Justice Society of America #3 Review

When last we left the (future) Huntress, she got zapped into a back-and-forth seizure of time jumps after the current Dr. Fate touched her to discern the truth of her claim of coming from the future. The spasmodic time-jumping is now lessened, but the narrative flips from Per Degaton’s origin story during WWII and an encounter with Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company, to a jump forward where Per Degaton adopts a new mission after realizing the Axis powers lose, to a flip back where Per Degaton spies on the moment of Sgt. Rock’s death, to a flip to the present where the current JSA fights off an army of Bizarros under the control of Angle Man, to a jump a little farther forward with a current JSA meeting that ends on an unexpected cliffhanger.

Oy! My head hurts.

Betwixt the see-saw plot, Johns peppers in little nuggets that may or may not need to be necessary. For example, what does the mysterious snow globe do? Why are Superman and Batman repeatedly referenced but never shown up? The last page suggests that Per Degaton is not the only villain to worry about, so what else is happening?

Right now, the down point of this issue (and series) is that there’s no clarity about what’s going on. Mysterious, confusing things are happening, but it’s all random, without any apparent direction. When a plot is either missing or directionless after three issues, expecting readers to keep going is too much to ask.

This issue has multiple artists working on pencils, inks, and colors, which is usually a red flag for a time crunch. Thankfully, the art quality doesn’t suffer in the least. The line work in WWII past and present is different but suitable for each time period. The colors look great, and the action scenes are well done.