DC COMICS
WRITER: Dwayne McDuffie
ARTISTS: Ed Benes, Sandra Hope
COVER: Ian Churchill

The big showdown between the Justice League and the Injustice League with all of the heroes facing off against some of their worst enemies. Its all-out action, full of snappy dialogue and great character bits. And yet, in the end it comes off as disappointing. Perhaps because the tone of the battle is almost tongue-in-cheek. The villains don't sound like they are really out for blood and the heroes sound so confident of victory, they don't really exert an effort. And the victory does come a little too easily, especially since the heroes were suppose to be grossly outnumbered.

The art is also spectacular-- but in the end, disappointing. There are a lot of stunning explosions, bright bursts of energy and amazing feats of strength. And yes, the characters, especially the women, look verrrry good. But the artists are clearly interested in just showing the characters in a classic "heroic" or "sexy" pose rather than in telling a story. Whole panels are dominated by one or two characters in such a "pose" with the supporting characters and background just filled into the remaining space. One panel has Hawkgirl supposedly hacking through Poison Ivy's vines but it looks like she is just standing there, showing off her backside. There are also some panels which show Wonder Woman furiously punching-- uh, somebody.... Gorilla Grodd, I assume. They don't even bother to clearly show the object of Wonder Woman's ire.

What is really disappointing is how swifly this story was resolved. The first part of this story-arc gave the impression that a huge army of villains -- including Sinestro and Black Adam-- had gathered to take down the JLA. Yet most of these villains got barely any panel space in this story or were left out entirely. Apparently, DC Comics intended to cut this story short in order to set up the SALVATION RUN miniseries and an upcoming Suicide Squad clash with the JLA. Just the same, this was suppose to be the BIG battle for the JLA and to have it end up as some minor skirmish just leaves people dissatisfied.

It still gets three stars out of five. But the way they were building it up, it should have gotten five stars.