Justice, Volume 3 by Alex Ross


Justice, Volume 3
Title : Justice, Volume 3
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1401214673
ISBN-10 : 9781401214678
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 160
Publication : First published October 10, 2007

In Pursuit of Justice

The World's Greatest Super-Heroes are about to face the deadliest alliance of super-villains the world has ever seen. It's the ultimate face-off of good vs. evil in a battle for the fate of the planet. And in order for the members of the fabled Justice League of America to have a chance of defeating their adversaries, they must make a radical change in their appearance. But will it be enough?

DC's pantheon of heroes is reimagined by fan-favorite painter Alex Ross (THE WORLD'S GREATEST SUPER-HEROES, KINGDOM COME) and writer Jim Krueger (Earth X, Universe X), with pencil art by Doug Braithwaite (Paradise X) painted by Ross in this fantastic new hardcover collecting the final four issues of the best-selling maxiseries, plus expansive character bios, sketches, and more.


Justice, Volume 3 Reviews


  • Sesana

    Well... It looks great. But the ending was choppy, rushed, convoluted, and forced by necessity to push a reset button on the whole thing to the point where it doesn't even matter if this is in continuity or not. Disappointing, but pretty.

  • Garrett

    An ok conclusion to an ok series

  • James DeSantis

    Justice has been a surprise hit for me but does it finish strong?

    This is it. The villains are out in full force, but so are the heroes. After the build up of all the heroes getting their asses handed to them it's their turn to fight back. Huge world battles all around. Multiple heroes facing off against multiple villains. It's almost as if the writer and artist had all these toys and started placing them in a bin and playing with them with pows and kicks and so on.

    Good: There's some great moments. One really great moment is with Billy facing off against his friends and shows how much of a hero he is. There's also some epic fights, because of how huge they are, they are entertaining.

    Bad: The storyline is basically "EVERYONE FIGHT" and that's it. All the planning and scheming is thrown out the window for the fighting. The ending felt safe compared to the rest.

    Overall still a good volume but not nearly as captivating as volume 1-2. Either way the series is worth checking out but this one is around a 3 out of 5.

  • Bant

    This review is for the entire Justice Maxi-Series

    As it went along I became aware that justice was nothing short of a big, stinky turd, which may be a bit crass, but seems the only phrase befitting it. What promised to be a superhero epic that examined true heroism and villainy continually became more and more predictable and disappointing. The writing was often times cheesy and/or muddy, leaving me scratching my head as to what was going on or laughing at the utter stupidity of what I did understand. Some of this was due to my lack of knowledge/interest in the DC characters. But I'm not a total Marvel snob. Batman is generally incredible. And identity crisis is on of the best things I've ever read. On top of that there are far too many characters and storylines leaving most to get short changed and ultimately leaving the reader with only the shallowest of plot and character development. This is just bad story telling. I shouldn't have to move from one panel to the next felling like I have somehow missed pages of information. Oh and while we are on the subject, can we please stop praising Alex Ross's overhyped, laughably bad artwork and call it what it is, the work of a hack who is making way too much money and wining far too many accolades for something any 3rd rate art student would be laughed at for doing. This is the kind of cruddy artwork that gives comics a bad name.
    Now after so much time bashing, I will say Doug Braithwaite penciling is pretty outstanding, even if it is covered up by Alex Ross. Chapter 4 was also very good and may have raised my hopes a little high for the rest of the series. And I will say, for all Alex Ross does wrong Solomon Grundy, Parasite, Scarecrow, and Bizarro are terrifying villains who look as cool as they do scary. But again they are underutilized or lost in the cluster-fracas of this nearly unreadable mess.

  • Justyn Rampa

    I don't really have much to add to this particular volume's review other than a re-iteration of some previous thoughts. Ultimately, the series as whole (this being the final volume) did not live up to the promise and potential of the first volume for me.

    It was a series set to explore villainy and heroism by asking some really interesting questions and presenting some challenging situations. I feel like we did not really explore the most unique aspect of this story nearly enough as the series became much closer to a re-hashing of two landmark Justice League stories, "Identity Crisis" and "Tower of Babel".

    Alex Ross wrote the intro notes to the final volume and I found it to be the least engaging of the three author notes. The series ended with what I felt to be a completely inappropriate monologue from Batman that sounds more akin to something Superman would say. The resolution to the conflict seemed cool but everything was so convoluted and poorly explained that I feel like the reader is presented with a bit of a struggle to really grasp everything that is going on. Also, Jim Krueger completely wasted Joker. I don't even understand why he was featured so prominently on the cover because he did absolutely nothing to further the plot.

    Ultimately, this series was a big disappointment with one bright spot of amazing pencil work by Doug Braithwaite!

  • Susan

    It's kind of clever the way the plan came together at the end, although I feel like this was more a series of cool moments than a unified story. I am going to have to single out Captain Marvel crushing Kryptonite in his fist so Superman doesn't have to be afraid of it ever again. That isn't going to work. It can still hurt him even if it's in little bitty pieces and now it's harder to clean up. Wisdom of Solomon my ass.

  • Julio Bonilla

    The cover made me think the heroes are ready for payback!!!

  • Octavi

    Maravilloso. Un buen guión y el acojonante arte de Alex Ross.

  • Tomás Sendarrubias García

    El mundo de DC se revolucionaba tras la Crisis Infinita, surgían nuevas colecciones, nuevos héroes, nuevos puntos de vista... Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Brad Meltzer, Judd Winnick, Greg Rucka... eran los nombres que resonaban aquí y allá mientras la editorial desarrollaba una de las etapas más ambiciosas de su historia. Y mientras los tambores sonaban por todas partes, aparecía Justicia.

    Una de mis obras preferidas dentro del mundo del cómic es Tierra-X y sus continuaciones, un posible futuro del Universo Marvel desarrollado a través de las ideas del dibujante Alex Ross a raíz de una ilustración que realizó para la revista Wizard en la que mostraba su visión de un futuro Spiderman. Algo que empezó casi como una broma (el Spiderman de Alex Ross era un Peter Parker rechoncho que parecía una salchicha dentro de su traje) se convirtió en una de las historias más llamativas de Marvel, aunque Ross se limitó a crear los personajes, las portadas y los argumentos. Los guiones como tal fueron cosa de Jim Krueger, y los dibujos se repartieron entre Jean Paul Leon (Tierra-X) y Doug Braithwaite (Universo-X y Paraíso-X). Y sería el equipo formado por Ross, Krueger y Braithwaite a quien DC ficharía para llevar a cabo Justicia, una miniserie de doce números fuera de continuidad y con periodicidad mensual (de hecho, eso sería lo que llevaría a que Ross pintase directamente sobre los dibujos de Doug Braithwaite, ahorrando así tiempo y parte del proceso creativo, ya que la forma de pintar de Ross es especialmente lenta).

    Justicia nos trae una historia épica, y lo hace recurriendo a los héroes y villanos de la Edad de Plata de DC, los auténticos clásicos de la editorial, con los que Ross estaba especialmente familiarizado y con los que le gusta trabajar, los anteriores a las Crisis, un mundo en el que Hal Jordan y Barry Allen son Green Lantern y Flash, en el que Dick Grayson sigue siendo Robin y Wally West, Kid Flash; en el que Priscilla Rich es Cheetah y Lex Luthor es un científico loco. Y en ese mundo, un grupo de villanos comparte un sueño apocalíptico en el que el mundo sufre una destrucción atómica y los héroes de la Liga de la Justicia no pueden hacer nada por evitarlo... así que deciden ser ellos mismos quienes cambien el mundo. Lex Luthor, el Espantapájaros, el Capitán Frío, Hiedra Venenosa, el Juguetero y Black Manta se convierten en unos salvadores improbables para el mundo, mientras al mismo tiempo, colaboran con otros villanos "menos visibles", como el Acertijo, Giganta, Gorila Grodd, Sinestro, Bizarro, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy o Black Adam para atacar a la Liga y mantenerlos desequilibrados, heridos y apartados...

    Justicia es una obra autoconclusiva, épica, y con algunas de las viñetas más impresionantes que se han dibujado nunca. Krueger y Braithwaite son ambos unos grandes profesionales, y bueno, Alex Ross... Ojalá se prodigara más, pero es cierto que cada una de sus páginas es una auténtica obra de arte.

    Una lectura obligatoria para cualquier aficionado a DC.

  • Owais

    The only way to describe the conclusion to this story is to call it spectacular.

  • Michael

    Overall, gotta admit that I enjoyed this story a little more than expected. Parts of it didn't entirely work for me - the ease with which Brainiac's turning humans into robotic life was undone, the literal deus ex machina of Wonder Woman being reborn, anything with Zatanna (sorry - I can't get past the lameness of talking backwards to cast spells, or the anything-goes-except-what-the-writer-doesn't-want aspect of her powers - she can chase Brainiac anywhere, but couldn't say "NamauqA, raeppa" when Aquaman was kidnapped").

    The story has some good twists, and some creative uses of powers. Appreciated Supergirl taking out Poison Ivy in a second, thus proving that other superheroes are redundant when a Super is present. ;) Enjoyed seeing Brainiac and Luthor as the DCU's big bads. Batman had some nice lines. Most of the art is terrific, though some of the action sequences are hard to follow.

    I enjoyed it for the first 2/3rds anyway. It starts to show cracks toward the back-end. Scarecrow drives everyone crazy with fear, then gets bitten by the Joker, and everyone apparently stops being scared? What?

    For some reason, I can't read a story like this (a big fanboy superhero orgy) without dwelling on all the parts that didn't work for me - despite the logic of it, superheroes fighting in Metal Men-outfits struck me as an obvious attempt to create a toyline and felt phoney; the dialogue mostly sucked - sorry, but I really felt that most of the lines were fanboy-writer masturbation rather than honest compliments; why does Hal chase the missiles if the GLC is going to dispose of them anyway?

    Though I did enjoy their take on Batman, Superman and Captain Marvel, I still feel like most of the characters lacked for much personality. Any personality, really. They all talked only about how great their fellow JLAers are or talked about how brilliant and surprising their strategy is.

    So, yeah, didn't love it, didn't hate it. I think it's just the tone of the story that makes me look for flaws in it, but it was solidly entertaining. Just not the type of story I really enjoy.

  • Dr. T Loves Books

    What it's about: In this final volume of the collection, the heroes find themselves backed into a corner. The villains have convinced the world that the heroes have failed them, and that only the villains can provide for humanity the safety and security they'd like. The heroes have been infiltrated, betrayed, and defeated at every turn. The villains have either captured or taken control of the heroes' loved ones, creating a hostage situation and fighting force that the heroes cannot push back against without hurting those they love.

    But the heroes are not heroes only when things are easy. They prepare to make the ultimate sacrifices in order to help save the world once again.

    What I thought: Part of this series that's supposed to make readers think is that the heroes find themselves in a position where they may have to make some significant sacrifices - either of themselves or their loved ones - in order to overcome the bad guys. That is a fascinating idea - what are we willing to give up in order to help the larger world? Particularly at this moment in 2020, this seems like an extremely relevant issue.

    Superman even has an entire internal monologue about how his powers protect him but endanger those closest to him. It's interesting and adds a layer to him that I don't think I've considered before.

    I find that to be a major let-down of what could have been a really amazing, important, interesting premise.

    Why I rated it like I did: I was going to give this a 2, because the overall story is kind of meh, but this volume does have a couple of very clever maneuvers by the Justice League that I didn't see coming (and neither did the villains).

  • Tony Laplume

    With this concluding volume I think I can state, finally, for the record, that Justice is one of those stories that you could put in the hands of a new reader, one who has never read a comic book before, and they would probably understand the appeal of the genre, or at least DC’s overriding view of it.

    And it’s the whole closing speech, which would be too much to quote, as I began my review of the first volume doing from the villain’s perspective, that clinches it.

    Alex Ross begins the volume explaining his motivations, and I guess there was little to expect from that but the obvious. But this isn’t his story. It’s Jim Krueger’s. The Alex Ross mystique has made it too easy, over the years, to give in to his artwork as the dominant takeaway, that because it remains, to this day, despite other painters entering the scene, its own attraction, its own novelty, that he carries a greater measure than other artists in the results, but here, at last, he must settle to be a simple collaborator, a super friend, to Krueger’s storytelling.

    What separates Krueger’s work from so many others is the depth to his thought process. He may not see Lex Luthor in the nuanced tones other have, before and after Justice, but he sees how the villains undermine themselves better than anyone has, especially when they finally try to work together.

    In a sense, this is really a Brainiac story. It’s also really an Aquaman story. There’s editing that could’ve made some plot points clearer, but the overall effect is exactly as it’s intended to be. The Joker’s wild card (I now have a new gold standard for his portrayal) is one of the many great elements weaving through this tapestry. Some of the elements are there merely in the artwork, not to showcase Ross (or Doug Braithwaite), but just to flesh things out (the Joker evoking Dracula, the Legion of Super-Heroes, who are long past due a truly great story explaining how they fulfill the promise suggested in works like this). All these are transcendent marks of greatness.

    It is indeed a classic.

  • Andrew

    This was a fairly satisfying end to the series. There were some nice moments in these last four issues. As I said in previous reviews, the plot is overly complicated and the whole thing is a bit too high-concept. But it's fun to read and it gives Braithwaite and Ross a lot of opportunities to create some amazing art. If you like Alex Ross and the Silver Age JLA, you can't really go wrong with this.

    As a side note, I found myself thinking about Brad Meltzer's
    Identity Crisis a number of times while reading this. Identity Crisis came out about a year before this book, and it almost feels like some stuff in this story is commenting on stuff in that book. I'm probably wrong about that, but regardless, it's interesting to compare these two takes on the Silver Age JLA.

    And on a format note: I read this via Comixology. There's a lot of detail in the art here, so it's nice to be able to zoom in and pan around. Digital is definitely better than TPB for something like this, if your eyes, like mine, aren't great. (Even better, though would be reading it in a large print format, like
    Absolute Justice. That's out of print though, and used copies are really expensive.

  • Will Brown

    Justice gives a lot of B & C-list characters moments to shine, but the story itself left something to be desired. What if every supervillain teamed up? What if they knew everyone's secret identities? What if super villains actually DID decide to help solve all the worlds problems instead acting selfishly? And why havent the Justice League tried to do anything on that scale? The book asks a lot of questions and creates some interesting scenarios that arent fully explored the way I would have liked.

    The presence of nanomachines and the fact that they're STILL trying to kill the Justice League while doing this humanitarian work really undercut the drama/intrigue for me and the revelation of mind control was disappointing and snapped me out of the story. This series really would have been better if the Legion of Doom was trying to right the world's wrongs entirely of their own will and we didnt know who was behind the assassination attempts until MUCH later.

    Anyways, the designs are cool, the fights are fun (though a bit chaotic and hard to follow), but the plot's not great and could have benefitted from being shorter and more focused.

  • Brent

    Wow, the art by Braithwaite and Ross.
    So, that's where Legion of Doom from current Justice League stories comes from: 1970s Super Friends, per Alex Ross' essay in Introduction here.
    This is about the best pre-Crisis JLA I could imagine, though. I love that both Plastic Man and Elongated Man are featured, with some small friction. You even get Teen Titans, Doom Patrol, Marvel Family, and Supergirl in this volume.
    I am a fan of Braithwaite's appealing pencil art. Have we got Alex Ross scheduled for a JLA-JSA team-up yet? A DC-Marvel crossover? Astro City vs. Pictopia? I think he could paint a grocery list and I would find it visually appealing.
    Recommended.

  • Liv

    This one was the weakest of the bunch, but still enjoyable. I think its issue was the same with a lot of graphic novels that try to incorporate 10+ characters: the stories start to wear thin and it gets a bit loosey goosey. Don’t get me wrong, the art was still great (I love those big group shots) and I saw a lot of new characters, but it does make for a story that’s more difficult to follow. I also don’t know too many dc characters (heroes and their nemeses). The Batman notes at the end are helpful to give some character background.

  • RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez

    Sin duda ha sido un viaje de más a menos. La resolución de esta propuesta busca una exagerada espectacularidad en su enfrentamiento de estos dos grupos de representantes de la verdadera Justicia, pero a la vez no se moja nada ni tenemos una sensación real de amenaza como la que han ido edificando ni ver memorables consecuencias (ni siendo esto un Elseworld).

    Desde luego, el arte de Ross salva totalmente la propuesta de Krueger que pincha estrepitosamente. Desde luego que esto no es Kingdom Come...

  • Sean

    The last third of the Justice maxi-series by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, and others concludes here and I'm underwhelmed. While the new looks created here all look amazing, their point and the plot itself is nonsense. The plot holes here are too many to overlook. Some of the ideas are great but the final execution is lacking. Of course the art is good as expected but stiff at times. Overall, an unfortunate ending.

  • Nathan Bissett

    Finally, the villains plan is discovered by the JLA and it's time to take the fight to the Legion of Doom members controlled by Braniac.

    A nonstop thrill ride of a final act. The writing is incredibly tight and the spectacular art helps speed along the story. If you're a fan of big scale stories and all the best villains in the DCU, JUSTICE is for you!

  • Adam Graham

    Justice, Volume 3 brings the story to a conclusion and heroes and villains head into final conflict. While story has a satisfying resolution, it is a bit of a mess to get there. So many different plot lines and plot points have been set out through the story, meaning there's a lot of confusion and it can be hard to keep track of as we're switching back and forth a lot. Still, even if you're a bit confused, you can always feast your eyes on the glorious artwork, which really carries this tremendous book through the pitfalls of trying to resolve this massive plot.

  • Jiro Dreams of Suchy

    A simple story done extremely well. The worlds villains just fix everything. Cancer, cured! The hungry, fed! The lame, walk! These guys are basically gods and know they are benevolent, but of course they are not.

    Alex ross is a true legend and according to the dude at my LCS goes to the Starbucks over by my apartment sometimes. He is a master and every comic fan needs to see an Alex ross story.

  • Tasso Kapetopoulos

    Finishing this series went exactly how I thought it would. I was originally really invested with the first volume, the second volume got confusing quick, and this volume did nothing wrong and nothing amazing. Alex Ross' artwork great again but I struggled to get past all the complexities of a million different characters and groups, something Mark Waid's KINGDOM COME did exceptionally well.

  • Ανδρέας Μιχαηλίδης

    Reread it after many years, expecting to be disappointed. In truth, the opening twist is quite good, even though the reveal and resolution are patently superhero-silly.

    Beautiful art throughout, though.

  • Lavell

    Artwork: Excellent Story: Excellent The conclusion of an excellent story. I was really into this one and it did not disappoint. I marveled at the artwork and the story was excellent. I'm sad it's over.

  • Ronson Brown

    Well that was a let down in comparison to volumes 1 and 2. We get to the end and there's just too many things trying to happen at once. Clearly tried to do too much. I feel like they galaxy brained themselves.

  • Luiz Santiago

    QUADRINHOS:
    http://www.planocritico.com/category/...

  • John Gentry

    It's a solid example of a Justice League story. Great scifi elements and always beautiful Alex Ross artwork.