DC's Death of The Justice League

Earlier this year it was announced DC comics would be killing off all but one of the current members of The Justice League in the final issue coming out in April of this year. While speculation began on what this would mean for the larger world, writer Joshua Williamson has maintained that it is not permanent but will have dramatic impacts which we will get to see.

Now Williamson has teased what will come out of said event. It is a 7 issues mini series called Dark Crisis which will showcase how the heroes left will move forward without the world's biggest influences. Taking centre stage are Jon Kent, Dick Grayson and Wally West who are three of DCs most well known characters.

Williamson also released teaser pages which show a massive vigil in front of the Hall of Justice where many heroes have come to pay their respects. Williamson has said he wants to pay respects to the Death of Superman which also occured in Issue 75 of that series and was released 30 years ago in December of 1992. This will be DCs biggest event since the Rebirth reset occured in 2016 which made way for a new version of the entire DC Universe.

While some fanbases may be upset that their faves are set to perish in April this is the type of thing DC needs to keep pushing the boundaries of storytelling. Williamson shared a series of tweets this morning where he said this is the ultimate love letter to the ever growing landscape of the DC universe.

Artwork for this series will be done by Daniel Sampere and covers will be drawn by Alejandro Sanchez. Both have the tall task of paying respects to the worlds most recognizable heroes while paving the way for legacy characters to finally become who they are meant to be. DC has revolved around the Trinity for years and this will allow for other characters to finally have their spotlight and step out of the shadows.

It is a major editorial decision to kill off your mainstays but it will come with emotional weight as it unfolds. Williamson is one of few writers who seems to understand the need to consistently push things forward. He also understands as a writer in order to move into the future one must respect everything that has come before it. Williamson is taking over the Justice League title from current writer Brian Michael Bendis. No shade to Bendis who is a tremendous writer but his iteration never quite seemed to gain the traction other iterations have. There are a multitude of reasons why this may be. Now we will see what happens when the Justice League is not triumphant as they usually are.

From the looks of the teaser pages and cover that was released on twitter it looks we will see the reactions of many characters as this series progresses. The cover for issue 1 features various members past and present from DC teams such as The Teen Titans, Young Justice and Justice League Dark.

Details are still very minimal about how the Justice League meets their end in issue 75 and which member will survive but the statues outside of the hall of Justice are missing two key members. Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow and Dinah Lance aka Black Canary. Perhaps one of the two of them are the lone survivor or maybe the one will survive was misleading and they both survive. It would in all fairness be a slap in the face if they both perished and did not receive heroic statues like the others. However for those looking at every specific detail I implore you to wait and see how it unfolds. If it does end up being the latter I understand your frustration but DC has a very large scale story to tell here.

Within the coming months we wiltruly see an epic story unfold over at DC and I for one and here for it all. This has the potential to be the biggest story in the last two decades and could be a real game changer on how stories are told from here on out within the DC universe. Kudos to Williamson for taking on something this bold and that will get a lot of feedback from DC fans new and old.