Forever Evil #1
Written By: Geoff Johns Art By: David FinchForever Evil #1 doesn’t quite have the nuanced and layered story that Trinity War had, but it is definitely an intense and engaging issue. It harkens back to Super Friends, as now being adult readers (for the most part) we get the joy of seeing our favourite villains together ala Legion of Doom. The familiar villains are the real stars, and Johns writes them effortlessly. The critical drawbacks are some artistic issues and the shallowly characterized Crime Syndicate.
Johns excels at writing the DCU villains with varying degrees of evilness and allegiance to the Crime Syndicate. He shows the brilliant complexity of Lex Luthor, Brotherhood mentality of the Rogues and gung-ho brutality of Gotham’s villains. While the script reflects the differences in characters’ severity, the facial expressions in the art all share a similar look, and don’t give off a sense of individuality.
The prospect of the young heroes rising up for the occasion, is an interesting one, and Johns placed the key moment for the Teen Titans in perfect tempo with the story.
While Johns shows the brutality of the Crime Syndicate, they’ve yet to be proven as the “smart” group that could cohesively lead all of the DCU’s major villains. They don’t get much face-time, so there is definite room for the Crime Syndicate to show their mental chops. At this juncture, it’s all violence that establishes their control.
Finch captures the Crime Syndicate’s brutal strength with show stopping, gloomy splash pages and the chilling capture of Nightwing. This issue contains some of Finch’s best action sequences in any comic.
An accessible and fun read, Forever Evil #1 is a solid start for the crossover. There is definite room for improvement in overall facial emotion and grounding for the Crime Syndicate, but as a debut issue, a strong premise has been established for what’s to come.
