Forever Evil #6
The Good
With the Justice League “dead”, it’s up to Batman, Lex Luthor and their motley crew to deal with the Crime Syndicate in the only way they can, by taking the fight to the Syndicates door. Something that this issue does well is show the way that these particular “crime fighters” do things differently to the Justice League. Of particular note was how Captain Cold deals with Johnny Quick. It’s brutal and ironic, a real satisfying moment if you’ve been reading the miniseries which have featured the sinister speedster.
It’s refreshing to see that the Syndicate aren’t all powerful. I’ve felt reading this that they beat the Justice League and the remaining heroes far too easily. Here however the situation is readdressed. When they fight against other villains, they soon find that when their opponents are willing to be as brutal as they are that they lose the upper hand at last. Especially when the identity of the mysterious hooded figure is revealed and we see what he can do the members of the syndicate.
[spoiler] However the best moment, for me, was something that I know people are going to be against. In order to keep Nightwing from escaping them, the syndicate trapped him inside a bomb designed to detonate unless his heart stops. Nightwing asks batman to leave him, but Batman of course attempts to let him out. Unfortunately Lex Luthor sees a third way out of this scenario, he seemingly kills Nightwing. Now most people are no doubt going to be angered by this. However I really liked it. It gave us some insight into the practical way Luthor thinks and I think it’ll lead us to why Lex is allowed to join the justice League. I won’t say here exactly what my theory is but it seemed clear to me that Lex didn’t just indiscriminately kill Dick, he had a plan. [/spoiler]
The art is ok, nothing to shout home about, except for the page where Dick asks Bruce to leave him. That page really stood out to me.
The Bad
The penultimate issue of Forever Evil was certainly an exciting romp with some shocking new developments, but I do have a few misgivings about what’s happened. I was slightly confused about the bomb that they strapped Nightwing in. It’s designed to detonate unless his heart stops? Were they trying to kill him? Why would they put him in that?
I presumed that this story’s main antagonist was going to be “The being” that followed The Crime Syndicate from Earth 3. Well, while that plot thread still looms, we've now got who appears to be a new antagonist in the form of [spoiler] Alexander Luthor [/spoiler]. This reveal comes pretty late in the game, we've only got one issue left, so I’m left wondering, can Geoff Johns wrap this story up in a satisfying way?
I’ve no doubt that Johns is an accomplished writer and he’s certainly got a pedigree when it comes to writing event comics. That said I can’t help but worry that this event is going to spin into a new event, in the same way that Trinity War span into Forever Evil. I think I may be suffering from event fatigue.
The Verdict
All in all an exciting issue where a lot happened, perhaps too much though. You can’t help wonder whether there’s enough pages in one issue to tie this up nicely.
