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| Front cover of Justice League: Gods and Monsters |
Score (out of 5 Capes)
1.5 out of 5 capes for an overwrought melodrama in an alternate universe where familiar names do similar things.
My Review
The animated film Justice League: Gods and Monsters was well received and well reviewed when it came out. The review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes gives it a high-80s freshness rating on its Tomatometer and a nearly as high audience score.
It put the "holy trinity" of DC Comics - Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman - in an alternate universe with some significant differences.
The refugee from Krypton known as Superman grew up as Hernan Guerra, raised by migrant Mexican farm labourers, which gave him a whole different perspective on the concepts of Truth, Justice and Liberty.
The Batman has been re-imagined as Kirk Langstrom, a vampire with a thirst for blood warring with a desire to at least not hurt people and potentially to do good.
Wonder Woman has become Bekka of New Genesis, an escapee from Apokolips, with passionate ideals for a pastoral and egalitarian society.
This trade paperback collects each of their one-shot origin stories and the prequel tale released as a three-issue limited print (nine-chapter digital story) comic series. It does not retell the movie in comic format; it might have been a stronger read had it done so.
The creative team was chosen with an eye on bridging the gap between a successful animated film and the world of printed comics. Pairing Bruce Timm from the animation side with veteran comic (and Justice League) writer J. M. DeMatteis and a variety of artists set the table for success.
But the book ultimately falls flat. With a few exceptions, it feels like an overwrought, overly dramatic set of stories. In trying to set up the darker and more ambiguous heroes of this alternate universe, the tales stretch and contort, at times coming across like an amateur stage production.
By the end, the reader is left wondering why tie these heroes at all to the well-known ones, if only in name and bare outlines of settings? Must be marketing-driven - who would pay for comics and a film about "Bekka, Zod Jr. and the Vampire"?
The Wonder Woman origin story is the most enjoyable of the collection. Artists Rick Leonardi and Dan Smith shift their images to suit the shifting moods and settings as Bekka explores the new world she's landed on after fleeing Apokolips. Timm and DeMatteis work in many layers of the larger DC mythology that adds richness and depth. The result is an origin story that feels like a Wonder Woman story, if about Bekka instead of Diana. It repeatedly gets too narrative-heavy but succeeds overall.
The Batman origin story leans into the horror side of classic vampire tales. Artist Matthew Dow Smith goes dark - often too dark - with grim visuals and inking so heavy you might wonder if the page will feel wet and sticky to the touch. His images fit the theme and tone of the tale, but are not always very pleasant to look at. In the tale, Timm and DeMatteis leave too many gaps and wing wildly between filling a page with narrative boxes on the one hand and nothing at all on the other. This is without doubt to most overly dramatic of the set.
The Superman origin presents a fascinating back-story. Instead of patriotic salt-of-the-earth adoptive parents, this Kryptonian refugee winds up with a subsistence-level family of itinerant farm labourers. No wonder the child grows up with, if not a chip on the shoulder, certainly an edge, an aggression and anger rarely seen in the familiar Superman.
The rest of the collection tells the prequel tale of the three heroes meeting and beginning to work together. First to investigate then attempt to stop Doctor Psycho and his genetically enhanced Forever People, then to battle the hundred-foot-tall Imperiex across the continents. All with Amanda Waller and Lex Luthor lurking behind curtains and pulling strings.
The art of Thony Silas comes closest to the look and feel of the animated films and series from DC. While the style might work on the big screen and the digital tales, they feel cramped and crammed together on the printed page. Not that details are lost - Silas goes pretty light especially in face and body details - there is just too much packed into a single panel or page.
Too much drama. Too much action. It is the feeling of the entire collection: trying too hard. Whether it is in the reinvention of the characters, the narrative explanations of who they are and how they differ, the visuals, from cover to cover this feels like trying too hard and, perhaps as a result, ultimately missing.
One and a half capes out of five.
What I loved
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| Bekka joins a hippie commune |
Half the shtick of this alternate universe is its re-imagining of some classic elements of our DC trinity in a different setting. Where this worked best is Wonder Woman's days in a hippie commune.
I liked re-imagining the idyllic beauty of Paradise Island as a pastoral back-to-the-land farm. The societal structures of a strong leader (the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta) and a largely egalitarian and socialist society submitting to her loving authority also map very well to the commune, with a cultish devotion to a small cadre of leaders and enthusiastic sharing of tasks and lives.
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| Bekka meets Doctor Psycho |
Even the involvement of Doctor Psycho largely works in this context. His secret experiments with psychedelics aligns with the trippy drug sub-culture of the setting. Bekka / Wonder Woman desperately wants to love this group and to fit in and contribute. But as any human-built Utopia, it cannot hold.
What I didn't love
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| Over-inked and over-wrought |
Lots to choose for the "What I Didn't Love" section this time, so to keep this to a single topic, I will call out the Batman origin story one-shot. It was already facing a tough challenge, to fill in some back-story for the vampire Batman. It failed to deliver and is an unpleasant read along the way.
Sure, the vampire-Batman conceit is clever, picking up on stereotypes and associations between vampire mythology and the (sometimes) blood-sucking flying rodent-like mammals. Vampire. Bat. Bat-man, I get it.
This one-shot leans into the horror side of vampire mythology, with dark mood and darker visuals, blends of Gothic tragedy. The heavy ink-work and muted colours let the drops of blood or wet fangs glimmer and stand out.
It's just not very pleasant.
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| Vampires. Blood and Bats. Bat-man. I get it. |
Related Reviews
Another example of a comic tie-in to DC animation is Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy
Quick Reference Details
Writers: Bruce Timm, J. M. DeMatteis
Artists: Moritat (Superman one-shot), Matthew Dow Smith (Batman one-shot), Rick Leonardi & Dan Smith (Wonder Woman one-shot), Thony Silas (main series)
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: Feb 3, 2017
Parental Rating: Teen
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| Back cover of Justice League: Gods and Monsters |
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