Justice League: No Justice

It was pretty obvious from page one that I probably should have read Dark Nights: Metal before I read this. Thankfully, you really don't need to know much. The Justice League won a pretty major battle, and in the process kind of broke the universe.

One minor consequence of that is the four cosmic world-devouring titans that have been unleashed.

Every planet contains varying amounts of mystery, wonder, wisdom, and entropy. Most have a particular affiliation for one of the four, and that can draw the interest of one of these titans.

However, that's not the opening conflict. Instead, the genius supervillain Brainiac attacks Earth and neutralizes the entire Justice League without breaking a sweat. Setting aside my concerns about villains having wildly inconsistent power in the DC universe depending on the particular story being told, it was kind of awesome to see a villain just steamrolling over the good guys.

Just as it seems that things are going, uh, less than great for the heroes, Brainiac reveals the real reason why he's come to Earth: his home world has drawn the attention of the Wisdom titan and is about to be destroyed. The only way to save it is to follow Brainiac's master plan, which involves creating four super teams of various heroes and villains.

One of my favorite parts of superhero comics is the banter exchanged between rivals, and these team arrangements allow for that in spades.

There was a lot going on in for a fairly short story. We get the initial smackdown on Earth, the four separate teams working together to save Brainiac's home world, and how Earth reacts to suddenly losing most of the Justice League. There was never a dull moment, and many classic characters had to bend their personal codes in the face of a world-annihilation event. Some characters die (though I doubt it'll stick), so don't expect everyone to be safe just because they are big names.

Due to the large number of characters featured, no single person gets a lot of page time, but that's to be expected in a story with stakes this large. If you like hero/villain team ups and high stakes battles, this is the graphic novel for you.

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