CREDIT: DC Comics
Rating: 3/5 –Rao’s End Game Is Revealed!
by ComicSpectrum reviewer Brett Downard
With this issue, Bryan Hitch continues his run not just doing the art, but writing the story as well. To me his style works best on big blockbuster over-the-top world expanding stories. That’s pretty much what he’s been doing when Rao, the ultimate God of Krypton, comes to Earth and starts to solve all of our problems. Rao has healed the sick, brought food to the hungry, and given us peace. But at what price?
With last issue being a fill in Martian Manhunter story, we pick back up as the League members are separated. Batman and Cyborg work on hacking into one of Rao’s Prophet’s staffs, and they find just what Rao’s price is. Aquaman and Wonder Woman are stuck on an abandoned Olympus. Green Lantern is on Krypton 250,000 years in the past with a young Rao. Flash is somewhere in time at the Infinity Corp Building where this saga all started. Superman is being held by Rao, who finally reveals his end game, and the Man of Steel responds with a cool and shocking last page action.
The best part of this book, as I find with just about all of Hitch’s recent work, is his great cinematic page layouts. Where it falls short for me is the dialogue, which makes sense since Hitch is an accomplished artist but a fledgling writer. At some points the dialogue just doesn’t flow very well and seems robotic, while the pacing of the overall story arc is a little slow with not that much significant activity happening in most issues. Overall, the series is just not working for me. Even though all of our heroes speak of Rao as such a major threat, I’m not really feeling that he is that big of a deal. I’ve been reading comics for a good bit so this kind of story is nothing new and I’ve enjoyed many other incarnations of this story type more. On the plus side, the coloring by Alex Sinclair works really nice with the tone of the story and Hitch’s art.
When the first issue came out I was pretty excited about Hitch doing a big action packed Justice League series. Now at issue #7 I’m bailing out and putting this series on the back burner to get later, or maybe just get the trade. I think I’ll like the story more as a whole, reading it all in one sitting; it’s just not working for me in single issue format.
Reviewed by: Brett Downard
(brett@comicspectrum.com)
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