Review: Justice League- Endless Winter

Quick Summary

Pros: There are a few interesting concepts developed through the narrative. The event gives readers a decent chance to catch up with specific heroes.

Cons: The vast majority of the story is generic and doesn’t really manage to raise much excitement. The pacing feels off and prevents the book’s high stakes from having an impact. The book’s few points of interest end up being underdeveloped. The artwork isn’t that great.

Overall: This is a disappointing event comic. It features a battle that heavily relies on levels of suspense and excitement that it is not able to deliver. Add in generic storytelling and lackluster art and the collection suffers even further. The main positives come from a few neat ideas but nothing is significant enough to make up for the comic’s flaws. Overall, this is a comic for fans who simply want to see a big battle and don’t mind if the storytelling surrounding isn’t that great.

Story

Justice League: Endless Winter, by Andy Lanning and Ron Marz, is a pretty mediocre crossover event. It presents a clash between the heroes of the DC universe and a primal threat to Earth. There are some cool concepts here, like the story of heroes from the past fighting this threat. There are also some neat ideas, like the Justice League slowly changing and a renewed take on Black Adam’s role in the world.

Unfortunately, these positive points are underdeveloped and underwhelming. Instead, the collection is mostly negative. It tries to set up an elaborate and sweeping narrative through a story that involves numerous characters and high stakes. However, the story is generic and the isolated nature of the crossover stories make the high stakes feel unexciting. In the end, this is a crossover that manages to do little outside of being loud and presenting a few decent ideas.

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Endless Winter‘s positives come from its ideas. This event centers around an evil that was faced by some mythical heroes from DC Comics history and that is now returning. Other ideas revolve around a changing Justice League, one unsure of itself and that is now facing pressure from Black Adam. Unfortunately, none of these points are expanded upon enough to make the read truly enjoyable.

Instead, Endless Winter is bogged down by negative features. The collection tries to center itself around an epic and high stakes battle. However, outside the underdeveloped ideas mentioned above, the conflict itself feels very generic. The main villain is ultimately unremarkable and the fight against him isn’t that great.

The stakes are also damaged by the crossover nature of this book. It is hard to feel like the world is teetering on the edge of disaster when one of the crossover issues features several heroes simply stopping to talk with the Teen Titans. In the end, the book simply doesn’t achieve the levels of tension and suspense it is going for.

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Art

The artwork throughout the Endless Winter crossover is not downright bad but isn’t that great. The majority of the chapters here look just average. These range from each chapter’s opening, which fails to impress but still does a decent job, to the Superman story, which has a unique style to it. However, other chapters bring down the visual quality. These include Flash’s story, which looks very basic, and some of the moments from the event’s introduction and conclusion, which look bad and are structured poorly. Some chapters manage to deliver on visuals, with Amancay Nahuelpan’s Justice League Dark story and Carmine Di Giandomenico’s closing chapter being the real standouts. However, the artistic negatives end up outweighing the positives. 

Continuity

Justice League: Endless Winter is a mostly independent crossover event centered around the Justice League (Reading Order). It takes place after the events of Dark Nights: Death Metal (Review) (Reading Order), specifically Justice League: Death Metal (Review), and before the events of Infinite Frontier.

The Justice League series continues in Justice League Vol. 1: Prisms.

This volume also references stories from other comic books, detailed below:

• Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was destroyed back in The Man of Steel (Review). His new one was created in Superman Vol. 1: The Unity Saga: Phantom Earth (Review).
• Wonder Woman (Reading Order) became the God of War back in Wonder Woman Vol. 4: War (Review).
• Aquaman (Reading Order) mentions a wedding that took place recently. This wedding took place in Aquaman Vol. 4: Echoes of a Life Lived Well.
• Superman (Reading Order) mentions recently revealing his secret identity. This took place in Superman Vol. 3: The Truth Revealed.
• Superman also mentions his son spending time far away. This is a reference to a choice his son made in The Man of Steel (Review).
• The continuity around Superman’s parents changed as a result of the Doomsday Clock (Review) (Reading Order) event.
• Mera’s (Reading Order) time as Queen of Atlantis is mentioned. Her coronation happened in Suicide Squad #45, the first chapter in the Aquaman/Suicide Squad: Sink Atlantis (Review) (Reading Order) crossover.
• The Teen Titans (Reading Order) had an issue with Damian (Reading Order) in Teen Titans Vol. 4: Robin No More. 
• The original Titans (Reading Order) had an issue with the Justice League (Reading Order) in Titans #22, collected in Titans Vol. 4: Titans Apart (Review).
• Swamp Thing made a sacrifice in Justice League Dark Vol. 4: A Costly Trick of Magic (Review).