Comics this week

Forever Evil #1- After the disappointing finish to Trinity War, I personally was very interested to see if Forever Evil was worth the trouble. After reading Forever Evil #1, I have to put off deciding on the answer to that question. Although I found that Forever Evil #1 was an engaging read, I also find that writer Geoff Johns got into the same problems he had in Trinity War; he was far more interested in setting things up than telling the story. The story starts not directly after Justice League #23's, but after the battle which show the Crime Syndicate as the victors of their battle against Justice League. Now I know this is to offer accessibility to readers who don’t collect the various JL titles, but even then I felt that the story was a disappointment. It was fun to see so many iconic and obscure villains but what about the Crime Syndicate? This is the first time the Crime Syndicate show up in the New 52 but instead of being the stars of the show, the issue was spilt between them and the various villains of the New 52 like Lex Luthor, the Rogues, the various villains of Gotham, and a few dozen others. Frankly, Johns tried to do too much and what saved the issue was the art of David Finch. His dark style is perfect for a series like Forever Evil and more importantly, it seems that he is having fun! His giant spread showing the meeting between the Crime Syndicate and dozens of New 52 villains was the highlight of the issue. A couple of more spreads like that and no one will care about the story.

Infinity #2- For the past few years, the best Marvel event is (in my humble opinion) “Annihilation”. The event that made Nova a star shows an interstellar war that had the various space empires of the Marvel working together against an invading enemy from The Negative Zone. More importantly, outside Richard Rider, almost no Earth superhero was involved in the war (No, Starlord is NOT human). It seems writer Jonathan Hickman learned something from the event because in the space part of this issue, Earth heroes like Captain America and Thor are an afterthought. The main man (or alien) is Gladiator and his Shi'ar warriors. And that’s why it works! I'm a firm believer that aliens works better than Earthlings in space. Unfortunately, this issue was bogged down by the battle of Earth between Thanos and the remaining heroes of Earth. Outside the struggles of Black Bolt, the rest of Earth battles were weak. Outside some glimpses of struggle, before we know it, Earth has fallen to the Cull Obsidian. Worse was the fact that Thanos' immediate victory was pushed aside at the end when Black Bolt revealed a twist to the invasion of Thanos. Frankly, this twist was a stupid move by Hickman. Thanos is a villain that should works as a force of nature. He don’t need a stupid reason to attack Earth, he is THANOS!