Justice League Unlimited vol. 2: The Omega Act

The Justice League may have defeated Gorilla Grodd’s plan to become master of reality, but the timestream is still in chaos after the fact.  So it’s a surprise to everyone when the Time Trapper (who used to be Doomsday, the villain who killed Superman) and Alpheus (brother to the Monitor and Anti-Monitor) show up to take the psychic gorilla into their custody for the good of the universe.  Making this difficult is all of the Omega Energy floating around the Watchtower which complicates everyone’s efforts to get what they want, as well as Mister Terrific’s plan to rescue Air Wave.  Then it’s revealed by new time traveller Legend that other time travellers are being killed, so the League helps him put together a team to put a stop to that.  Which is followed by the Time Trapper showing up in the Watchtower again on the brink of death after being chased there by the Darkseid-controlled Legion of Superheroes while an outbreak of Parademons is happening along with Apokolips pits emerging on Earth.  Then, when the Time Trapper finally gets his chance to say his piece to the League, he’s not sure he wants to and it’s up to Booster Gold and the Flash to convince him otherwise.

It’s not that there’s a lot going on in this volume, it’s that most of it is nonsense that barely feels like it’s leading into the event it’s meant to be setting up:  “DC K.O.”  The appeal of that series is meant to be in the “Who will win?” suspense of its matchups, and I fail to see how this Doomsday as Time Trapper business, along with the 21st Century Timestream Firebreak, and Lara and Ursa’s adventure on Old Krypton are supposed to be getting me excited for it.  What’s even worse is that it basically smothers all of the interesting superhero action going on in this volume, like the Air Wave rescue and the Metamorpho-led surgery to save the Time Trapper.  Sure, much of this looks good with Dan Mora and Carmine Di Giandomenico handling the “JLU” issues, and Cian Tormey and Yasmine Putri doing the one-shots, but it’s cold comfort as I’m left to worry that the “DC K.O.” tie-in arcs to “Flash,” “Superman,” “Titans” and the next volume of “JLU” are going to be as much of a mess as this one is.