Review: Forever Evil #1

The start of DC Comics’ latest September event is here with Forever Evil #1; however, the only thing forever about it is it’s dull and predictable storyline.

The issue reads as if we have been there done that, as we basically have; the Justice League is no more and their evil counterparts from another world invade the Earth leaving the villains to pick up what’s left.

Where Johns fails entirely with the issue is setting up the rest of Villains month as all the DC New 52 bad guys come off as pathetic, shallow, unimportant characters that one could care less about reading elsewhere let alone in a new #1 3-D covered issue for four bucks a pop. The dialogue comes off as artificial (telling Grodd “maybe we should listen to these humans”) as well as cliche (everything Ultraman says) and utterly boring. The issue is just not satisfying for the launch of a big event and lacked any big wow moments or surprises.

The art of David Finch and Richard Friend while satisfying seemed a bit heavy on the inks as every panel is filled with lots of black and dark shading and colors. At times it even seemed as if characters body parts were out of proportion with their heads, chins and body sizes (Nightwing, Luthor). I’ve seen better art from Finch in the past as this just didn’t seem as detailed as I would have liked.

As it stands, if you are on a budget, Forever Evil #1 might be a nice bookend to the overall story with the Villain Month issues being able to be skipped completely as the gist of the story looks to continue when the Justice League return. Until then it just looks like a filler storyline.

Sorry, Forever Evil #1 just wasn’t impressive.