Justice League #4

Continuing with the DC #4's.

Title: Justice League
Issue: 4
Date: February 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Geoff Johns
Penciler: Jim Lee
Inker: Scott Williams
Colorist: Alex Sinclair, Gabe Eltaeb
Letterer: Patrick Brosseau
Editor: Darren Shan, Brian Cunningham
Cover: Jim Lee, Alex Sinclair, Scott Williams

There are really three things going on here. First is the introduction of Aquqman, who basically takes the attitude that someone has got to be the leader of the rather disorganized team of heroes that have banded together to fight the parademon invasion. And, well, he's the only one who's a king, so it might as well be him.

Green Lantern (still acting like an idiot) issues the "Really? What can you do that we can't?" challenge. The answer is a resounding "Talk to fish!" in the form of great white sharks jumping out of the water and nom-nom-nom-ing some parademons. Which is actually not all that impressive when you think about it. Lanter, Superman, or Wonder Woman could have done the same amount of damage with less effort and no endangered species in the line of fire. Still, the sharks plus Aquaman putting a trident through the head of a parademon prove sufficient to win at least a grudging acceptance.

In the midst of all of this is an attempt at comedy when Lantern just happens to "accidentally" have his hand on Wonder Woman's lasso and becomes a bit more truthful than he might have liked to be. So Lantern is consistently a sexist jerk. Yay for consistency, I suppose.

The other two big plotlines are the continuing origin of Cyborg, which is going about how you would expect, and the arrival of Darkseid, which is, well, big. As in two-page- turn-the-comic-sideways big. Nice job of making him impressive, but it will be next issue before he does anything more than announce his name.

Goofy fun, but this issue leaned a bit too heavily on the goofy side.

Rating: 5.5/10