Review: Justice League Volume 5 - Forever Heroes

With the Crime Syndicate’s hold on Earth growing, a gravely injured Cyborg suits up once more to take down the Syndicate’s dangerous AI Grid. But first he must find the mysterious Metal Men and convince them to assist him in bringing down the Syndicate.

Meanwhile, Grid ponders its inability to process emotion and looks into the pasts of its fellow Crime Syndicate members in order to feel something – anything.

Justice League Volume 5: Forever Heroes collects Justice League 24-29, written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Ivan Reis and Doug Mahnke.

Forever Heroes is divided into two parts. The first three issues detail the origins of the Crime Syndicate members (save for Superwoman) as Grid attempts to learn something about emotion through their past experiences. These issues provide some background information for the primary antagonists of ForeverEvil, but they ultimately seem ill-placed in a title like Justice League. This should be a book where big things happen, not where we get exposition and filler. Truth be told, Forever Evil probably could have been eschewed as a mini-series and should have instead been treated as a proper arc in the pages of Justice League. The backstories given are pretty standard and vary in quality. Issue 24 serves as Ultraman’s origin story, 25 is Owlman’s and 26 goes breezes through Power Ring, Johnny Quick, Atomica and Deathstorm. Owlman’s is easily the most interesting and multi-dimensional, putting some unexpected twists into his previous backstories. The lack of an origin story for Superwoman was a disappointing omission.

The remaining three issues of this collection deal with the return of Cyborg and his quest to defeat Grid. This arc fares better than what preceded it, mostly because it’s not just a series of flashbacks. Johns continues to write a compelling Cyborg, portraying him increasingly as a responsible and courageous hero.  I also think that Johns executed the introduction of the Metal Men rather well, in addition to their overall inclusion in the arc. He uses them, along with Cyborg and Grid, to consider the theme of human emotion and how that translates to non-humans. It’s an effective and interesting subject to consider. Aside from that, the arc is mostly unremarkable. Since the main action involving the Crime Syndicate was occurring in Forever Evil, the events here come across like background noise.

Justice League: Forever Heroes is probably the steepest drop in quality for Justice League since Geoff Johns and Jim Lee launched it in 2011. The art is beautiful, but it feels wasted on what amounts to a half-hearted tie-in to Forever Evil. The work here serves as background information and contextualization for the aforementioned mini-series. The new suit Cyborg gets is pretty snazzy and he’s a standout character in this collection, but he’s one of the few things worth checking out here.

RATING: C+