Justice League Vs. the Legion of Super-Heroes #3 Review

What Happened That You Have to Know About:

While the rift is threatening the 21st and 31st centuries, Batman remembers that a Justice League villain named Epoch warned the League about Gold Lantern, telling them to destroy "it" if they ever found it. The rift subsides, but some Legionnaires and JLAers are scattered in time:

• Brainiac 5, Naomi, and Mon-El in Kamandi's future
• Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy in the Batman Beyond future
• Aquaman and Ultra Boy in prehistory
• Gold Lantern in some kind of Metropolis with airships and, still, the rift
• everybody else in the 31st century dealing with the Science Police; Chameleon Boy has just called his mom for help

Review:

Now that's something a little more like it. First, and most important, breaking up the crowd and focusing on smaller groups give the individual characters a chance to shine. That's something Legion comics have needed ever since Brian Michael Bendis took over as writer.

Second, almost as important, is Ultra Boy's insistence that there's someone behind this giant rift. That's the kind of thing you don't put in a comic book unless you plan to make it pay off. Usually. Whether it's true or not, at least we're thinking about it, and it's creating tension. Some malefactor weaponizing a rift is a lot more interesting than a naturally occurring rift.

Third, the choice of some of the temporal destinations for our heroes suggests that this might all tie in to Rose's adventures in LSH: Millennium. And that's something that needs some followup. Is Rose around? Some of the JLAers almost certainly know her; I'd like to see that encounter. Don't take your eyes off Rose, true believers; in some ways she's the secret protagonist of the fourboot.

Okay, well, this series might be picking up a bit. We might get a few chucks in before it's over. I don't have a lot of hope that the whole thing is going to turn out to be worth it, but there may be some points of interest raised.

Art: 95 panels/23 pages = 4.1 panels/page. 1 splash page, 2 double-page spreads, 1 case of 2 panels spread over 2 pages.

Thing I don't really care for in this comic book is the muted colour palette. Nothing ever gets really bright.

Godlewski continues to hold up his end of the bargain. This issue is a little light on the panel count (with an extra page!) but then, 7 of them are used up by only 5 panels put together. Look at... try the last panel on page 18; that's one that jumped out at me. But they're all good. I also particularly like the way he renders Computo.