Comic book review: Justice League Futures End #1: Not even trying to be a good comic book

Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Jed Dougherty
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 17th September 2014


I guess that Jeff Lemire had a spare five minutes during his tea break, and as he’s wont to do these days, he’s crapped out another filler script for a mainstream comic book. I’ve read far too many blah Lemire books now. I don’t know how he’s getting away with it. Is it just a case of having a name and being able to pump out units like an assembly line loaded up with Chinese children? I think it is. He’s very quick, reliably uncontroversial, and I guess he needs the cash or something, because there’s nothing else you can say about his work here on Justice League: Future’s End #1. It was done by deadline. That’s the only praise that it deserves.

So what is it about? First off, it doesn’t have any of the top Justice League regulars in it. That means no Batman, no Superman and no Lex Luthor. Instead it features the Flash and Cyborg messing around on a Mars prison base. Yes, it’s Guantamano Bay in space. Well, without all of the torturing of inmates until they confess to being the Easter Bunny and Rumpelstiltskin of course.

Buy the book and you’ll get a one-shot story where the characters explain the plot and their motivations whilst they are fighting. This makes all of the dialogue complete ridiculous and impossible to take seriously. People don’t speak like that. Well, they do in a one-shot comic where you have no time to explain the context and character motivations.

Is this a skill? Is Lemire good at this kind of writing? If it was enjoyable, clever, emotionally engaging, socio-politically relevant, funny, sad or anything that would conjure up some kind of emotion then I would have no problem whatsoever with the laughable dialogue. The problem however is that this comic left me feeling completely indifferent. There’s nothing there, so how can I react to it? I guess I should applaud Jeff Lemire for knocking out a quick filler story. Congrats Jeff, but what about the readers?

I don’t want to be cruel about the art, as I’ve seen a lot worse. The story wasn’t at all engaging. That’s the main problem here. I felt like the art was a bit basic. It had the feel of a comic book designed for young children. The characters were cartoons. Their faces and bodies were all square jaws and muscles. I like realism in my books, and I didn’t get it here. That’s a personal thing of course. Some readers might enjoy the style, but it didn’t do anything for me. The backgrounds were lacking in detail, and the full-page panels that should have made an impact were noticeably lacking in any impact at all. There was no great creativity there, but somehow it fit with the story. A basic story had basic artwork. The feeling of a book being rushed out to hit a strict deadline was very apparent on every single page of the book.

Give Justice League a miss this month. It’s a filler book with a daft story about Captain Atom trying to break out of his Mars prison. He was very naughty, killing people to help people, a bit like our politicians really. It’s a pity we don’t have superheroes and a Mars prison base in the real world. It would have to be a big prison though, as this world is full to the brim with psychopaths in suits who are intent on killing people to save people. Wow, I just managed to say something about the book. At least it had one idea in it then. But taking it as a whole I wouldn’t bother wasting your time and money on it. It isn’t very good, and it’s not really trying to be either.

Rating: 3/10