DC Comics reviews 9/4/19 – Doomsday Clock #11, Justice League #31

Justice League #31

For a lot of longtime DC fans, this is going to quickly be one of their favorite issues this year. The Justice League is scattered. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are in the future learning about the fate of the world from Kamandi while other Leaguers are debating an assault on Lex Luthor. Those storylines are more than enough to retain the Justice/Doom War’s sense of an epic within one title, but it’s the past subplot that makes this issue so special.

Green Lantern and The Flash are back in the 1940s and they’re meeting for the first time ever The Justice Society of America. Writers Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV do this long-awaited meeting…justice and with an impressive sense of the characters. Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, Dr. Fate and company sound authentically vintage. It’s enough to make me immediately wish that Snyder and Tynion would team up to relaunch a Justice Society title yesterday.

Not to shortchange the other subplots though as they really make Justice/Doom War feel like the closest equivalent to a MCU blockbuster from DC since Metal. There’s a real sense of spectacle here and Snyder and Tynion continue stacking the odds against the Justice League to make the moment bigger and bigger. What we’re getting right now from the Justice League writing team is a masterclass in how to craft a big time story without requiring 30-50 side stories and spin-offs. All we need is in one comic.

Jorge Jimenez stays on as artist for this issue and really there couldn’t be another choice. Jimenez has been the definitive artist for this era of the Justice League and few could handle the various eras and juggle so many characters with this much personality as him. The small break away from the title has done Jimenez good as his pages reflect a recharged and motivated artist who won’t compromise on a panel in delivering top tier art worthy of this story. Alejandro Sanchez’s colors are equally sharp and gorgeous.

Justice League is delivering an amazing reading experience right now and it’s reminding me of some of my all-time favorite runs with an engaging major arc that’s been developed since the start. Now that it’s here, I almost get the sense that every member of the creative team wants to deliver nothing short of one of the memorable Justice League stories ever.

Rating: 10 out of 10