Justice League of America: The Injustice League

            Around the same time I was reading The Killing Joke and Across The Universe: The D.C. Stories of Alan Moore I came across a more modern comic, revolving around The Justice League entitled Justice League of America: Sanctuary.  The premise of the story was that most of the supervillains in the D.C. Universe had been abducted by Task Force X, a.k.a. The Suicide Squad and the few that remain go to The Justice League for protection which put them at odds with Task Force X.  While the premise was good, the comic just left me confused and I only later found out that it was actually a continuation of another comic called The Injustice League and seemed only to be a bridge between it and the Final Crisis crossover event. 

            Now, I'm just going to be very honest about this.  Story ordering with comics confuses the hell out of me.  With this, I wasn't sure if this comic was supposed to be a direct predecessor to Final Crisis, if it took place before Countdown to Final Crisis, or in a parallel dimension to Countdown Final Crisis, at the same time, or if the writers were just flat out lying to me by ending Sanctuary with it's To Be Continued in Final Crisis bit.  It was just a nightmare trying to figure this out. 

            On top of that, just trying to figure out which Crisis they were talking about was a bit of a challenge.  When they said Final Crisis I honestly wasn’t sure at the time which Crisis event they were talking about.  Was it Crisis on Infinite Earths?  Was it Infinite Crisis?  Crisis on Earth-Two?  Identity Crisis?  I just couldn't figure it out because there were so many damn spins on the Crisis title that it made it difficult to figure out just which one they were talking about.  Finally I did the logical thing and looked on the last page of Sanctuary where it said To Be Continued in Final Crisis which sort of cleared it up for me but the brought about the questions stated above.  To put it simply there are just to many events with Crisis in the title and it's annoying and confusing and everything mentioned above are more or less the reasons I've had such a hard time getting into comics.

            So now that I've gotten all that out of my system, you’re probably wondering what the hell am I trying to get at.  Well, I just wanted to state how confusing comics can be for me before I actually get into today's review and why I do so few of them.  So what shall I be reviewing today?  Well, the comic Justice League of America: The Injustice League, the first in what I would like to call, The Illusive One's Final Crisis Trilogy.  Over the next few days I shall be reviewing this comic, Sanctuary, and finally Final Crisis.  I'm not going to get into Countdown or any of the other Final Crisis buildup because again, that would just be way too confusing for me and Linkara has already made it clear that I should stay as far away from that crap as humanly possible.  So for now it’s time for part one of The Final Crisis Trilogy.  This is the Illusive One's Review of Justice League of America: The Injustice League.

            The plot involves Lex Luthor, The Joker and Cheetah as they form an alliance of supervillains with the purpose of taking down the Justice League and, you guessed it, take over the world. 

Couldn't Resist

           

            And that's all you really need to know about the story so let’s start digging into the pros and cons.

            On the positive side, there was a lot of great dialog.  Most of it consisted of simple exchanges between the characters but the conversations were extremely enjoyable and there were a lot of really cleaver moments that really stuck out.  The most notable of which was a lot of Batman's dialog and an exchange between Hal Jordan and John Stewart, where they directly address the issue of having two Green Lanterns on Earth.  It was also interesting to see just how Lex Luthor controlled all these villains.  Usually alliances like these rarely work out but it was interesting to see how he kept it all together.  On the same note, I also really liked the traps Luthor set up for the Justice League and how the heroes keep falling into them.  Most of them were really clever and kept the reader on his or her toes and wondering just how they would escape said traps or how Luthor would trap them.

I also really liked the general drawing style of this comic.  To put it simply, I thought everything was really well drawn, colored and looked the way it should look.  Right alongside that, I felt that the action panels were well done as well and did a good job depicting the action.

            On the negative side, it didn't really seem like much more than an excuse then to get a lot of the super heroes and villains in one room to beat the crap out of one another.  There were a few moments that had a lot of depth at the beginning but after that it became pretty shallow and just a typical hero verses villain type story.  I also felt that the climax was a tad underwhelming and there were a couple of plot holes at this point that you could drive a truck through.  Not to mention a lot of the villains you see in the Injustice League never actually fight or have any dialog and that might irritate some people.

           

            All around, I'd say this was a comic definitely worth reading.  The dialog was enjoyable, the writing was all around good, the action was well depicted and it was just cool to see the way the villains all worked off one another.  If you're a comic book reader, then definitely check it out because it's worth your time.

All Around

7.75/10

            So that's it for part one.  Check in next time my thoughts on the follow-up to this story, Sanctuary.  So until next time this is The Illusive One signing off.