REVIEW: Justice League : Death Of The Justice League (2022)

Joshua Williamson has been able to tap into the nightmares of every kid who has ever read comic books as he eradicates every member of the Justice League, one by one. Tying directly into “Infinite Frontier” and “Justice League Incarnate”, President Superman and the JLI come to warn the main Justice League, but it’s too late and Darkseid, Pariah, and a gang of other baddies alluded to on the last issue of JLI, open up a boom tube to open up a can of whoop ass on the Justice League so that way Pariah can restore his continuity, similar to the aspirations of Superboy Prime during Infinite Crisis.
It’s amazing to see the League just get completely blindsided by their foes, to be so unprepared in an utterly one-sided fight, Williamson makes it hard to not cheer on the villains as they run through the heroes best defenses like a red light.

Rafa Sandoval does a great job in drawing the deterioration of the heroes perfectly. Something that typically DC Comics is reputed to do metaphorically in their dialogue, Sandoval puts the destruction of the heroes in this modern mythos in his pencils and the result is the train wreck that you can’t turn away from. Why though? I haven’t read Justice League in what, over six months? But the minute I heard this issue was announced (even without recognizing the Dark Crisis tie-in) I wetted my chops in anticipation to feast on it. Williamson and Sandoval created quite the feast, but it cannot be overlooked that this enjoyment isn’t built upon the backs of the sacrifice of gods, like all great mythologies before it.

Williamson makes me feel like a sucker, because I know Bruce, Clark, and Diana have to come back eventually, right? But in the one-sided fashion they are decimated, there’s a permanence to the beating that the audience bears witness to, that dispells all comic book logic, which is tough to achieve, since that lore is so malleable. The Trinity was gone during 52, but how will the DCU survive without them with this upcoming Crisis? That, and what did the SuperFriends ever do to Joshua Williamson are the questions that I wouldn’t blame any comic book aficiando have run through their head as the read this over-sized issue, because that’s the thoughts I had while finding myself guilty in enjoying the deaths of some of my favorite funny book heroes.

To paraphrase Wolverine “just because I’ve died before, doesn’t mean death doesn’t hurt”; and with that being the standard, Joshua Williamson brings the type of pain that puts smile’s on faces, like a trip to Suplex City only can.

Score : 4/5

Writer: Josh Williamson
Artist: Rafa Sandoval
Inks: Jordie Tarragona
Colors: Matt Herms
Letters: Josh Reed
Cover: Daniel Sampere & Alejandro Sanchez