Happy Holidays fellow lantern fans! It’s the most wonderful time of the year, at least for us in the real world. As we saw at the end of Justice League #45, some members of the Justice League have been transformed into New Gods. I’m pretty sure that becoming The God of Death wasn’t on the Flash’s Christmas list. All silliness aside, it’ll be interesting to see what Geoff Johns has planned for the next part of act two for this particular story line considering that last issue was set up for six individual one shots and didn’t progress the story. Either way let the Justice commence!
I’m conflicted with how this issue was presented and how now seemingly crucial the six one shots were. Yes Geoff Johns was able to keep the main focus of the story onto Wonder Woman and the main threat of the Anti-Monitor. but whenever a panel was dedicated to each member of the Justice League and how their newly found Godhood was such a great undertaking I felt like I’m missing parts of a story. The small exception being Green Lantern and possibly Superman. It”s an odd problem to vocalize and credit to Geoff Johns on his ability to make the main plot line more engaging minimizing the effect of the seemingly “missing” story, that was placed into six different one shots.
Where Geoff John’s shines in this issue was the sequence between Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. While it is a tad odd that John’s would have Steve bring up Wonder Woman and Superman’s relationship at this pivotal point I can also understand where Steve is coming from. The world’s about to end and all sorts of emotions can just come up, especially when you’re in front of someone you still have feelings for. Despite Diana’s status as God of War, her dialog with Steve Trevor felt completely genuine. This is possibly a way to end the relationship considering how the Superman/Wonder Woman romance kinda fizzled out after the first year? That’s just from my perspective of the passion between Steve and Diana, with Superman playing the role of the jealous boyfriend.
In between the beautiful character moments, John’s continues to set more game pieces for the third act. In typical fashion John’s weaves exposition with explosive action, fitting for a book of this magnitude. So outside of the one shots seemingly carry more importance, John’s was able to tell a compelling story.
Francis Manapaul’s is one of the best artists in comics today, his style is distinct and beautiful. A perfect example of Manapaul’s amazing art and storytelling skills is the introduction of Big Barda. In the span of a few panels, Manapaul was not only able to establish Big Barda and her personality, along with her relationship with Mister Miracle. Those panels are perfection and why comics is such a beautiful form of media. The only criticism that I could criticize is the single page splash of the Crime Syndicate. As you turn the page, considering how dynamic of a splash it is, it fooled me into thinking that they had actually entered battle. A minor complaint in another wise near perfect issue from Francis Manapaul.
While I am still feeling like there’s a missing chunk of Darkseid War, Johns and Manapaul were able to keep the main story just as exciting as previous issues. Now we move onto the final act as issue fifty looms ever closer.
Justice League #46 earns a 4/5
Be good!