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Of Embassies and Origins - Justice League International Part 2 (Eaglemoss Collection v77)

  Review: Since we are doing a series of reviews focusing on Booster Gold over his nearly 40-year history, we include this one as a collection of some of his earliest appearances, dating to late 1987. That places the original publish date of these tales while his original solo series was still going strong.  This book is a beautiful, glossy hard-cover with smooth and heavy-stock paper inside, although the sometimes-low print reproduction quality leads to blurred and hard to read word balloons on occasion. It is also a rare book here in North America, as Eaglemoss Collections targeted UK fans with this series. At this point in the history of the 1987-rebooted Justice League, they have gained official United Nations recognition and sanction. To ensure their reach truly is global, they rebrand as Justice League International (as does the title of the series!) and they open new headquarters buildings around the world: New York, Paris and Moscow are included here. As this is a product of 19
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Why Are All My Fathers Crazy? Batman Beyond 2.0 volume 2 - Justice Lords Beyond

Cover of Batman Beyond 2.0 volume 2 - Justice Lords Beyond


Review:

In this collection, storylines from Justice League Beyond and Batman Beyond 2.0 converge for an extended series of chapters as our heroes battle the Justice Lords, led by Lord Superman and Lady Wonder Woman. The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance.

Writers Kyle Higgins and Christos Gage have scripted a solid story, with plenty of twists. You will find a handful of particularly memorable moments, such as when Lord Superman gives a "heat vision lobotomy" to Terry / Batman, or Mr. Miracle escaping from the very prison cell he himself designed and built to be unescapable.

Unfortunately, their narrative efforts to bring forward the Justice Lords storyline from the Beyond TV series into this DC universe world bogs down under its own weight. They need to provide some background for the reader unfamiliar with those shows or episodes, introduce some new developments, and use both to move the plot forward. It all leads to several stretches of extended narration. And the accompanying visuals by Thony Silas and Dexter Soy fail the "show me don't tell me" test.

Silas and Soy do structure their art using a novel and occasionally stunning layout structure. Pages are filled to the brim, with nary a white border to be seen. The layering of panels also adds to the dynamism and unique flow. Alas, it often produces pages with a series of stacked, narrow, horizontal images. When it succeeds, it evokes the closeups of a widescreen TV experience. But on paper, it too often leaves the images too small, cramped, cropped and dark. The online digital chapter originals might have worked better, with back-lit images and the ability to view on a larger surface and even to zoom in.

In the end, the boy Zod is revealed to be the heir and offspring of Lord Superman and Lady Wonder Woman, stolen by Brainiac and sent to the Phantom Zone. On learning this shocking revelation, Zod spurns them both. Does he choose in favor of his friends? Nah, that's too warm-and-fuzzy for this world; he just rejects them both as unworthy. But in the climactic battle he utters the line of the book, "Why are all my fathers crazy?"

With its source material coming from online-first digital chapters, this physical, trade paperback book lacks some of the customary transition points between chapters. Where a TPB reprinting traditional comics would usually include the covers and the common use of large or full-page visuals near the start of a story, the cues marking the seams between these chapters are much more subtle. The result is a more fluid narrative, but the freedom from the usual structures is only illusory and you quickly pick up the demarcations between digital chapters.

Overall, for excessive verbosity and visuals that are frequently hard to parse, 2 capes out of 5.



Description:

    Contains the epic "JUSTICE LORDS BEYOND" crossover! Wonder Woman is back, but it seems like she's hiding something. Meanwhile, Batman's journey through the dystopian world of the Justice Lords takes an unexpected and deadly turn as he must face Lord Superman!  Can an exhausted Justice League and Terry McGinnis against this deadly foe?

    Collects BATMAN BEYOND Universe print issues #9-12.

    Collects: Originally published as Batman Beyond 2.0 digital chapters #17-24 and Justice League Beyond 2.0 digital chapters #17-24 

    Authors: Kyle Higgins and Christos Gage
    Artists: Thony Silas and Dexter Soy
    Published By: DC Comics
    Published When: March 17 2015
    Parental Rating: Teen
    ISBN-13: 978-1401254643
    Pages: 176 pages


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