Uh-oh... the JLE's going to blast themselves to Kingdom Come.
At Batman's memory falters and Magog enters the scene, this unofficial Justice League sees the numbers of their allies decrease just as the numbers of their enemies increase.
The Good
The scene where Batman and Powergirl investigate Maxwell Lord only to forget what they're discussing in mid-sentence was downright spooky. I've rarely seen menace underlay a superhero story so effectively outside of Morrison's Animal Man run. I was glad to see Captain Atom's role in the Kingdom Come disaster foreshadowed here in that opening flash forward. While I've got some objections about Magog's specific role in this (more on that later) it definitely feels right to have such a memorable story hang over these proceedings like a specter this reassembled JLE desperately needs to prevent. Is this what Brightest Day might be leading to, now?
The Bad
This isn't a criticism leveled at this book, specifically, but seeing as how the Kingdom Come foreshadowing takes up a big chunk of this issue, I question how on-point it is for Magog to continue roaming around the DCU as he has. He's supposed to be a parody of Cable and all of the excesses of 90s superheroes... so him sticking around, as a straight-up hero, kind of misses the joke.
The Verdict - 4/5
Winick, Bennet and the rest of the crew deserve some applause for putting out a book that's this consistently good on what must be an unforgiving bi-weekly schedule. While this might be more of an "in-between issue" in the scope of things, it still provided ample questions (Batman's memory, the road to Kingdom Come, the Metal Men's appearance, et cetera) to chew on for the next two weeks.
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