Review: Justice League Vol. 5- Justice/Doom War

Quick Summary

Pros: The main narrative is highly compelling and is structured around an interesting theme. The characters are consistently entertaining, whether they are telling jokes or giving impassioned speeches. Aspects of the narrative feel like love letters to longtime DC fans. The artwork is mostly positive.

Cons: Some pieces of the narrative stretch logic in ways some fans might not like.

Overall: This is a genuinely fun comic all the way through. It mixes over-the-top action, deep character moments, humorous character moments, a compelling narrative, and solid artwork together to create a book that never lets up. It expands on the work done across this series and helps bring it together as it moves toward its conclusion. This volume is perfect for anyone who has been enjoying this series and has been waiting to see where it goes next.

Story

Justice League Vol. 5: Justice/Doom War, by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV, feels like a summer blockbuster turned into a comic book. This volume expertly handles intense bursts of action alongside deep emotions and themes. This creates a book where the heroes may be struggling with the meaning of life on one page and operating a giant robot on another. The entire volume also significant builds on the progress made throughout this series and helps move it into the next phase. In this way, the volume achieves plenty of success and will significantly appeal to anyone who has been enjoying this series already.

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The main narrative in Justice/Doom War is the most dramatic escalation of the narrative in the present Justice League series. The Justice League and the Legion of Doom both continue to make last-minute efforts to push the world toward their respective goals. This erupts into a conflict in the past, present, and future, where the League teams up with familiar icons in order to deal with the Legion’s increased power. The progression is exciting, the level of escalation is clear, and it all leads to an epic conclusion.

In this conclusion, the League is forced to hold of the Legion’s forces while they make a final effort to telepathically spread their message to the world. While this is happening, it looks like the League will be able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Then, the unexpected happens. The League’s message fails, the villains win, and only a handful of heroes are left standing. It is an unexpected conclusion that manages to raise the tension in this series even further. It provides a great setup for the next story arc that I am very excited to see play out.

This narrative is not just about heroes fighting villains and a massive escalation of tension, it also has a well-written message within it. The volume approaches the question the entire series has been building toward: “Is humanity inherently evil and self-centered or does kindness and charity ultimately win in the end?” The plight of the heroes, the backup from familiar icons, and Lex Luthor’s internal turmoil suggest that the “Justice” side of the debate is ultimately in the right. However, the volume’s twist ending subverts this straightforward solution and leaves the answer to the question uncertain. This increases anticipation for the next volume, as it will be interesting to see how this theme is further developed when the final battle against Perpetua takes place.

The biggest problem in Justice/Doom War is the way logic is really stretched to its limits. At various points, like Kamandi’s sudden appearance with alternate Justice Leagues or Perpetua’s random shifts between dramatic action and relative inaction, it feel like the narrative is willing to forgo a cleanly defined progression of time in favor of whatever story elements will be most sensational or dramatic. For some, this may damage the appeal of the read. However, for myself, it had little impact, as I found the story to be fully aware of its over-the-top nature and, thus, was more willing to accept a few inconsistencies in order to maintain this nature.

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Art

The artwork in Justice/Doom War comes from a variety of talented creators who produce a variety of impressive work. Jorge Jiménez and Daniel Sampere, whose work dominates the collection, both provide beautiful and creatively designed visuals. Some of their splash pages look simply phenomenal and are critical in helping to set the tone for a number of memorable moments in this book. Meanwhile, contributions from Howard Porter and Francis Manapul offer plenty on their own. These chapters often depict either awesome displays of action or imaginative scenes of wonder. There are a few places, throughout the book, where jumping from one visual style to the next is unpleasant but, for the most part, this is not too much of an issue. Instead, the visuals in this book end up working out just as well as the story.

Continuity

Justice League Vol. 5: Justice/Doom War continues the story from Justice League Vol. 4: The Sixth Dimension (Review).

The Justice League series continues in Justice League: Vengeance is Thine. However, the main narrative from this volume continues in Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen (Review).

This volume also references stories from other comic books, detailed below:

• Several important events, from throughout DC’s history, are mentioned throughout this volume.
  • The Multiverse collapsed into a single reality, due to the actions of the Anti-Monitor, in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • The Multiverse expanded into 52 realities in Infinite Crisis.
  • The world of Nil and the death of the Monitor race was shown across the Final Crisis event.
  • The Dark Multiverse rose, the World Forger was introduced, the original Monitor returned, and the Source Wall was damaged over the course of Dark Nights: Metal (Review) (Reading Order). 
  • The Justice League fought against the Omega Titans in Justice League: No Justice (Review) (Reading Order).
• Various versions of the Justice League and the DC Universe are mentioned or seen throughout this volume.
  • The Justice League Unlimited was a feature in the Batman Beyond TV series.
  • Kamandi originally debuted in the original Kamandi series, where the bulk of his definitive adventures play out.
  • Earth-44, home of Doc Tornado and the Metal League, mostly just appeared in The Multiversity Guidebook, part of Multiversity.
• Aquaman’s recent adventures are told over the course of Aquaman #43-47, collected in Aquaman Vol. 1: Unspoken Waters.