Justice Society of America #10 – Geoff Johns, Writer; Mikel Janin, Marco Santucci, Artists; Jorie Bellaire, Ivan Plascencia, John Kalisz, Colorists
Ray – 9/10
Ray: It’s been a loooooooooong time since the last issue as Geoff Johns’ focus is elsewhere in his final act at DC Comics. This makes it a little hard to keep track of what’s going on in this title, but a quick reread makes clear this is still an excellent book. Helena Wayne, trapped in the present, is making an effort to fix the future by redeeming the DCU’s villains and turning them into JSA members. This includes characters like Icicle and Solomon Grundy – and in a massive twist, Mordru, the ancient sorcerer who is one of the DC’s deadliest villains. This is a younger version, initially under disguise as the Legionnaire, and he wants to change his own future. The team is giving him a chance as they take on the Gentleman Ghost, but things take a dark turn when Icicle accidentally unleashes the ancient demon Surtur and Mordru saves the day – by breaking the cardinal rule of the JSA.
This is actually very clever – is it truly breaking the no-killing rule when your teammate will immediately come back to life? – but it throws the team into flux and makes clear that some old wounds are very far from healing. But while the JSA is dealing with their own crisis, there’s another team in chaos as well – the Legion, and their Substitutes, in the far future, as they try to prevent the future from changing. With only two issues to go before Johns wraps his run here and his time at DC as a whole, there’s a lot to resolve, and I kind of wish more of this run was about the classic JSA characters and his favorites like Stargirl, instead of so many of the villains. But he’s weaving a pretty compelling story here, and one with a lot of unanswered questions. Now the only question is which of DC’s very talented writers is going to pick up the baton he’s putting down and run with it.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
