JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE #6 REVIEW.
Writer: James Robinson
Pencils and Inks: Scott Clark
Colors: Siya Oum
Letters: Steve Wands
Cover: Mauro Cascioli
In the sixth installment of Cry For Justice, James Robinson offers us the mandatory epic battle as Prometheus and the Justice League finally face off and Prometheus’ actual plan is unveiled.
As it is often practice in modern mainstream comic books, we get to the point in the story where the villain mops the floor with the heroes; and Prometheus does it here in spades. Depending on the story sometimes this whole “villain-is-so-amazing-heroes-get-easily-defeated-by-him” bothers me. This is not the case here since Prometheus is used, for the most part, the way he was devised originally. Let’s reminiscence for a second: when Grant Morrison first introduced us to Prometheus, it was said he had conceived plans and protocols to neutralize and/or kill each and every hero in the DC Universe database; he could access this protocols at the speed of thought, which by the way were in a constant state of viable implementation, thanks to the discs on his helmet.
This time around, Prometheus is not interested in killing our heroes, in fact, for his plan to truly work he needs them all alive and unable to leave the Justice League Satellite. So, after he messes the members of the league up, we are treated to one of the most amazing scenes involving Donna Troy. Robinson shows us in a few pages what Donna Troy is about and makes her the embodiment of perseverance. I have never seen a more effective way to show how deserving a character is to carry on the mantle of one of the big three.
Interestingly enough, we also get an accurate characterization of Supergirl, who was the first one to figure out that Prometheus was posing as one of our heroes. This is very consistent with her initial appearances, where Kara was shown to have great deductive skills and used them to infer what the villain’s ultimate goal was. I wish this was a trait of her character that was exploited more often; it would help set her apart from the other members of the Superman Family.
Allow me to be nitpicky for a second, though. Using Prometheus’ suit to speak aloud the countermeasures enacted to stop the heroes is not only a poor narrative device, but, in my opinion, it also takes away from the development of the action and makes it harder for the suspension of disbelief to happen. The suit is supposed to feed Prometheus the information directly to his brain, not to have a conversation, regarding what to do, with Prometheus. This is particularly noticeable when he is facing the Flash (Jay Garrick), and he asks the suit to find a way to stop him and fast, you cannot expect me to think that in the few seconds that it would take for such conversation to take place, Jay Garrick is just biding his time instead of hitting Prometheus. This is the reason I take some points off the story, and it keeps me wondering if the editors in general DO read the story, look at the finished product and/or give feedback to the writers and artists.
The art in this issue comes to us courtesy of Scott Clark, who took the reins from Cascioli for the time being. The transition is smooth, and even though you can tell how their styles differ, once the mini-series gets collected in trade form, you will not feel bothered by the change in artist. The action sequences flow effortlessly and the strength of the pencils enhances the sense of urgency in stopping Prometheus.
The ending of this penultimate chapter seems to pay homage to “Watchmen” and it works quite well.
Story 7/10
Art 10/10
Cover 10/10
