There are a handful of characters, that when I first saw them, I remember thinking "Wow. I know nothing about them, but they're the coolest things I've ever seen".
The Crime Syndicate was a group of such characters. When I first properly got into reading comics, before I was buying weekly from an LCS, in late-2017, I read these magazines from a newsagent we have here in England. They were £4-£5, and collected multiple American issues within them. One of them was a Justice League comic I managed to pick up from the start of its run. It collected the Rebirth run, from the start, and the tail-end of New 52 JL with Darkseid War, for some reason. So I remember being absolutely blown away by Jason Fabok's artwork, and Brad Anderson's coloring on those issues. There's a particular splash page where the JL and Crime Syndicate characters all meet up to discuss strategy, and I just thought "Wow. That evil version of the Justice League is one of the coolest things I've ever seen."
I would eventually come to find out that they first appeared (at least this version of the characters) in the comic event Forever Evil, collected within this omnibus. So I've been wanting to read the stories collected here for years, partly to finally read Forever Evil, and partly to finally read Darkseid War all the way through. Once I found about the omnibus format though, three and a half years ago now (It was a tweet from Tom Taylor talking about the at-the-time upcoming Injustice: Gods Among Us Omnibus Vol .1, but you can go read my review of that for more on that), I held out to read those stories until they wre released in this format. So you can imagine my excitement when such a book finally came around!
Now we're past all that backstory, what I did think of the book itself? Well, like the first volume, if you want some epic summer blockbuster superhero fun, this is still absolutely the run for you. Especially in this volume when Fabok and Anderson join the book on art. The first volume was good, but this is the part of the run I was really excited to read.
The problem though is that so much of this run is fun, but ultimately forgettable, so if you don't like the art on particular issues, it becomes that bit harder to remember them., even if you enjoy it while you're reading it. For example Forever Evil was a fun story, it was great to see the Syndicate and follow up on the cliffhanger of the first omnibus, but I just did not like David Finch's art there. I thought it was the exact kind of dark, gritty, grimey art style that characterises a lot of 2000s and New 52 comics, so it didn't work for me. There are times when I can enjoy that sort of style, but this wasn't one of them.
I did enjoy the Justice League issues that were tied into the event though, in some ways more than the event itself. At the start they were interesting backstories and insight on some of the Syndicate characters, and then towards the end a nice fun side-mission by Cyborg that ended up being vital to the end of the story. The issues drawn by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado and Rod Reis on pencils, inks and colors respectively were gorgeous, I absolutely adore the way they draw the Syndicate. The cover to #24, a homage to #1, is such a great example of that. However, it felt hard to appreciate Reis's time on the book, across both volumes. The issues of JL he did draw were split up by other books seemingly every time, so there wasn't a very long consecutive run of his issues. Of course that's the reading order for them so I'm not saying read all of his issues together, disregarding that order but it was just something I noticed.
So all that said, the real highlight here was everything post Forever Evil. I've seen Jessica Cruz in various comics over the past decade since she was introduced (but haven't read the Rebirth GL runs with her in, I will say) so it was fun to read her origin here. I liked how it was developed gradually over almost a couple dozen issues. I didn't know the twist either with Power Ring, from Earth-3, so that was a really interesting aspect to the character, both during Forever Evil and then after it.
Forever Evil may have been underwhelming, but the Fabok/Anderson issues I was looking forward to did not disappoint. Whether that's for the Amazo Virus story, or into Darkseid War, their artwork and coloring respectively was absolutely spectacular. It's so, so, so cinematic, and the absolute perfect style for this run. It has atmosphere, it has gravitas, and honestly it just looks so, so cool. Amazo Virus feels like a summer blockbuster in comic form, it was dramatic, thrilling, entertaining and so exciting and intriguing. It continued the character arc for Lex after Forever Evil really nicely, which was another great aspect of this omnibus.
This was a quality that was most fitting in Darkseid War, but additionally Fabok's art has such a grand, larger than life feel to it, enhanced so effectively by Anderson's gorgeously rich and vibrant colors. It was so fitting because of the scale of that storyline, the way it dealt with Darkseid, the Anti-Monitor, and gods in general, the huge scale comic book storytelling I absolutely adore, especially when drawn so spectacularly. It has what I've seen people call a "house style" feel, where in later years artists like Pepe Larraz and Jorge Jimenez come to mind. It's not stylised in any way (like say Riley Rossmo, which I also love) but it just looks so beautiful, "realistic" and "grounded" in a comic booky sense because it's not stylised like I mentioned. That's not even talking about Francis Manapul's interstitial issues of Darkseid War he drew halfway through the storyline, those were also absolutely gorgeous in his own way. The tie-in issues between those Manapul issues (some of which Manapul wrote) were also very entertaining, and provided some nice depth to the event and the (temporary) changes because of it.
Overall this was awesome, mostly! Like I mentioned at the start, this run is worth a read if you're in the mood for popcorn flick superhero storytelling, and this second and final omnibus was a nice conclusion to it.
If you want more of Joe's comic thoughts and reviews, you can find him on Twitter @JoeLovesComics and on the League of Comic Geeks also @JoeLovesComics.
You can also find his podcast on Twitter @JoeTalksComics, which you can listen to through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify, or you can click those hyperlinks directly.
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