A Comic A Day: Justice League #19

Published by DC
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis (Justice League) and Gary Frank (Shazam!)

DC guru Geoff Johns moves the pieces onto the board with this issue, preparing for the Trinity War. Each scene is a snippet of something interesting, but not enough to warrant too much discussion. It's a been there, done that kind of reading experience. The fold out cover gimmick is employed to full effect, with the fold revealing Batman brandishing a kryptonite ring against Superman as a stunned Justice League looks on in disbelief.

Those "snippets" I mentioned a second ago? Someone breaks into the Batcave. The new female Atom is playing an MMORPG that leads to a nice callback to the old Sword of the Atom series. Despero attacks the Justice League satellite, implying in his brief dialogue that he and the League have had a history not yet revealed in the New 52 (or DCnU if you must). They're all cool scenes, but this whole package practically has "Part One" written all over it.

The art has been by far the strongest aspect of the current Justice League series. Even the Tony Daniel stuff from just a few issues prior to this seemed a little more bearable than his usual output. Ivan Reis tears it up on this issue, even if the awesome double-page splash featuring the new Atom takes place inside of a video game. And let us not forget the uber-talent that is Mr. Gary Frank, who provides the art for the Shazam back-up feature.

The Shazam! stuff in each issue is worth the cover price alone. Actually, I wish it were twenty pages of this and ten pages of the Just Us League. Overall though, it's a fine specimen of a comic book, and quite typical of what can be found on the DC side of the Big Two's output.