Skip to main content

No Justice: DC's next best jumping-on point?

Art by Francis Manapul

In 2018, DC brought down the curtain on its Rebirth line of comics with Dark Nights: Metal, an epic event book that ended with the destruction and reconstruction of the universe itself. Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and Joshua Williamson (the brains behind the event) followed this up with No Justice, a four-part miniseries addressing the current state of the DCU. This might all sound a bit too continuity-heavy for new readers, but don't worry - No Justice is in fact an excellent jumping-on point.

As well as starring the Justice League, No Justice also features the Teen Titans and a handful of fan-favourite villains. These characters have been brought together by classic Superman villain Brainiac and sorted into four rag-tag teams to counter new threats that have surfaced in the wake of Metal. Regardless of your level of DC knowledge, you'll find at least a few recognisable heroes in this book and maybe even be introduced to some new favourites. 

Flash, Beast Boy and Harley Quinn are among those featured in the crossover

The plot is more-or-less your standard team-up adventure - each group is initially very problematic, but they eventually all figure out how to work together. Luckily, Snyder and his fellow writers keep it entertaining with great character dynamics and dialogue, as well as a fair share of plot-twists and world-building. It's a well-paced story that many readers will finish in a single sitting - each chapter drives the plot forward, and it isn't any longer or shorter than it needs to be. 

All it takes is a quick flip-through to see just how visually stunning No Justice is. Francis Manapul's wonderful pencils and inks evoke the feeling of watching a Saturday-morning superhero cartoon, enhanced by Hi-Fi's beautifully ambient colours. Riley Rossmo and Marcus To fill in as artists in the third chapter, but they still keep with the rest of the book's style by following the innovative layouts provided by Manapul.

In No Justice, the heroes are up against the colossal Omega Titans

No Justice isn't particularly ground-breaking as far as superhero stories go, but it's still an absolute joy to read. Serving as both the latest-and-greatest place to start for new DC fans and a fresh status-quo shift for seasoned readers, it's a comic that deserves to be recommended to comic readers across the spectrum.

Rating: 7.5/10

All four parts of No Justice are collected in a single paperback volume, also available in digital form on Comixology. If you're still on the fence, have a look at the free prelude, featuring the super slick art of Jorge Jimenez.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Weekly Shonen Jump to be made available for free

Shonen Jump is home to the world's most popular manga Viz Media have announced that their Weekly Shonen Jump comics will become available for free. From 17th December, manga fans will be able to access the latest chapters of One Piece , My Hero Academia, Boruto  and more every week, free of charge. Additionally, readers can catch up on any of their 10,000+ back issues for only $1.99 a month. The new Shonen Jump logo Hisashi Sasaki, vice president of Viz Media, said: "We saw many new readers come to Shonen Jump when we posted free chapters this year. "We learned that free access gets more people reading manga." The former editor-in-chief of the Japanese Shonen Jump magazine described the new format as "legitimate, authentic and safe", drawing attention away from illegal 'scanlation' sites. Fans can read the new releases on the official app or on the Jump website . Shonen Jump features the Guiness World Record-winning One Piec...

Batman Day 2018: The Dynamic Duo Awards

DC's Caped Crusader might be the world's number-one favourite superhero, and today is the time of year where we take a moment to appreciate just how awesome this character is. Since his debut in spring 1939, Batman has starred in an abundance of iconic stories, some of which have been the topic of posts on this blog.  For this reason, I thought I'd make it an annual tradition to round up all of my Bat-favourites on the Dark Knight's special day. However, I'm a strong believer that Batman needs a Robin, so I'm naming it the Dynamic Duo Awards and accompanying the winner of each category with a runner-up. Without further ado, let's light the Batsignal and begin! In  a previous blog post , I declared Grant Morrison's run the ultimate Batman comic - but which parts did I like best? Well, it's Batman & Robin that I believe provided the greatest take on the Bat-mythos. Colourful and campy yet also dark and violent, this masterpiece i...

What exactly is a JoJo reference, anyway?

You may or may not have heard of the ongoing  JoJo's Bizarre Adventure saga, one of the crown jewels of comics. It's constantly referenced by other works that it has influenced, and its fans have been known to swarm the comment sections of prog-rock albums on YouTube. However, it has yet to gain the following that other manga hits like Dragon Ball and Naruto have picked up in the West, leaving many to wonder what it's all about. Creator Hirohiko Araki started JoJo with the  Phantom Blood  arc in 1987 (the year Watchmen concluded in the US). This was the tale of the rivalry between the compassionate Johnathan Joestar and the malicious Dio Brando, serving as commentary on two disparate lifestyles. To begin with, the series didn't really push the boundaries too far - it was really just a hyper-violent martial-arts story paving the way for something far greater. Araki really shattered traditional manga conventions when he wrote the Battle Tendency arc (the second part...