Best of this Week: Justice League #37 – Scott Snyder, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano
I had a really difficult time between choosing this or Deathstroke #50, but ultimately, this was just far more epic.
The war for Justice and Doom has been building up and raging for months now and it’s been leading up to issues like this one and I am here for it. Scott Snyder and Jorge Jimenez must have been binging a bunch of shonen anime to prepare for this because this book was full of so many amazing moments of overcoming the odds, sacrifices and comebacks that would fit perfectly amongst the best Dragon Ball or Naruto storylines.
To start off, Lex asks if Batman and the rest of the heroes are smart enough to surrender to the impending Doom as he pilots the Hall of Doom, commanding his forces. Jarro, however, steals the show by saying that they’re nowhere near that smart and that they’re about to get real #$%^ stupid and Batman adorably agrees. I swear I love them. Even more so as Batman himself pilots the Hall of Justice like he’s Roger Smith from The Big O or Space Pirate Captain Harlock.
The double charge between the generic forces of the real Legions of Doom and the various heroes of Earth was ASTOUNDING to look at. With Damian Wayne leading the charge, the heroes scream with rage and Hope as they rush the battlefield. Almost everyone’s there: Jay Garrick, Superman Prime One Million, Vampire Wonder Woman, Kamandi, most of the Titans excluding Kyle Rayner, but even Guy Gardner is front and center, ready for battle!
Meanwhile, the rest of the League do their best to telepathically turn the Earth from Doom to Justice with the help of Miss Martian and the remaining Starmen. They get far enough that they start to blur the Symbol of Doom in the sky, but they lack the power to disrupt it altogether. The only two that could reasonably do it are Hawkgirl and her son Shayne, but they’re lost in space with John Stewart looking for them. Superman motivates them all to keep trying until help arrives.
As that’s all going on, Hawkgirl does her best to defend her son from The Ultra-Monitor, the fused body of the Monitor, World Forger and Anti-Monitor at the helm. Jorge Jimenez gives her defense so much weight as she holds back the worst of his blasts with her Wings. He facial expression sells her pain and the destruction the Ultra-Monitor causes is beautiful with debris flying around them. Alejandro Sanchez accentuates this by making all of the colors cosmically beautiful, bright and vibrant. Both the Ultra-Monitor’s beams and Hawkgirl’s wings are enough to overpower the darkness in space, but unfortunately, he proves stronger than her.
When things look to be their most dire, out of nowhere comes John Stewart in The Flash Mobile, plowing into the Ultra-Monitor with enough Speed Force to separate the brothers from each other. The impact and subsequent explosion are absolutely devastating and REALLY cool, it’s all made even better when John steps out from the wreckage and poses like the damn hero that he is. This entire run has been made of epic moments, mostly drawn by Jimenez and this one takes the cake, especially because John Stewart remains one of the most effortlessly cool heroes out there.
The Anti-Monitor, sensing his impending ass beating, cries out for his mother across the multiverse. We then cut to her in the middle of destroying Earth-44, a universe where the heroes of the Earth are all robots made by Dr. Will Tornado (a cool combination of Will Magnus and Red Tornado). Earth-44 chooses Justice over Doom and DocTornado tells her to go to Hell. Perpetua, hearing the cries of her son, chooses an even more dastardly fate for Earth-44 than just crushing it. She palms the planet and throws it like she was Nolan Ryan (I had to research a baseball reference for you guys, appreciate it) towards her sons. It is epic as hell to see, her hair whips with the force she throws it with, there’s a tear in space-time and DocTornado embraces his end like Bardock, basking in his virtue.
His is not the only sacrifice, however, as The World Forger makes a tough decision. Because of almost all of his energy being sapped from him the Anti-Monitor, he only has enough left for one short portal before the planet impacts all of them. It’s somber to see as The World Forger looks downward towards his hammer. He muses of the other times he’s been reformed, but knowing that Perpetua is in control of the Multiverse that may not happen again. He completes his full character arc, going from a villain that wanted to destroy the other universes for one Perfect one, to a hero willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all.
The World Forger picks up his hammer, flexes his muscles as he gets into his strongest hitting stance and prepares for the end. Sanchez does their best to sell just how hot the planet is coming in with the screen being coated in purple-ish, red hue with the next panel being mostly stark white with red streaks.
The fighting continues on Earth-Prime as everyone is in the thick of it. Batman and Luthor duel in the crimson skies, Wildcat and Kamandi watch each others backs and Lightning, Zatanna and JSA Doctor Fate hold their own, but are obviously getting winded. Luthor cracks the hull of the Hall of Justice as the rest of the League feel something coming for them, but Luthor brings the hammer down and causes the Hall to have a crash landing. Damian, Green Arrow and the other forces, presumably, begin to get overwhelmed and all hope starts to dissipate…
Until a beam of energy disrupts the Symbol of Doom entirely, causing Perpetua to pay attention and Luthor to see a supercharged Justice League ready to put down his movement.
Everything about this issue was amazing. Start to finish, the writing was stellar, the art and coloring was exceptional and the lettering was perfect and immaculate. I found myself getting pulled in to the Hawkgirl and World Forger stories and felt satisfied with their payoffs. I got hyped when the battle kicked off and the energy stayed on that level the entire time.
As much as Dark Nights Metal was a saga with twists and turns, this run of Justice League has far surpassed it in my opinion. Scott Snyder wrote this in such a way that it was easy to get invested in the stories of every member of the League, even managing to return Hawkgirl to a state of prominence since her entire New 52 absence and making her an amazingly compelling character. The same can be said for the new addition of the World Forger, the third brother of the Monitor and Anti-Monitor. His design and character arc was amazing despite my initial misgivings.
Jorge Jimenez and Alejandro Sanchez are an amazing team together. Jimenez has alway been amazing on all of the books that he’s been on, but almost every issue of Justice League that he’s done has been beyond amazing. Scenes are drawn with dynamic posing, epic scale and weight that makes you feel EVERYTHING that the characters are going through. Sanchez brings these amazing scenes to life with stylish and shiny looking colors that really pop on the page and draws yours eyes in. Amazingly, nothing is lost in color or details that either of these guys make and it makes the reading and viewing that much more fantastic.
Overall, this is one of those runs that comes along every once in a while and gives you things to remember. Given that this is the penultimate issue to the Justice/Doom War and it’s already given us so much, who knows how much more there is in store for us in the future? High Recommend!
Ty Talks Comics 