Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes

This was the last thing Bendis did at DC before decamping to Dark Horse with his Jinxworld imprint.  I still have to pick up the last volume of his “Justice League” run and the second volume of “Naomi” (both in softcover), but I’m having serious doubts about doing so after reading this story.  If you remember the nonsense he wrote at Marvel about time being broken and how that never went anywhere, prepare yourself for the DC version of it.  This time there’s a Great Darkness in both the present-day and the time of the Legion and it may have something to do with the latter’s Gold Lantern.

As for what exactly that is, I’m still wondering after having read through this twice.  Not only are the Gold Lantern’s powers vague to the point of genericness, the story jumps between so many eras, places, and characters that it’s hard to become invested in anything that’s going on.  In fact, the cast of this miniseries is so large that it’s hard for anyone to stand out as even the most famous members of the League feel like they’re being shoved aside as the nonsensical plot plays out.  Though the Gold Lantern – and did I mention this story is subtitled “The Gold Lantern Saga” – gets a fair amount of the focus here, he doesn’t display any kind of memorable personality throughout this.  There’s always hope I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was politely forgotten about after all of this.

At least the art is decent as Sanford Greene has fun going gonzo on the Annual that precedes the main story, which itself is done by Scott Godlewski.  He turns in perfectly decent superhero artwork that actually does a good job of keeping the characters and storytelling straight.  Unfortunately they’re both doing the comic book equivalent of turd-polishing with the script that Bendis has given them.  This is easily one of the worst things I’ve read from him and further sad proof that it looks like the writer’s best days are behind him.