At the half-way mark of Forever Evil, the heroes are still the underdog. It’s the Crime Syndicate who are in charge of the Earth, with the Grid in total control. But – with the return of Batman and his alliance with Lex Luthor – the heroes are beginning to fight back, while cracks emerge in the partnership between Ultraman, Owlman, and Superwoman. After countless issues and stories of the heroes always one-step behind the villains, whether it be in Trinity War, or Forever Evil, how will the heroes save the day?
For this second part, I’ll be reviewing Forever Evil 5-7, and Justice League (vol 2) 26-29). Written by Geoff Johns, the Forever Evil issues are drawn by David Finch and Richard Friend. Meanwhile, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Eber Ferreira, Rob Hunter, Andy Lanning, Jesus Merino, Vicente Cifuentes, Scott Hanna, Doug Mahnke, Keith Champagne, and Christian Alamy are present for Justice League (vol 2). With that, let’s get back into it!
Justice League (vol 2) 26-28, while connected deeply to the events of Forever Evil, is something of a three-parter. Here, Geoff Johns plants the seeds for the Grid’s defeat. Naturally enough, it’s Cyborg who stars as the hero of the three issues.
Forever Evil 4 ended with Power Ring meeting Sinestro and the two began a bloody fight. As a good writer, Johns made sure not to reveal all the details about the Crime Syndicate stars so we are never bored with exposition. Johns has been revealing more and more details about the villains like a drip-feed, bit-by-bit. Justice League (vol 2) 26 is where we learn about Power Ring and his story. Unlike the one of our worlds, Hal Jordan of this alternative universe is a feeble and frightened being, with little loyalty to his country or work. Suddenly, one day a ship crashes from the sky and the dying alien Abin Sur asks Hal Jordan to take the Ring of Volthoom from him, promising him the fulfilment of his wishes. Hal Jordan accepts the ring, but it’s a trick. The Ring of Volthoom feeds off fear, not willpower. It bullies Hal Jordan and forces him to follow its every evil command. It’s a great twist on the traditional origin of Hal’s Green Lantern, and it also adds an interesting element to Hal’s personality. Unlike many other foes in the Crime Syndicate, he has an excuse for his evil deeds. Plus, his backstory is far more interesting than the stories supplied to other villains throughout this issue. There’s a bit about Johnny Quick and Atomica, two lovers who just wanted to see the world burn but ended up getting superpowers in the process. It isn’t exactly original. The same goes for Deathstorm, whose origin is little different from Firestorm, except with the added evil. As for Superwoman, either she’s too forgettable, or I’m suffering from some kind of amnesia, but she never gets much time in the spotlight, let alone a few pages conveying her origin. It’s basically the same as Wonder Woman’s, except that she is Lois Lane. That’s it. The most intriguing moment with her in the issues comes at the end when we’re shown once more the mysterious prisoner held by the Crime Syndicate in their lair. Who he is will have to wait for later, but thus far Johns’s method of storytelling when it comes to the villains is great. Some foes may be more interesting than others, but Johns is very creative with how he uses them.
These origin stories do distract us from the main plot to some extent. Throughout Justice League (vol 2) 27, Cyborg has been rebuilt after he was torn apart when the mechanical AI side of his being ripped himself away from Vic Stone to become the Grid. Cyborg’s father has helped rebuild him, and here Johns perfectly develops a running theme from his Justice League run. Vic’s father is dedicated to his work at S.T.A.R Labs and he rarely gave attention to his son. During the Origin storyline with Darkseid (Justice League (vol 2) 1-6), Vic was nearly killed and needed to be rebuilt. He therefore became Cyborg, but Vic hated the apparent monster that his father had made him into. Johns has been playing around with Cyborg’s experience as this technological mess for some time, with the Grid originally described as the constant noise in Vic’s head as he hears his AI at work. Johns really did show that being Cyborg was both a blessing and a curse for Vic. But here Vic finally comes to terms with his father’s love and how he wanted his son to live. Perhaps it was predictable that Johns would resolve this family tension, but the way he used Forever Evil to do it was brilliantly done.
Justice League (vol 2) 28 is where my least favourite part of the whole story comes into view. Cyborg needs to defeat the Grid so he can reclaim his AI and fight back against the Crime Syndicate. No problem there. The way that Cyborg goes about that is frankly unholy to me. Why? It’s because the apparent solution to solving this monolithic problem comes from Doctor Magnus and the dreadful Metal Men. While I may be overplaying my dislike of the Metal Men and their dreary concept and cringeworthy personalities to some degree, I’m still nonetheless a tad annoyed that they become the key to all this. Cyborg locates Doctor Magnus and needs his help to recreate the Metal Men in order to take out the Grid. This is because the Metal Men are DC’s earliest form of AI. To me, the Metal Men were just robots who were – frankly – a bit dim. They were like the Inferior Five but less funny and all robots. Whatever one thinks of their separate personalities and characters, each of the Metal Men were nearly exactly the same. Sure, they’re all made of different metals and alloys, but they’re all as dreadful as each other. Geoff Johns can try his hardest – as he indeed does – to make the Metal Men endearing. He throws in a sad backstory about Doctor Magnus and how the Metal Men were originally intended for war, and how he had to hide them from the government because he came to consider them friends. All that is nice and everything, but it’s still the Metal Men. How can such titanic villains like the Crime Syndicate be beaten with such trash. Once again I’m overegging the pudding a bit, but the more serious point is that I don’t think they’re appropriate heroes for a story like this. There is a place for the Metal Men (not just the scrapyard), but it’s not here. I don’t really buy Johns’s writing that they are AI, and I think Johns could have instead included another team of heroes to help him out here. I know they have little to do with AI, but why not bring the Doom Patrol back? Either way, these three issues certainly have their highpoints, and from a creative-standpoint, Johns sets the stage flawlessly for the finale – the Metal Men are back together, and Cyborg is going after the Grid. I just think the choice of characters could have been much better, but this key interlude during the main action is mostly effective.
Forever Evil 5 presents us with the first death in the ranks of the Crime Syndicate, and it easily qualifies as one of the greatest moments. With his overbearing fear, Power Ring was always the most likely to die first. In his duel with Sinestro, Power Ring’s arm is cut off, which means that the Ring of Volthoom leaves his body in search of another victim (this will come back later). Free once again, Hal Jordan thanks Sinestro, seconds before the alien burns the former Power Ring to a crisp. It's certainly not a boring death, and it’s made better by the fact that Hal Jordan is finally free. As I said earlier, he’s one of the most intriguing characters in the Crime Syndicate because he isn’t evil for the sake of it. His death may come a bit too early in the story for my liking, but Johns certainly makes it a great moment. Meanwhile, the main three Crime Syndicate baddies have broken into the Batcave, in search of Batman’s secret kryptonite. Ultraman’s complete dependency on kryptonite is a key feature of his character, and I like how Johns makes him so obsessive about it. Like a druggie attracted to grass, Ultraman absorbs any kryptonite he can, and Johns conveys his power when he literally rips a piece of it out of Metallo’s chest. Batman no longer has any kryptonite, but this becomes the least of the Crime Syndicate’s worries. They left their universe to escape some cataclysmic threat, a threat which is now tearing its way through the atmosphere of our Earth. The mystery behind this universe-destroying creature is fantastic and reminds me of Marv Wolfman’s writing surrounding Crisis on Infinite Earths. In short, Johns makes sure the stakes are high, just like previous writers did when it came to multiverse-changing tales.
Forever Evil 6 is the beginning of the end. Batman and Lex Luthor, after amalgamating a bizarre crossbreed of villains (from Catwoman to Bizarro, and Black Adam to Captain Cold, with a few others in between), storm the ruins of the Justice League Watchtower, which the Crime Syndicate now call their lair. Inside, the heroes (if we are to call Luthor and his friends this) find Nightwing. He’s mainly been unconscious in the story, but at the end of Justice League (vol 2) 25, Nightwing reluctantly agreed to help Owlman take out the Crime Syndicate. Owlman’s plan is to make Nightwing into a nuclear bomb to destroy the Crime Syndicate. The reasoning is never quite clear, aside from the fact that Owlman prefers his status as a maverick. Also, since Owlman does feel some connection to Nightwing due to his closeness to the Dick Grayson of his own world, how does killing Nightwing help him? It’s a dramatic and tense plan, but it doesn’t make much sense. Nevertheless, it’s up to Batman and Lex Luthor to defuse the bomb. Meanwhile, Luthor’s team invade the other rooms and the Crime Syndicate suffers a second loss, and it’s another crushing one. As the first to arrive from their world and the grand architect of the Secret Society and a terrific plan to bring down the Justice League, the Outsider has been a flawless villain. A good dress sense and a calculating mind make him a memorable character. Therefore, when Black Manta stabs him to death several times in the dark, it's something of a disappointing way to go. I suppose it’s made better by Owlman’s solemn reaction to his long-time friend’s death later in the story, but perhaps it could have been better. Johnny Quick then gets his comeuppance when Captain Cold freezes one of the villain’s legs and shatters it. Seconds later, his neck is snapped when the Crime Syndicate’s secret masked hostage breaks free. Who is this prisoner, but Shazam, specifically Alexander Luthor, who shouts Mazahs to receive his godly powers. As one of the few heroes from the alternative world, Mazahs is the Crime Syndicate’s ultimate foe. Adding another Superman into the story’s mix does admittedly cause a groan, but at least this revelation was unexpected, especially since he’s both the Captain Marvel and Lex Luthor of his alternative world. That all said, two questions arise. Firstly, if the Crime Syndicate despise him so much, why did they bring Alexander Luthor with them into our world? Surely, as a foe of theirs, he would cause more problems for them. And secondly, with his powers of total godliness, how was Mazahs held captive by simple rope in an old office chair. That is literally all the security the Crime Syndicate had for him, and not once did he try and escape? Doesn’t seem very convincing.
Before Forever Evil’s last issue kicks off, Justice League (vol 2) 29 presents us with the new and fantastic Metal Men! Anyway, Cyborg teams up these somehow AI robots to take on the Grid. Fortunately, the Metal Men are just there to weaken the Grid and not to defeat him. That honour obviously goes to Cyborg, who manages to regain access to the AI and entrap the Grid within itself. It’s all very complicated and heavily paraphrasing several pages worth of dialogue. Johns might over-egg things a bit, but I like the battle between Cyborg and the Grid. Cyborg is a mixture of human and machine, while The Grid appears to be totally AI. But, as Johns writes, this isn’t true. The Grid wants more than to be a logical machine – he wants to feel the human emotions of evil, greed, and all the rest of it. Some purists might consider this flaw in his circuits to be a predictable effort to make a machine have feelings, but if the Grid were to remain a pure logical computer throughout, then his dialogue would become very dull very quickly. Cyborg, with his emotions of resilience, determination, and hope, beats The Grid and locks him within his own AI. It’s a right end to the Grid, such a crucial character – with his removal, Cyborg can reconnect to the Grid and turn the world against the Crime Syndicate.
Forever Evil 7 begins with Lex Luthor’s shockingly evil plan working. At the end of the last issue, he decided the best way to defuse the bomb within Nightwing was to kill him. To Batman’s anger, he did this, but only temporarily. In that time, the bomb was defused and Nightwing was revived. Therefore, Lex Luthor no longer seems to be the evil villain we’ve always known him to be. But that’s mainly because the bigger threats have now appeared. Throughout, it’s been suggested that Superwoman is carrying the unborn child of Ultraman. But then it appears to be Owlman’s child. But then it’s finally revealed to be Mazahs’s. Superwoman’s loyalty to nobody but herself separates her from our version of Lois Lane, but it finally reveals the divisions in the Crime Syndicate. They just don’t trust each other, but they understand how evil each of them is. In the end, the characters of the other world end up fighting among themselves, with Ultraman fighting Mazahs to the death. At the same time, Deathstorm is killed off rather ingloriously (probably deserved since he barely featured), while Cyborg and Batman locate Firestorm trapped in the Watchtower. Essentially, the Justice League are trapped within Firestorm’s matrix, that confusing realm where the multiple personalities of Firestorm live in harmony (sort of). By using Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth, the heroes can be rescued – there just so happens to be one lying around because it’s their base after all. From here-on-out, it does feel like Johns is rushing slightly to conclude everything. Owlman turns up once more for Nightwing, before vanishing into the darkness, not to be seen in this story again. Bizarro is then killed, and Luthor isn’t happy. That part of the story has been one of the emotional parts, especially since Luthor actually seems to care about his monster. But like a few other characters, Bizarro didn’t feature that much throughout and by the end you’d be excused for forgetting about him. It all comes down to Lex Luthor fighting Alexander Luthor, with Ultraman out of the game since Black Adam and Sinestro have moved the sun back to its original position – alas Ultraman is powerless once again. What makes this final fight great is that Lex Luthor – the villain of his world – defeats Alexander Luthor – the hero of his. Alexander Luthor goes crazy with his powers, and Lex Luthor puts an end to it and saves the world. With Firestorm’s matrix unlocked, the heroes of our world are finally released – welcome back Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, and many others from the Justice League, Justice League of America, and Justice League Dark! This is all we get to see of the faces of DC’s most famous heroes, and that’s how it should be. They shouldn’t come along and take all the credit.
As something of an epilogue, Johns spends the last pages of Forever Evil 7 tying up minor loose ends, some of which will return in his Justice League (vol 2) run. Now the top villain again, Luthor finds a tiny confusing Atomica on the ground – he doesn’t think twice before stomping on her.
Lex then finds himself on the other end of the spectrum as he surgically removes the green kryptonite bullet stuck in Superman’s brain, placed there by Atomica for what seems like years (it was in Trinity War). Yes, Lex Luthor saves DC’s greatest hero from death. Despite everything, Lex Luthor is still evil. Geoff Johns makes sure we can see those countless times throughout the tale. Whether it be near the start when he threatens the owner of Kord Industries, or as he orders Bizarro to kill a security guard, or as he kills Nightwing to defuse a bomb, Luthor is definitely a baddie. But the purposes behind these acts are not to destroy the world. It’s to save the world for himself – he threatens another business to make the world better for himself, he tests Bizarro’s powers to make sure he can be used to defeat the Crime Syndicate, and he kills Nightwing to defuse a bomb which could have killed millions. Think of Luthor as anti-hero – his acts do benefit the world and lead to its survival. But when business as usual resumes, he’ll be going after Superman hard and with as much evil as before. But it should never be to destroy the planet (yes, I know I just reviewed 1975’s Superman Vs The Amazing Spiderman, where Luthor does try and do that, but I wasn’t at all pleased with it). It also explains why an uneasy coalition of villains can unite to take down the Crime Syndicate, who are too malicious even for the likes of Luthor and his friends. In the end, some villains are evil not because they want world destruction, but because they want to control a street or a gang, or enjoy riches, or ruin the lives of helpless victims. Complete planetary annihilation would create a roadblock to their goals. It’s on this great theme – the theme that all villains remain forever evil, and all heroes will be forever heroes – that the story ends nicely.
David Finch and Richard Friend are present throughout the seven issues of Forever Evil and they are always on top form. Johns never shies away from shocking moments, and the dramatic art provided by Finch’s pencils bring the story to life energetically. His page layouts are creative as well, while Richard Friend’s inks are varied enough to embellish all the story’s details. It may go a bit far on the feathering and some panels look as if too much work has gone into them, but it still looks wonderful. What also helps is the presence of consistency, something which the Justice League (vol 2) issues sadly lack. Ivan Reis continues to supply his drama and Jim Lee-esque art well, while Doug Mahnke’s style is far smoother and looks visibly different. Mahnke certainly shines during some grim moments, like the death of the Waynes, and it is aided by some inkers. It’s the inking styles where the inconsistency spawns really. Reis and Mahnke look different because of a varied number of inkers, all of whom add their own details and effects to. None are terrible, but none of them really shine ether. All-in-all, Finch and Friend shines most of all.
VERDICT
Overall, Forever Evil is a large beast of a story. With Trinity War appearing as a long prelude to this mega tale, Geoff Johns certainly hyped it well and overall, I’d said the story lived up to its big build-up. While I may nitpick and rage somewhat worryingly too much about certain aspects (like the loathsome Metal Men), there is so much going for this story. The Crime Syndicate may be evil for the sake of it, but I’ll never forget characters like Owlman, Power Ring, and the Grid – all of whom Johns writes with such creativity. The second half is where most of the action happens, and the fight back given by the heroes and their unity with their usual villains is great. All-in-all, Lex Luthor is a fantastic protagonist for this story and Johns has successfully generated so much more interest in the Justice League (vol 2) title, which was starting to run-on-empty a tad after The Throne of Atlantis. At the end of Forever Evil, the threat which destroyed the Crime Syndicate's world is finally revealed to us. It's more than just Darkseid - it's also the Anti-Monitor, the destroyer of universes. Plus, Johns raises questions about Superwoman's oncoming child and the threat that that may have to the DC Universe. With all that said and all that's to come, Forever Evil is a true highlight of the New 52.
Next Week: Batman: Going Sane (Legends of the Dark Knight 65-68). Written by J.M. DeMatteis and Daren White, with art by Joe Staton, Bart Sears, and Steve Mitchell.
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