Forever Evil Month may be over but the event continues. With the first issue in the Forever Evil event delivering the news that the Justice League is dead and revealed to the world Nightwing’s true identity, it’s anyone’s guess as to what comes next. From the cover alone it looks like the Teen Titans will be on the frontlines trying to stop the Crime Syndicate and Secret Society from taking over. Will they be able to stop the supervillain takeover? Will other superheroes fight back? What will happen to Nightwing? And what exactly happed to the Justice League? Hopefully, we get some answers starting with Forever Evil #2.
Creative Team
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: David Finch
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Sonia Oback
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: While a mouse gets caught in a mousetrap Lex Luthor is rushing through Sub-Level 13 of Lexcorp Headquarters with all of the screens in the hallway flashing “This World Is Ours.” As soon as he gets to the end of the hall Lex finds a Lexcorp security guard named Otis worried about what the “This World Is Ours” message on his phone.
In San Francisco, Red Robin tells the Teen Titans to get to suit up because they are going to the Watchtower to save Nightwing. The other Teen Titans aren’t sure about fighting all of the villains, especially if the Crime Syndicate did really kill the Justice League. (Everyone starts calling these kids the “Baby Titans” because they are in need of diapers and a bottle with all their crying.) Wonder Girl asks Red Robin what he is keeping from them. Red Robin hesitates but says that if the world knows that Richard Grayson is Nightwing than it’s only a matter of time before all their secret identities are revealed.
Inside the remains of the Watchtower Grid watches as Scarecrow, Professor Pyg and Mad Hatter take over Gotham City, the Rogues taking over Central City and Deathstroke invading the White House in Washington, D.C. (I would think that with what happened during Morrison’s Batman run that Gotham City would be more prepared for this situation.)
Grid tells the rest of the Crime Syndicate that the military and law agencies are quickly falling. Owlman says that they have to make sure that the government remains intact so that they can completely take over the world with their own people in charge. Johnny Quick says that they have already taken over the world with Alfred’s Secret Society taking care of the heavy lifting for them. Johnny Quick and Atomica then leave the Watchtower in order to have fun within the chaos they caused. Superwoman is slightly worried about Johnny Quick’s attitude and Ultraman tells her to let him get his fun out of his system.
Power Ring is then shown to be worried about a problem with his ring. Deathstorm grabs Power Ring’s face and tells him to give his condition another week.
Ultraman checks in with Grid to make sure that he is tracking Johnny Quick and Atomica. Grid says that he is and that they should prioritize eliminating an uprising going on in Hahndaq.
Ultraman then goes to see how Alfred is doing with the hitchhiker that came with them to this universe. Alfred says that the hitchhiker has been quiet. Owlman suggests that they kill the hitchhiker, which Superwoman agrees with. Ultraman says that the hitchhiker will stay alive in order to be prepared for the time “The Thing” from their universe arrives. Owlman then says that if they are keeping the hitchhiker alive than Richard Grayson is also staying alive. Ultraman doesn’t agree and before walking away tells Superwoman to not disagree with him again. (Ultraman clearly is showing signs of someone suffering the aftereffects from snorting a bunch of Kryptonite.)
Grid informs Ultraman that the Rogues are refusing to join the other villains in Central City. Ultraman says to send Power Ring because he is heading out to Kahndaq. (So is it Hahndaq or Kahnday? The font used for Grid’s dialogue makes it hard to know if that is an ‘H’ or ‘K’)
With Ultraman gone Owlman tells Alfred to watch the hitchhiker closely. Before leaving Alfred tells Owlman that this Richard Grayson is not the one Owlman knew.
Owlman and Superwoman then walk down a hall where Superwoman voices her concern about Ultraman knowing about her being pregnant with Owlman’s kid. Owlman says that Ultraman won’t be a problem with the preparations he has made. Superwoman tells Owlman that she wants this world for their kid.
Back in Sub-Level 13 of Lexcorp Headquarters Lex and Otis have entered a room that holds two cryogenic tubes, with one labeled as containing “Subject B-0.” (The DCnU’s Bizarro?) Lex looks at Subject B-0’s cryogenic tube and is frustrated that it’s still five years away from being complete.
Outside of the remains of the Watchtower, the military and police forces have gathered to fight the Crime Syndicate. Johnny Quick appears and all the people begin firing at him. Johnny Quick uses his powers to send the bullets back at the soldiers and cops. The Teen Titans arrive in time for Superboy to use his heat vision to melt all the bullets. Johnny Quick and Atomica show that they are happy that the Teen Titans appeared.
Back in Lexcorp Headquarters Lex releases Subject B-0 and tells the subject that he is his master. Lex then orders Subject B-0 to kill Otis. Otis begins to freak out and gets out his gun. Subject B-0 does nothing until Otis threatens to kill Lex. This sets Subject B-0 off and he proceeds to kill Otis. Lex tells Subject B-0 to follow him and Lex gets a Superman costume from a nearby locker.
Back outside the remains of the Watchtower Johnny Quick creates a tornado that knocks the Teen Titans back. This cause Wonder Girl to get distracted and Atomica goes into her mouth. (I do not want to know where Atomica is going to come out off.) At the same time Johnny Quick grabs Kid Flash and finds out that Kid Flash is not part of this timeline. Johnny Quick then uses his powers to disrupt Kid Flash’s connection with the Speedforce. This causes a time portal to appear that begins to suck in the Teen Titans. Before Wonder Girl enters the portal Atomica gets out of her mouth and all of the Teen Titans disappear. Johnny Quick and Atomica then rush off to have more fun.
Inside a secret room, Lex begins to put on his special armor that is still incomplete since he still hasn’t officially acquired Kord Industries and their “Flash” gun, as well as another unknown company, to complete the armor. Lex decides to use it anyways and with Subject B-0 wearing a Superman costume, with the ‘S’ backward, he heads out to get accomplish the job only he can pull off.
At S.T.A.R Labs in Detroit Silas Stone and his assistant are taking apart the weapons located inside the lab in order to ensure that the villains don’t use them. Before they can finish taking apart the last weapon someone breaks into their lab through the front door. As the smoke clears a beaten Batman and Catwoman appear carrying a heavily damaged Cyborg. (Talk about a wild date for Batman and Catwoman.) Silas wonders what happened to his son and the Justice League. Batman says that Cyborg will be ok but the rest of the Justice League did not make it. End of issue.
Commentary
The Good: While the first issue of an event is used to set the groundwork to build interest in the story it’s the second issue that is make or break for an event comic. Forever Evil #2 was the issue where Geoff Johns and David Finch had to make us not just care about the concept of the event but also care about the characters that will be a major part of it. To their credit Forever Evil #2 is able to accomplish this as we are able to build a greater connection with many characters.
Admittedly it is odd reading the start of a comic book event where the superheroes aren’t featured all that much. Outside of the brief appearances of the Teen Titans, Batman and Catwoman this is an issue dominated by the villains. It’s a risky choice that Geoff Johns is able to pull off effectively. Throughout Forever Evil #2 we get to witness the various weaknesses of all the most powerful banding together to take over the world. Even though the Crime Syndicate united all of the villains together it is a team-up that is not built to last.
This is where Johns’ world-building talent is highlighted because he gets us to buy into how easily the villains can take over the world if they banded together. Even with how many powerful superheroes exist in the DC Universe they are outnumbered by the number of villains that exist. But one of the reasons that the superheroes are able to defeat the villains every time is because they can set aside their personal differences for the greater good. The same can’t be said for the villains because what they seek is power and when push comes to shove they will do whatever it takes to obtain and keep their power.
That is perfectly spotlighted with Ultraman and Owlman’s relationship and their views on how to maintain power. For Ultraman, he wants to rule with strength and fear while Owlman wants to control every form of power in order to ensure his rules are followed. This underlying power struggle within the Crime Syndicate is elevated when bringing in Superwoman into the conversation. She is clearly a point of contention for the two, especially with the secret relationship with Owlman and being pregnant.
The rift within the Crime Syndicate does not end with Ultraman, Owlman and Superwoman. As we saw throughout this issue there is a definite clash of personalities within the entire team. We saw that Power Ring is unable to control his powers in this universe which has earned him little to no sympathy from his teammates. Meanwhile Johnny Quick and Atomica are acting like little kids in a candy store, much to Owlman and Superwoman’s annoyance. Then there’s Grid and Deathstorm who have been shown to care very little for their teammates. These are all combustible elements that our heroes can use to their advantage. At the same time, Johns set’s all this up in a way that this eventual downfall from the Crime Syndicate doesn’t happen right away. Instead, it’ll be something that characters like Batman and Lex Luthor have to carefully plan out to maximize these opportunities.
Adding extra layers of interest is the three big wild cards surrounding this villain takeover. The first two wild cards for this event come in the form of two things from the Crime Syndicate’s universe. We are physically introduced to one that is being seen as a sacrifice by Ultraman and another force that we haven’t seen but is powerful enough that the Crime Syndicate is scared of it. What’ll be interesting about these two wild cards is if they are related to anyone in the current DC Universe. From the way that the man that was bagged and tied up was treated I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be their version of Lex Luthor. It would add more drama to the role that the DCnU’s Lex Luthor is taking in this story.
The other wild card in this event is Nightwing. Even though the character has had his identity revealed and is a prisoner of the Crime Syndicate he may actually the biggest threat to the Crime Syndicate’s plans. Given the fact that Alfred and Ultraman mentioned Owlman’s soft spot for Nightwing, it could stand to reason that he could be the driving force for a split to occur between the Crime Syndicate, leading towards their eventual downfall.
When it came down to the artwork for Forever Evil #2 David Finch’s art was much stronger this time around. It wasn’t perfect but he paid more attention to the smaller moments and didn’t just dedicate all his time to splash pages. He especially did an effective job showing how scary Subject B-0 was when he killed Otis the security guard.
The Bad: As much as I enjoyed Forever Evil #2 the one major aspect that kept it from being great was the fact that Johns focused a good portion of the issue on previewing Forever Evil tie-in material rather than fully developing the story in front of us. This problem could have been easily been masked with scenes that involved other DC superheroes outside of the Teen Titans getting involved in trying to stop the supervillain takeover. The brief glimpses of the villains taking over major DCU cities did not carry that much weight since there weren’t heroes there to fight back. Johns made it look like the heroes decided to run away instead of standing up and fighting back while innocent people were being hurt and killed. The image of the heroes struggling against the overwhelming force of the Secret Society would have been more effective than what we got, which was a tease to tie-in comics.
Speaking of lame attempts to promote tie-in comics, the Teen Titans looked like complete punks in this issue. Even though the Teen Titans were prominently featured on the cover they only appeared for three pages and were quickly discarded like trash. Maybe that is what Johns was going for but the execution of the Teen Titans role in this story made me care even less for their journey during Forever Evil.
Even though David Finch’s artwork was much better this time around there are various points in this issue where major inconsistencies appear. For example, when Ultraman flies out of the Watchtower and heads to Kahdaq he suddenly appears standing next to Owlman in the very next panel and then replaced by Superwoman in the following panels. Then there’s the rushed job Finch does when he tries to give a different angle to individual panels, which makes the characters on screen to look different depending on the panel. It’s these inconsistencies that add up to sub-par work that should not be happening in a major company event.
Overall: With Forever Evil #2 Geoff Johns uses his world-building skills to effectively show what happens when the DCU is missing its heavy hitters and the villains are united. While it is odd that the whole supervillain takeover is going on without other heroes rising up to pick up the slack it isn’t a deal-breaker. With Johns in charge of the story, I’m sure that it is something that will come later on in a dramatic way. In the meantime, Forever Evil #2 does a great job developing the personalities of the Crime Syndicate and the underlying conflicts within this powerful group of characters. If the story continues to progress the way it is then Forever Evil may very well be the spark that the DCU has been missing since the launch of the New 52 reboot.
