Young Justice vol. 3: Warriors and Warlords

True story:  The members of Young Justice spent two volumes trying to get Conner “Superboy” Kent back to their universe, only to lose him again in the final issue of vol. 2.  They lost him to the fantasy world of Skartaris with the hero known as Warlord, and he’s about to face off against a villain with a Kryptonite sword..  Fortunately for him, the rest of Young Justice knows that Dr. Glory of S.T.A.R. Labs is behind this and taking them down is just a matter of recruiting more friends.  After that’s sorted, all that’s left for the team is to help Impulse with his existential crisis, clean up the wreckage of Metropolis from Bendis’ last “Action Comics” story, help Drake and Spoiler take on the Cluemaster, assist Wonder Girl as she deals with some family drama, and hope Teen Lantern is strong enough to take on the Red Tornado.

If that summary of the stories in this volume sounds like it starts off with a strong sense of purpose and then slowly fizzles out over time, then you’d be right for thinking that.  Bendis is joined by fellow “Naomi” co-writer David F. Walker for these stories, but I’m sorry to say that his presence doesn’t really raise the bar of quality in comparison to previous volumes.  All the stories here are fine and generally unexceptional.  The art is mostly from John Timms and Scott Godlewski, and it’s solid superhero stuff.  Better is the wilder, more eccentric work from Mike Oeming and original Warlord creator Mike Grell, who contributes a few incongruous but good-looking pages.

In short, there’s nothing here that makes me disappointed that this third volume is going to be the series’ last.  I’m left wishing that Bendis had started his “Legion of Super-Heroes” title instead of this one as it felt he was at least heading somewhere with that one.  “Young Justice” ultimately feels like a bunch of decent superhero stories strung together that ultimately didn’t lead anywhere all that interesting.  At least they all had good art, though.