Although Trinity War was – despite all its grandiosity and hype – revealed to be a glorified prelude to Forever Evil, the true and most deadly threat to the heroes in the whole of the New 52 era, the story left a lasting mark on the Justice League and the DC Universe. I’ll never forget those closing pages of the Trinity War storyline and those revelations which Geoff Johns masterfully weaved into the story. Whether it be the villainous Outsider or solving the mystery to what lurks inside Pandora’s Box, and then most effectively and flawlessly unmasking the Justice League’s ultimate foes to be none other than the Crime Syndicate, Johns concluded a decent story with the best twists and turns that have been published in a comic book since the 1990s. With Trinity War, the stage was set. The Justice League are missing. The Earth is crippled. The villains, forever evil, are in charge now.
Forever Evil was a titanic story of biblical proportions. With a grand total of 77 separate issues in this mega-story, it would be impossible, boring, and pointless to review the entire thing. Therefore, I’ll be looking at the main thirteen issues of the story: Forever Evil 1-7, and Justice League (vol 2) 24-29. For this review, I’ll be looking at Forever Evil 1-4, and Justice League (vol 2) 24-25. I did think about covering it all together, but Forever Evil has a much thicker plot than Trinity War. Written entirely by Geoff Johns, all the art for the Forever Evil issues is by David Finch and Richard Friend. Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Oclair Albert, Eber Ferreira, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Mark Irwin, and Keith Champagne are present the Justice League (vol 2) issues.
Geoff Johns wrote Trinity War so effectively and finished the story so magnificently, that there is little stage set-up needed. Things kick off at their most depressing – the Crime Syndicate are in charge. And the Justice League are nowhere to be found. Despite its huge number of crossovers and tie-ins, Forever Evil can be considered a Justice League story. That isn’t just because the Crime Syndicate are the baddies, but also because the main goal of the surviving heroes is to bring the Justice League back. For the first few parts, Geoff Johns reveals little about where the league has vanished to as we witness death and destruction. But with Forever Evil 1, we’re immediately introduced to the hero of the piece – Lex Luthor. In these opening pages, Johns tries his darndest to make Luthor appear not just cunning and manipulative, but genuinely cruel and completely unlikable. At the same time as the Crime Syndicate’s takeover of Earth begins, Luthor is forcing Thomas Kord to hand over his company to him. Luthor’s use of threats and then his complete disregard for Thomas Kord’s fate after the world begins to crumple instantly paints Luthor to be a villain, but throughout the first parts and indeed during the whole story, what he does is become something of a hero. In short, he’s a protagonist here and the play Johns plays around with him throughout is great.
So, with the Grid (the mechanical AI side of Cyborg) now totally in control of the Earth and the Crime Syndicate’s dominance over the planet cemented right from the start, we’re introduced to the Crime Syndicate as they come face-to-face with Earth Prime’s usual villains. Thankfully, Johns doesn't drown us in exposition and long-drawn-out details about each member of the team. That all comes later. In some ways, the Crime Syndicate are both the best and worst kind of villains that you’d want from a comic book. Geoff Johns uses Forever Evil 1 to prove that Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman and the likes, are in a league of their own. They aren’t regular supervillains – they reign supreme over pretty much every single DC villain in their domination and power. They are also a group of foes who mean business as any dissenters are killed without a second thought. One such example is Monocle, a rather mediocre Hawkman villain whose only time in the spotlight is when Ultraman incinerates him. That’s what makes the Crime Syndicate great – they don’t mess around. However, their Achilles heel is their goal. Throughout the story you learn more and more about what each member of the Crime Syndicate really wants and it’s clear that the team is fractured, but when you boil everything down, the one thing that fuels them is just being evil? Why? There isn’t really a reason – they’re just cruel for the sake of it. This bland and over-simplified explanation of a villain or evil group might have cut the mustard back in the 1940s, but seventy years later we want more depth and character. Johns does provide many twists and turns throughout Forever Evil that does make the Crime Syndicate into an intriguing set of foes, but they can never escape that dreadfully dull truth that they are evil just for the sake of it. In effect, they are anarchists. They break out all the supervillains from their prisons and let them rule the world. At the end of Forever Evil 1, things are bleak, and Johns adds another thing into the mix when Superwoman unmasks Nightwing as Dick Grayson to the public. It really is a bit of a ‘one bad thing after another bad thing’ with Forever Evil, and while none of the revelations can match the sheer shock-value created so powerfully in the final issue of Trinity War, Forever Evil gets off to a strong start.
It's from here-on-out where all the tie-ins come into the mix. Pretty much every title in the New 52 enjoyed at least one tie-in to this crossover, many of them after issue 23 of their respective titles. The best-selling titles – like Justice League, Superman, and Batman – would have four tie-ins – 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, and 23.4 – each one of them would focus on a different villain. For Justice League (vol 2), the four stories and villains are Darkseid, Lobo, Dial E, and the Secret Society. While I know very little about Dial E (aside from it seemingly being an evil version of Dial H for Hero), Darkseid and Secret Society both make total sense. Lobo is a slightly surprising choice, but it’s understandable. Perhaps Despero would have been better. I cannot claim to have read these stories, but they are not crucial or even important to the Forever Evil story or the Justice League (vol 2) title. They also aren’t written by Geoff Johns, aside from the Secret Society one which he co-writes. Think of these stories like those old Secret Origins tales back in the day – nice but not essential.
Forever Evil 2 throws us back into the deep end. To ensure that his powers are never decreased, Ultraman proves his godly powers by moving the moon to block out the sun. Meanwhile, Luthor heads into his underground laboratory to begin his war against the Crime Syndicate. For years, he has been trying to create a Superman clone in the case that something like this would happen. But since the Crime Syndicate invaded long before the clone is complete, Luthor has no choice but to unleash his Superman clone early. This origin story for Bizarro – a dumb Superman clone with super strength and little sense – is nothing really new, but using Forever Evil as the context for unleashing Bizarro is good.
It’s in this scene where he witnesses Luthor being the confusing character that he is. Upon unleashing Bizarro, he orders this brute to kill a nearby innocent security guard. He does, but then begins to train Bizarro to be like Superman. Luthor is an anti-hero here. He wants to save the Earth for himself, and the way he uses his skills of manipulation for good makes for great reading. He manages to win over Bizarro by telling him a story about his sister and how he lost her to an illness. He tried so hard to help her, but he couldn’t. This twisting of a moral knife into Bizarro convinces the monster to become a Superman figure, although its later revealed that Luthor lied about the story to get Bizarro’s help (but not a complete lie, as Johns reveals at the end of the story). Having a protagonist who’s usually the antagonist works here because Luthor has been out-evilled by Ultraman and his clan.
Little is given away about the full details of the Crime Syndicate just yet, but Johns hints that they have run away from a world-destroying menace and now they want Earth as their home. Some of the key relationships are established and shown – Johnny Quick and Atomica, who infiltrated the Justice League to spy on them, are shown to be a couple; Ultraman and Owlman are different in their goals and attitudes, with the team keeping a mysterious hostage in their new base inside the sunken Justice League Watchtower; Power Ring is a nervous wreck forced into the limelight, but mentored by Deathstorm. There is quite a bit to take in, but happily Johns doesn’t force it down our throats at once. But the main takeaway from the Crime Syndicate is that they are opposites of the Justice League in nearly every way, and one of those differences is the complete lack of trust in the team – they all have ulterior motives.
The Justice League (vol 2) parts of the story are not really essential to Forever Evil. If you want, you could read the seven issues of Forever Evil and finish knowing most of the necessary details. But what Geoff Johns does with Justice League (vol 2) 24-29 is add delicious context and tell us more about the Crime Syndicate. Justice League (vol 2) 24 focuses on Ultraman as Johns explores the similarities between him and Superman. On another Krypton in another Universe, Jor-Il and Lara sense the oncoming destruction of their planet and they force their son Kal-El to leave in a rocket for Earth. Sounds familiar so far. But these two parents are far darker than the ones from the normal universe. In order to make their son the strongest, they feed into his mind complete selfishness and hatred of the weak. Therefore, when he arrives on Earth, he is already evil. He forces the Kents to look after him until he decides he’s learnt enough from them, so he decides to kill them. The characters are so similar, but the personalities are so different. That’s pretty much the underlying theme to everything here. The Crime Syndicate are the complete opposite of the Justice League. The big problem that spawns is that the abject misery of it all is so overpowering that it becomes dull. You just expect the world here it be grim, and there’s not much left to surprise you about the Crime Syndicate, at least as individual characters. Justice League (vol 2) 24 isn’t totally stuck in an alternative past, however. Ultraman does confront some of the Superman cast, like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen in some interesting scenes, but then Johns weaves the story back into Forever Evil when, out of nowhere, who should return but… Black Adam! Just like with Trinity War, other stories like Shazam built up to this event, but the return of Black Adam after his apparent death is a surprising moment as he fights Ultraman to the death.
Forever Evil 3 is when the Justice League are brought back into the mix. And by the Justice League, I mean just Batman and Cyborg, along with Catwoman. And by Cyborg, I mean what’s left of him. With the Grid now separate from Cyborg and controlling the Earth in the name of evil, Vic Stone is dying helplessly. The Dark Knight manages to go to S.T.A.R Labs to get the help of Cyborg’s father to rebuild him. Batman and Cyborg are the only two Justice League members to really appear in Forever Evil, and it’s for the best. Having Superman and Wonder Woman fight their counterparts – while seemingly textbook in practice – would make for dull and typical comic book reading. Forever Evil works at his best when its David against Goliath – the heroes and the Justice League are now the ones fighting the giant. The other Leaguers are not dead, but trapped inside the Firestorm Matrix after Deathstorm tore into his heroic counterpart. It’s not a very convincing, plausible, or sensical, but the story doesn’t get too bogged down by it. I guess it gives a reason for why the Justice League aren’t around. While Cyborg is rebuilt by his father, Luthor witnesses Ultraman face Black Adam, who loses the fight. But afterwards, Luthor begins to create a team of villains to face the Crime Syndicate, joined also by Black Manta and Captain Cold bizarrely. Johns gives more time and spotlight to this odd team of villains than they probably deserve, and although Luthor and Bizarro go onto star quite heavily in the story, Black Adam, Captain Cold, and Black Manta certainly do not.
Justice League (vol 2) 25 takes us back to that alternate universe, many years in the past. This time the focus is on the Waynes. Thomas Wayne is a rich and corrupt man, but one night after the movies, he and his wife Martha are betrayed by their sons. Thomas Jr and Bruce plan to kill their parents so they can inherit their riches earlier, but this plan has been devised by Thomas Jr. He kills both his parents and Bruce, who pulls out at the last second. With his trusted accomplice, Alfred, Thomas Jr is now the richest person in Gotham. The twist on this origin by introducing Thomas Jr into the mix is a good one, and it gives him a chilling origin that leads him to become Owlman.
He’s certainly the most interesting figure in the whole Crime Syndicate, and it’s not just because Batman is the most heroic in the Justice League because he doesn’t have any powers. Effectively, Owlman organises organised crime. He’s the top boss of Gotham’s mob, and he does the same in Forever Evil. But Johns also explores a fascinating relationship between Owlman and Dick Grayson. In Owlman’s world, Dick Grayson’s Flying Graysons family were crooks, and when they died, Dick was looked after by Thomas Jr. Once again, it’s the same but grimmer. Johns goes on to portray Owlman as a very different member of the Crime Syndicate. He’s not interested in world destruction like the others – he isn’t dominated by a total sense of evil. He’s more calculating and cunning and believes in organising crime to defeat it. He tries to get Dick Grayson to join his side to defeat the Crime Syndicate. Justice League (vol 2) 25 ends with Nightwing agreeing to help the villain, as we begin to notice the growing cracks within the Crime Syndicate and how Ultraman, Owlman, and Superwoman have very little trust and fondness for each other.
Forever Evil 4 briefly explores Batman’s reaction to Nightwing’s unmasking. With all stories that effect many parts of the DC Universe, much of the aftermath is conveyed in other titles, but Johns does make Batman a star character as he must rescue his own surrogate son. I’m still waiting for the Dark Knight to meet the Crime Syndicate’s Outsider, just for the reaction. But Batman also plays a key part of the story because – throughout the Justice League run – Batman has been known for collecting items which heroes in the team are weak to. The Dark Knight has weapons in his arsenal to bring down the Justice League, and he decides to use them against the Crime Syndicate. When it comes to linking plot threads from various titles together, Johns knows what he’s doing. Batman and Catwoman unite with Luthor’s gang to take out one of the members of the Crime Syndicate. This this case, they find Power Ring. He’s certainly – along with Owlman – one of the most interesting members of this team. Green Lanterns are chosen for their willpower and lack of fear. Power Ring works exactly the opposite. The ring itself is the brains, looking for the most scared and nervous to prey on and use their body for evil. The Hal Jordan of the Crime Syndicate is no skilled supervillain, but a fearful man with far too much power. He is explored more later in Forever Evil, but now he is pitted against a Dark Knight wearing a yellow power ring belonging once to Sinestro. But unlike our Green Lantern, Power Ring is not weak to yellow. Therefore, despite all the drama of Batman getting some powers for a change, the Dark Knight’s victory is short-lived. But suddenly, down from the skies comes none other than Sinestro himself to face Power Ring. It’s a surprising ending, but nothing too exciting (unless you REALLY like Sinestro).
So, at the half-way mark, this is where we have to leave things off. I wouldn’t normally split such stories into two, but this one feel like it needs to be. I’ll look at the art in the second part, but for now, it seems clear that Forever Evil has gotten off to a strong start. Whatever judgements can be made about the Crime Syndicate or the – so far – somewhat slow pace of the story, Johns conveys a damning mood of grimness that creates a true feeling that Forever Evil is a tale with high stakes. Johns isn’t revealing everything to us at once. Details are being left for later issues as Johns is a clever plotter, while the origin stories that would once litter the early pages of a story are being left to the Justice League (vol 2) stories. At the halfway mark, there’s still much to look forward to…
Next Week: Justice League: Forever Heroes (Forever Evil 5-7, Justice League (vol 2) 26-29). Written by Geoff Johns with art by David Finch, Richard Friend, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Eber Ferreira, Rob Hunter, Andy Lanning, Jesus Merino, Vicente Cifuentes, Scott Hanna, Doug Mahnke, Keith Champagne, and Christian Alamy.
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