Review – Justice League: Last Ride #6 – The Mastermind

Justice League: Last Ride #6 – Chip Zdarsky, Writer; Miguel Mendonca, Artist; Enrica Angiolini, Colorist

Ray – 9/10

Ray: It’s the penultimate issue of Chip Zdarsky’s high-intensity future Justice League tale, and all hell is breaking loose. When we last left off, the League had discovered an apparent clone of Darkseid in a tube—but that’s just the start of the shocks. It turns out Darkseid has had his hooks in a member of the League since the start, has been masterminding just about everything, and the League’s situation turns from bad to impossible in a matter of seconds. With Darkseid returned, some of his most iconic henchmen soon follow and the League finds themselves outnumbered, outgunned, and desperate for any sort of Hail Mary to save the day. And they may find one—in the form of the character we thought was the main villain of the series. Lobo has been in on everything from the start and played his role—but now he’s a free agent, and Batman is very, very rich.

This ties into something I’ve been wondering for a while. For all the jawing about what Batman should do with his money, wouldn’t it make sense for him to buy off Deathstroke, Deadshot, and other villains for hire and take them off the playing field? That’s not exactly what happens here, and this stretches the definition of prep time, but it’s definitely going to make for an interesting final issue with the League’s supposed worst enemy in this timeline now fighting on their side. But of course, all the focus has turned to the actual big bad of the series, and Darkseid is more intimidating than ever. The cliffhanger has one last surprise waiting for us, and it feels like there is a lot to still resolve in the final issue. We’ve seen a lot of dystopian DC futures over the years—some might even say too many—but this one stands out because of what’s fallen apart. It’s not the world, it’s the League’s trust in each other, and now they have one last chance to fix that.

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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.