Justice League Dark, Volume 2 by Jeff Lemire

He has consistently impressed since debuting with the title nearly two years ago, not because he emerged onto JLDark as the best artist around, but because he has improved so dramatically with every single issue. If there's one superpower left standing at the end of 'Justice League Dark' #22 it's Mikel Janin. In fact, a lot of characters never even get used as anything more than background props - when characters like Green Lantern, Catwoman, and Aquaman don't even have one line of dialogue (and I think Hawkman and Flash get exactly one line, each) you know your book is at its character limit. It becomes hard to care, and things get bogged down quickly because it's just too much to do and to many characters to maneuver in such a small space. There's no time to connect to anything or anyone. It's unfortunate, because as a fan you want to love seeing all of these A-listers together on the same page, but actually seeing it is a good reminder why comics don't regularly give us this sort of story (and why events and crossovers so frequently suck).

Other characters, like Amanda Waller, Martian Manhunter, Superman, Batman and the aforementioned Wonder Woman, just don't feel or sound like themselves. Some characters come off better than others, and Lemire naturally does better with characters he's more familiar with (Frankenstein, Zatanna, Madame Xanadu and Constantine) as one would expect in any crossover situation. Wonder Woman doesn't appear to be she's doing what she believes in, it feels like she's just trying to save Superman - and maybe those are the same thing, but her conviction is painfully thin - and thus impossible to believe or support. A character's beliefs should drive their reaction to whatever plot is foisted upon them, but this doesn't feel like a book about beliefs it feels like a book about convenience. The debates feel 100% plot driven rather than character, and so that's where the wheels start to come off. There's almost nothing of substance, here.

Justice League Dark, Volume 2 by Jeff Lemire