Writer/Artist: Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, Doug Braithwaite
Publisher: DC, $99.00
The Absolute Justice is a massive chunk of painted super-hero action, and while a pricey package it is a great format for the work inside and packed with a crap-ton of extra material. Influenced by the original Challenge of the Super Friends cartoon, Justice is a self-contained out of continuity story that’s fairly easy for any new reader to jump into. The world’s worst villains band together in what seems to be a change for the better as they attempt to correct all the world’s ills and help the needy, while at the same time the Justice League find themselves and their secret identities under attack. The world’s greatest heroes must rally together to survive and to get to the bottom of this strange conspiracy.
The overall story is fun, if a little long-winded and convoluted. Krueger offers some decent scripting that can be a little hammy at times but overall is solid. The plot is intriguing, but can get a little messy in places and does require a little bit of background knowledge so you have no problems going with the flow. While I wouldn’t say it’s completely necessary for you to know who people like the Metal Men and Solomon Grundy are, it would help you accept the details of the story and enhance the overall reading. And as mentioned before, this is sort of an Elseworlds story, meaning it has no bearing on normal DC comics. I’ve found that many readers are confused by this and believe it’s a representation of what’s going on in the regular DC comics, and while it’s basically close to a decent generic summary of the DC status quo at any given time it should be read just as a self contained story.
Ross art is something that I’ve noticed many people are either just crazy for or they get bored of it. I kind of fall in the middle, because I loved his early work in Kingdom Come and Marvels and have enjoyed seeing his style evolve over time. I tend to hate photorealistic styles as a rule in comics, but Ross still had an appeal to me since he also maintains a good grasp on layouts and composition. On the other hand, sometimes all his work does look the same, and when he experiments sometimes it’s kind of meh.
The reason his style works pretty well for me here is that he paints over Braithwaite’s line work. I would bet you money that if this was a pure Braithwaite pencilled comic without Ross it would have been lucky to get half the sales it did, which is just wrong considering the talent of the man. His layouts are solid, his narrative crisp, and his figures dynamnic. With Alex Ross painting over them they are more beautiful and eye catching for sure, but it is essentially Braithwaite's storytelling that keeps the story flowing.
If you aren’t interested in the extra material, there are other soft covers($12.99) and hard cover($19.99) formats available spread across 3 volumes. These other formats are fairly reasonable especially if you just want to read the story. The larger format of the Absolute Edition does compliment the scope of the story and art though, and it’s just so damn pretty. This would make a great present for a DC fan during the holidays or for a birthday, and it also doubles as a decent weapon. Seriously it’s almost 500 oversized glossy pages in a giant slip case, you can crack someone’s skull with this. It might be a warning sign that this is actually how I judge the merit of a lot of my reading purchases these days.
If you like this then try: Kingdom Come, Earth X, Marvels, Avengers/Invaders, History of the DC Universe, JLA: Liberty & Justice, JLA: Secret Origins
Related Links: DC Comics
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