Forever Evil #3 Review

All roads have led to this – the formation of the Injustice League!

 

This week’s release ties into events from Rogues Rebellion #1 and Justice League #24, so first read that.

All the villain hard-hitters are united (through not in the way you may have expected) while we finally get what the prison was in JLA #24.

Despite those reveals, this was a very low key filler issue. Not much happened in the way of moving the plot forward that couldn’t have been done in a few pages.

But the art continues to impress. And there were some interesting character moments, which I’ll elaborate in the spoilers.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…………….

We first meet up with Batman and the scientists immediately after the final pages of Forever Evil #2. Victor is in terrible state and Batman finally explains what the ‘prison’ was – it was the Firestorm Matrix.

As most of those who know Firestorm, it takes two people to combine and become Firestorm. The Syndicate somehow managed to overload the matrix by trapping all the heroes (except for a few) in it. It has become unstable and that is why J’onn was seeing Ronnie Raymond’s (one of the Firestorm matrix) brain patterns inside Jason Rusch (the other half of the Firestorm matrix) in JLA #24.

But after this huge reveal, we meander off to meeting up with Lex and Bizarro trying to locate Ultraman, whom they find battling Black Adam. Unlike Superman, Ultraman isn’t affected by magic all that much (though there seemed to be a homage to when Superman was depowered by the nuclear explosion in The Dark Knight Returns) and he breaks his jaw. The fight was a little under-whelming.

But this battle has exposed him to sunlight and Luthor notices Ultraman’s greatest weakness. Meanwhile in Central City, the Rogues find themselves horribly outmatched against Deathstorm and Power Ring. While Deathstorm removes Captain Cold’s metahuman DNA, the others are trapped inside the Mirror World when Power Ring smashes the mirror transporting them away.

 

Only Cold is able to get away and he finds himself in Metropolis ( a little too convenient), where he meets up with Luthor. Black Manta also arrives, dragging a battered Black Adam to shore. Luthor unites them to fight the common enemy – the Crime Syndicate.

There were a few nice touches – Power Ring’s ring being able to break off the cold off his frozen hand by itself, Deathstorm turning Cold’s liquid droplets into hydrogen to stop Heatwave or Trickster and the highlight – Bizarro giving Luthor a flower and the latter actually thanking him!

Also did Bizarro use heat breath (converse of Superman’s Cold breath)?

SPOILERS END.................

Overall very little happened, except for uniting the villains. While that was a big thing for this event, a little more story would have been better. Reducing the event title book to a standard comic book length was a little confusing.

The writing and art are still top notch. Johns is writing Luthor beautifully and Finch’s gritty art is really doing justice to the atmosphere of this event.

The plot progresses but both the short length (only 20 pages) and some filler character interaction slowed the page a little.

Still, the pieces are being placed and the battle is finally about to begin.

Anyone who’s following Forever Evil, must-buy You may need to buy a few comics from last month (Justice League and Rogues Rebellion) to make sense of what is going on, but this event is shaping up nicely.

So, I give it 8.5 out of 10

+Some big reveals handled well

+The villains are united in brilliant fashion

+Some good character moments

+The art is wonderful

-The story meanders a bit.

-Book was a little short for an event title.
-Some contrived scenes