Justice League #27

I cover Justice League #27 with the story from Geoff Johns and artwork from multiple artists, published by DC Comics as part of the New 52 and the Forever Evil event.

 

 

 

It feels like Forever Evil has been going on for ages now but with the wait nearly over (April sees the aftermath hit the DC Books) Justice League turns its attention to Vic Stone, aka Cyborg, who had all the tech that came with being Cyborg ripped from him following the start of Forever Evil when the Earth 3 version, Grid – made himself known. Since then the fate of Cyborg was left unknown until recently, when he, along with Batman and Catwoman, was one of the few characters who survived the defeat of the Justice League. This issue is pretty much a ninety-five percent focused on Cyborg as a character, and not only proves why he’s so awesome, but that like Shazam, should get a new ongoing series from DC – after all, he’s the only original member of the Justice League not to have his own ongoing series, and based on the quality displayed in this issue, it’s something that I can entirely get behind.

This book shows us that there is more to the Forever Evil event than just the Crime Syndicate and it really pays off because of this. With the amount of tie-ins dedicated to this event you really get a sense of scale of what is going on during this period, and how dramatically the world is changing. As far as I’m concerned though the main event is lacklustre, but in this rare case it’s the tie-ins, at least those in the Justice League series – are actually better than the ones in the main event. The Doom Patrol make an appearance after having them mentioned last issue and whilst I have not encountered them before in comics it was surprising but welcoming to see more characters introduced into the DCU.

If you’re a Cyborg fan then you’ll want to pick up this issue. He’s the main focus of the book and the issue basically plays out like a training montage in a film – where the main character has been beaten and utterly humiliated by the villain and must prepare himself for the final fight. This seems like way things are going here, and even if Justice League #27 is not as closely connected to the Forever Evil event as the previous issue was, this actually works – because I did not enjoy #26 at all but Johns has been on form with this instalment – and if you’ve been thinking about giving this series a pass whilst Forever Evil is taking place then I strongly urge you to reconsider – because most of the issues have, like I’ve already mentioned, been better than the main event.

Ivan Reis is on this issue but the layouts are the only thing that he brings to the table and as a result the quality suffers because of this, not being as strong as what we’ve come to expect from such a spectacular artist. Joe Padro, Jesus Merion and Vicente Cifuentes work on this book and whilst the artwork is still strong in most places we have seen better on this series in the past. The Doom Patrol opening sequence is the visual highlight of the book and this is because of the vast amount of interesting elements on display – there’s plenty of content going on from a deadly attack by Atomica to super-speed and several explosions. It’s certainly an action packed opening but the majority of the comic turns its attention to Cyborg, and doesn’t keep its fast pace all the way through.

If Cyborg is one of your favourite members of the Justice League and you’re interested in checking out the Doom Patrol, as well as learning more about another New 52 team that as far as I’m aware, we haven’t met them before this issue, then Justice League #27 will be right up your street. It also seems to hint at a possible Doom Patrol title coming soon – something that should be interesting indeed.

Recommended.

VERDICT: 4/5