Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League #3 – Greg Rucka, Writer; Nicola Scott, Artist; Annette Kwok, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: The DCU has done stories in just about every genre, but it’s never really done a heist story before – which makes this a truly unique addition to Rucka’s tenure at DC. Cheetah and Cheshire have put together their team for raiding the Justice League Watchtower and grabbing the Power Bank – including the sarcastic teenage warlock Klarion and his even more sarcastic cat Teekl, as well as two new characters. Hazard, who can manipulate probability, and Featherweight, a super-strong rebel activist. It seems like both of them are tied to other DC heroes and villains, and we get some pretty strong hints about the identity of the latter – although it raises a lot of questions. Now that the team is assembled, it’s time to put together the plan. There’s just one problem – breaking into the Watchtower isn’t just hard, it’s so impossible to be almost funny.
Rucka and Scott do several two-page spreads laying out the security of the Watchtower, and it’s impressive just how much thought they put into this. They really lay out just how no one could pull this off – and then they proceed to do it anyway. There are several steps to this, but the most interesting one involves a character I never thought I’d see again – Sideways, the teleporting teen hero from a very strange era of the DCU who is mostly known for being created by a former DC publisher and for having a supporting cast and personality that is very, very reminiscent of a certain web-slinger. He’s just been brought on as a Justice League reservist, is extremely excited about this – and that makes him a perfect mark. The heist almost starts to look possible – and then a surprising betrayal raises the stakes in a way I did not see coming for a second. Great return to form for Rucka.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes
