Originally published on Patreon
This was a series where the character line-up had me excited, as I used to love reading the Young Justice books, but the lack of any real connection to Dark Crisis other than it simply happening at the same time, and a pretty uninteresting story, has left me kind of dreading this book each month. And now that the 'big villain' has been revealed and it's an angry teenage Mxyzptlk who hates modern 'woke' comics I think I may have slipped into full on hating it.
This issue sees our three kidnapped heroes going up against Mxyzptlk as best they can, though it can be hard to battle someone with godlike powers. As such, the action across this issue feels really flat and dull, and without the characters yelling about what they're doing you'd be hard to know exactly what is happening in them.
There are also points in the book where the characters have told us how things have happened, yet not really told us much about how they've happened. For example, Cassie, Cissie, and Red Tornado turn up in this little pocket universe. How? Well, Kid Flash made vibrations that reached out into the regular universe, which created a glowing lightning bolt in space for the others to find. But they couldn't break through until Tim used an explosive, because the explosion opened the hole, maybe? There's a vague hand wave reason, but if you're hoping to understand it you'll be flat out of luck.
Just like when the group escape back to the real universe. How do they do it? Kid Flash takes them through the speed force. Red Tornado and Superboy give him a boost (boost of what and how not explained), everyone else fends off the god powers (no explanation as to how), then they just all jump into the speed force (how it got there and how they all jumped into it not explained), and all that is three panels. The story and the things that happen in it make no sense, and feel forced and contrived in the worst possible way.
The only moment in the book that's mildly interesting is when Mxyzptlk is complaining about the more diverse heroes and you get a group shot of queer, and trans characters. It's kind of a cool image, with all of these great characters there, but like most other parts of this book it begins to quickly fall apart. Mxyzptlk won't out and out say he hates queer people, which seeing as all the heroes he has a problem with are part of the queer community, and his make believe world tried to force Tim into being straight, makes obvious. If your villain is a homophobe and transphobe just say it, skirting that doesn't help. But also, Mxyzptlk complains about these 'new' people coming in and taking his favourite team's place. Yet that includes characters like Allan Scott, Poison Ivy, and Nubia, characters that have been around for decades longer. Hell, Allan Scott is a golden age icon.
There's one issue to go for this series, and the only reason I'm going to finish it is because there's no point bailing at the final hurdle, even if the race is fucking awful.
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