Justice League Incarnate #1 Discussion/Spoilers

[Rakzo]

Joshua Williamson's ongoing Multiversal saga continues.

Infinite Frontier had its ups and downs (and had a pretty abrupt ending) but I was looking forward to another series that could follow up most of those ideas and further expand them. This time Williamson is accompanied by Dennis Culver on writing duties and quite frankly, I don't think that really helps to the execution.

There's a lot of Multiverse fanservice right from the beginning obviously seen with the appearance of the Retaliators who are the DCU counterpart of Marvel's Avengers who... don't really have the best portrayal but let's talk about that a bit later. Of course there are also other appearances of characters from DC's history and is always cool to see them play a bigger role in the story.

Speaking about the story, the ongoing plot of Darkseid gaining more power around the Multiverse continues but Williamson always thinks in the long game so there are many sub-plots being planted here, one of the most important being Avery's role here now that Barry is missing (and makes sense considering Williamson created her). Plus, this being a Williamson work, expect a lot of references to continuity (especially digged how Captain Carrot mentions how he preferred Justice Incarnate as name).

My biggest issues here is the overall narration. Especially once that the Retaliators start throwing names to introduce themselves which is one of the clunkiest ways to present characters, you might believe this is done to homage classic comic dialogue but again, is not like the rest of the issue is that much better in that regard (and speaking about the Retaliators themselves, they're practically presented as a bunch of cowards and I'm not sure how I feel about that). This is weird because I haven't seen this kind of heavyhanded presentation from Williamson (at least not in a while) so I'm willing to assume that Culver might be responsible for this and so, I don't have great expectations for the future.

Brandon Peterson, Andrei Bressan and Tom Derenick share the pencils and their different styles sometimes clash with one another but fortunately, they all handle different segments of the story so the transitions don't feel so jarring.

Not bad overall but I could go for better craft next. Hopefully following issues are better.

[sifighter]

I mean I like that someone is following the Darkseid plot, seemed like a big plot thread to just leave loose if you ask me.

Only thing that confused me was tartarus, because I felt like I should have known him but I had no idea. Also the idea of a truce with someone like Darkseid is really weird.

[sifighter]

Alright I guess I’ll go into detail of why I like this first issue. Well first off it’s not really a first issue, it might as well say Infinite Frontier #7. Because this basically picks up after the epilogue after Red Arrow and the JSA have all gone home and now it’s just Justice Incarnate and the Darkseid family with the whole Multiverse conspiracy still being a thing. I basically feel as though the story I was reading took a few months off and now it’s back, so if you liked Infinite Frontier odds are you will like this.

Another reason I like this is because Williamson is really bringing back some of his Flash stuff with Avery, so fans of his Flash run will appreciate that most likely.

As for Tartarus...look he’s just a Thanos allegory but I have no idea if he preexisted or not. Basically Williamson writes a Thanos vs Darkseid fight on page.

[WAKANDA FOREVER!]

Original Orion is back. Sturmer too.

[OscarDCassio]

Earth 8 is a version of marvel and Tartarus is Thanos....
Thats why he said "Im inevitable"....and the Darkseid "Snap"

[Username taken]

Earth 8 is a version of marvel and Tartarus is Thanos....
Thats why he said "Im inevitable"....and the Darkseid "Snap"

Exactly.

It was basically Darkseid vs Thanos.

It ended with a "snap"...lolol.

[Thor-Ul]

Darkseid got upset than Thanos, I mean, Tartarus stole his catchphrase.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

This series is just good enough to keep reading, but also bad enough that I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Williamson's Darkseid is supposed to be this ULTIMATE version of the character, but he comes off as easily one of the most mediocre interpretations of him I've ever read. And the fight against Not-Thanos was so unbelievably purile. It came off as badly written fanfic of some DCEU fanboy who spends half his day posting #RestoreTheSnyderverse on Twitter.

However, Avery fighting a supervillain obsessed with Cryptocurrency was great.

It's kind of staggering to me that a writer as C-list as Williamson has been handed the keys to DC's biggest franchise. But why would anyone more talented want to work in corporate comics anymore when the best case scenario is having all the great ideas you came up owned by clueless studio executives in exchange for a slightly higher profile you can parlay into a substack gig that will evaporate in six months to a year?