Well, the story of the merging of the DC and Milestone Universes is over, and it’s fairly obvious that Dwayne McDuffie pooped out in the end. At the end of this arc that has seen the Justice League of America reduced to almost nothingness, it’s an all-out-brawl between its remnants, plus Paladin, Hardware, and Icon, versus Starbreaker and Shadow Thief. Starbreaker reveals that the Sun Eater form is simply his species larval state, and he gets bigger and redder. Lots of fighting, blah blah blah. Ultimately, Dr. Light and Green Lantern (John Stewart) utilize the new tech in Light’s suit to siphon off most of the energy that Starbreaker has stored. Paladin then shoots Starbreaker in the head, ending him as a threat, at least for the time being. Zatanna heals Dharma, and later on Dharma acts as a plot dump for Icon and Superman, explaining how Final Crisis forced him push the two universes together. The three of them then agree to keep things as they are and to keep Dharma safe in order to make sure that the two universes don’t split.
So, a ridiculous fight, followed by Dharma explaining everything in one go as a plot dump. Yup, not the best ending. Not very much of McDuffie’s trademark dialogue either. All in all, a pretty sad ending to what was originally a very good arc. By the end, McDuffie was barely even working with any of his own Milestone characters. Hardware was really the only one who got any real screen time. I’m not sure if this is a result of his own exhaustion, or anger towards DC for firing him. Either way, it’s too bad, especially considering that his run is now over. Now, we get some funky three-parter by Len Wein before James Robinson and Mark Bagley start up as the new creative team. Oh, and by the way, we get a few gorgeous pages by Eddy Barrows before being suddenly taken into mediocre work by Ardian Syaf, who makes everything look really stale. It’s quite sad that this is the ending to this run. McDuffie only got a short period of time to do what he actually wanted with the title, and now he’s gone. And there isn’t even really a team yet. By the way, whatever happened to Black Canary? Didn’t she say that the team was disbanded? So many problems. Let’s hope Robinson can mop up this sad mess of a Justice League.
Plot: 5.5 Art: 6.2 Dialogue: 6.0 Overall: 5.8
