Justice League: Last Ride #1

Justice League: Last Ride #1

DC Comics 2021

Written by Chip Zdarsky

Illustrated by Miguel Mendonca

Coloured by Enrica Angiolini

Lettered by Andworld Design

Once, the Justice League was the most powerful collection of superheroes in the universe. But an unthinkable tragedy within its ranks has caused Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman to go their separate ways, leaving the League broken and disbanded under a veil of anger and mistrust. Now, against the backdrop of the universe’s greatest murder trial, can the League reconcile the past before they’re eradicated by the greatest villains in the cosmos?

Again this wasn’t on my radar but since I’ve been working with DC to review their titles I had to take a look, besides it’s Chip Zdarsky for crying out loud. Turned out I fell in love with the story because it’s unlike anything Justice League that i’ve read in the past. There is some brutal honesty about how this comes across and that Superman finally is being portrayed in a way that I like and can get behind was something I definitely wasn’t prepared for. It’s odd because growing up I loved Superboy but Superman was always so boring and here Chip manages to breathe this new life into him and does it in a way that’s interesting.

I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. I also really like how the character development and the story development tie into one another so intricately. The character development that we see between the dialogue, the character interaction and how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter really help to move the story forward as it fleshes their characterisation. The pacing is superb and as it take us through the pages revealing the story you begin to wonder if it’s possible for them to actually work together again.

The interior artwork is utterly amazing to see. The linework is phenomenal and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the detail work that we see is fabulous! That we also get to see backgrounds being utilised not only enhance the moments but also bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story is so well achieved. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is divine. Aside from Hal Jordan and the Green’s that come with him and the other Corps members and how the light sources change the colours is sensational, there are the moments in the Fortress of Solitude with it’s whites is simply stunning. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a stellar eye for how colour works.

The United Planets and it’s distrust of the Green Lantern Corps is more well known in the 31st Century, well pre-crisis anyway, so that we see it happening here already is fantastic. Also that the League is hella trouble since Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman went their separate ways, which honestly with the amount of heroes on this planet the League doesn't really need them. This is the story that bridges the gap between the present and the future, the real one with the original Legion, in ways that we’ve never seen before and I have to admit I never thought we would.

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The story that Chip is telling here is one that hits you like a ton of bricks. Finally we’re seeing a story whose impact affects the League in any and all ways, shapes and forms. Could this actually be the story that reunites the League? Guess we’ll have to wait and see but in the meantime we get to enjoy a story the likes we’ve never seen before.