DC Comics reviews 1/24/23 – The Human Target #11, Justice Society of America #2

The Human Target #11

For the penultimate installment of the maxi-series, writer Tom King finally gets to the point of 11 issues of build-up. The tricky thing with too many of King’s series is he wastes too much time establishing and doubling down on the tone that the story doesn’t progress enough.

That’s the big takeaway from this issue as Ice explains the JLI conspiracy to kill Lex Luthor and how Christopher Chance’s involvement messed everything up. King falls into some of his familiar cliches namely the main female character being so far ahead of the male lead. There’s some definite logic behind Ice’s actions, but it felt like this reveal could have been done six issues ago.

Chance has shown to be incredibly shrewd and ahead of people, so it feels a little silly to have him fall prey to the pretty face trope.

Greg Smallwood doesn’t do his traditional art using smaller panels with distorted colors for flashbacks through the more dialogue-heavy sections. Smallwood still gets plenty of pages to do his normal, gorgeous work with beautiful colors.

This wasn’t the normal slog that so much of this series has been, but it still managed to feel too little too late in terms of making The Human Target a worthwhile and compelling mystery.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Photo Credit: DC Comics