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The final battle.
The last hurrah.
The end of the fight between various kaiju and the Justice League is here! After a month’s delay, will the last issue manage to stick some kind of landing? Let’s get to it.
And then there’s Kong
Superman is back! We start off with a little explanation on how the Man of Steel recovered and then we are straight into the action. This first double-page spread encapsulates everything I wanted from this series. I didn’t want to know about the League of Shadows or a Lex Luthor plot, I simply wanted to see what the title promised: The Justice League fighting Godzilla and King Kong. This issue delivers that in spades and we really get to see the utter mayhem that ensues.
This issue is obviously the least plot heavy with thee majority of it comprised of textless fight scenes. This suits me fine as this is all I wanted and expected from the title from the beginning. Anyway, the story marches forward to something the previously released cover had shown us. Yes, King Kong wielding a Green Lantern power ring.
I know that I have said that I don’t want or expect a lot of plot, reasoning or anything like that in this story. I also see how a giant ape wielding one of the most powerful weapons in the universe would certainly be cool to see, but why does he have it? Batwoman has a very forgetful line about will and resolve before Kong gets the ring, but I fail to see how his resolve would be greater than anyone else’s on the battlefield.
After the smoke clears, the ring leaves the monkey’s finger (again it is unclear why it leaves him after the fight is over) and the dream stone is found in the most unexpected of places: Godzilla’s foot. This goofy cartoonish ending is what I initially expected from the series. However, it feels very jarring compared to the more serious tone that the previous issues had set up, especially with the “death” of Superman. To go from these high stakes serious moments to a very “Oh whoopsie, it was in its foot the whole time, how convenient!” moment, it makes it seem too silly and undeserved and ultimately leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Not so much a “king” of monsters
I don’t love the art in this book. I don’t exactly hate it, but it just doesn’t appeal to me very much. The colours often feel very flat, and the perspective often seems off. One particular panel of Godzilla in the ocean certainly puts his knee very forward.
The panel placement is nothing to write home about either. It’s either serviceable or downright unappealing. Pages often look almost unfinished. In a scene when Kong gets the ring, it looks like a page that hasn’t had the speech or captions put in there. Textless action I can understand, but even a lack of SFX or even generic ape sounds leaves a lot to be desired.
All this being said there are some good things. As I’ve already said, the first double-page spread is pretty awesome. The full-page splashes are also nice, but they feel underserved. It’s hard to make your heroes seem triumphant if they don’t seem like they’ve done anything important. Not to mention that the Lex Luthor on the cover looks… strange to say the least.
