Justice League #5 - March 2012

Comics Weekend "Part Five" by Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, and Scott Williams.

It was a big week for Aquaman--due to a quirk of the schedule, both Aquaman #5 and Justice League #5 came out the same day. After Aquaman's huge, er, splash last issue, let's see what happens this month.

The book opens with The Flash trying to outrun Darkseid's eyebeams, which isn't easy--he even has to push Superman out of the way! Barry pulls off a clever move, vibrating through a Para-Demon, allowing it to take the blast.

Superman then gets hit, and his unconscious body is dragged into the sky by another Para-Demon, leaving The Flash to curse and fume, and desperate to rouse his erstwhile teammates:

Green Lantern goes mano-a-mano with Darkseid, which doesn't work out too well for him. Despite this, Hal will not give up, even to the point of risking his life. Batman steps in and stops him, and tries to talk sense. He goes so far as to remove his cowl(!), and reveal his real identity to Lantern, who responds with "Who the hell is Bruce Wayne?"

Batman tells Lantern to meet up with the others, and takes off. He raises his arms, begging a Para-Demon to grab him--which is exactly what happens. Lantern does what Batman suggested, and hatch a loose plan to go after Darkseid. Sadly, his rallying cry needs a little work:

On Apokolips, we see Batman free himself from his Para-Demon, landing in front of another dimensional portal. He enters, and finds himself in front of what looks like Hell itself: "This wasn't part of the plan." To be continued!

After Aquaman's huge presence in issue four, this one can't help but feel like a bit of a let-down: he basically just stands around, and only has a line or two. But since we're obviously headed for a Big Finish, I'm sure Arthur will get more to do next month!

I felt the art was off a little this month--there are four inkers credited, including regular Scott Williams--so the book felt a little inconsistent to me, visually. And I really wish the nice, poster-ish cover hadn't been a victim of the "If two tones are good, fifteen thousand tones are better" school of comic book coloring. But oh well.


This issue also comes with a bonus feature, some character sketches of Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and, yes, Aquaman: