes are attacked by space dragons, nearly killed by radiation, confronted by Darkseid, and are forced to run from a dying planet. It is a wild ride that is easy to enjoy.
On top of all of this, these chapters also introduce a tremendously compelling mystery that remains compelling throughout the book. The heroes learn that planets within the Ghost Sector worship “old gods” that are somehow related to the heroes themselves. They also learn that they were led to the Ghost Sector by Darkseid who wants them to team up in order to save the multiverse, though they are admittedly mistrustful of his motives.
The rest of the book furthers both the action and mystery elements of the series. The heroes face off against both slavers and robot security forces on two different world. They also learn that the religions they have somehow inspired have some seriously dark worldviews and that Darkseid is working toward building a new doomsday weapon. All of this is fun to see play out and closes the volume on an awesome cliffhanger.
My only complaints with this volume are a few places where things don’t really make sense. The people of the Machine World decide to test if Cyborg is their god by making him fight one of his allies, which seems like a seriously flawed test for an advanced culture to come up with. Meanwhile, Azrael’s disciple changes his entire worldview after a brief encounter with the man he considered to be a god. However, these logic gaps are very brief and do not have a large impact on the quality of the story as a whole.
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Art
The artwork in The Ghost Sector starts out incredibly strong, dips quite a bit in the middle, and finishes alright. The first few chapters, from Stjepan Šejić, are absolutely gorgeous. They do a fantastic job in depicting the cast of characters while also bringing a wonderful level of creativity to the scenery on each page. Then, the visuals dip as Philippe Briones takes over. Here, many of the pages look alright but there are places where the action feels static and the characters look a little strange. Finally, Carmine Di Giandomenico takes over for the book’s conclusion. Here, the visuals look a bit better but still don’t reach the level of beauty that was present in the book’s first few chapters. Overall, the artwork in this collection trends positive and produces a solid reading experience.
Continuity
Justice League Odyssey Vol. 1: The Ghost Sector is the first volume in the Justice League Odyssey series. It extends from storylines started in the Justice League: No Justice (Review) (Reading Order) event.
The story here continues in Justice League Odyssey Vol. 2: Death of the Dark (Review).
This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:
- The recent damage to the Source Wall is mentioned. This happened at the conclusion of the Dark Nights: Metal (Review) (Reading Order) event.
- Jessica Cruz (Reading Order) and Cyborg (Reading Order) served on the Justice League (Reading Order) together from Justice League Vol. 1: The Extinction Machines (Review) to the Dark Nights: Metal (Review) (Reading Order) event.
- Jessica Cruz first met Darkseid in the Justice League: Darkseid War (Review) (Reading Order) event. This event also saw Darkseid reduced to the age of an infant.