Forever Evil: A. R. G. U. S. 5
Sterling Gates, Neil Edwards
Forever Evil Crossover
Spoiler alert! You have been warned!
The ups and downs of this miniseries have been mostly due to its juggling of too many main characters. Yes, obviously it is first and foremost the story of Steve Trevor. But it is also that of Killer Frost. And Dr. Light. And Etta Candy. And (for some reason) President Barack Obama. And a bunch of other really boring characters within the DC Universe’s New 52 world. But you have to respect the loftiness of such a series. The whole “let’s take a butt-load of characters that no one cares about and try to make it not only sell, but interest said buyers” concept is pretty brave. So kudos to both writer Sterling Gates and artist Neil Edwards on not only taking on such a project, but doing so with such grace and confidence that it actually ends up working. And working quite well, for that matter. Granted, it features some pretty cool covers (whether by Brett Booth or Jeremy Roberts is beside the point) and some great guest-stars (albeit very briefly in the form of Deathstroke and now Cheetah). Still. Impressive stuff.
Starting from the point where we left them last issue, this issue is all sorts of action. But as opposed to previous issues, it unfortunately falls victim right away to an obvious (though unintentional) flaw: there are way too many characters and way too much going on in terms of plot-advancement. It’s hard to focus on Dr. Light being recruited (possibly to lead?) a new shadow-ops portion of scientists of (maybe?) the government when you’ve got Killer Frost betraying her Secret Society teammates to work alongside a now Dr. Stein-free Steve Trevor. The scene with Cheetah and her gang of evil animal/people hybrids is underplayed far too much for my liking, as it should have been the entire issue. It is well done, but overshadowed by the boring Dr. Light nonsense. And speaking of such weird and unnecessary characters in an already far-too-packed issue, he shows up at the most exciting moment of the issue (Cheetah about ready to give some actual answers after Trevor ties her up with Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth) and confuses readers even more with a weird cliffhanger ending. Apparently, in order to have the top secret cure to his condition (which is apparently not death), he has to kill Trevor. Such a popular guy with the evil types for such a human and non-Batmanlike character.
All in all, I enjoyed this issue, in spite of its flaws. But don’t get me wrong. At its best, it’s still a mediocre comic. It’s well done and it makes me care about characters that I really shouldn’t, but still… Not really. I mean, come on. These characters are all pretty lame when it comes right down to it. But still a very noble effort. Now, if these were A-listers or even if there had been fewer of them to keep track of, I’d be completely sold. But as it stands, with only one issue left to tie up a whole bunch of loose ends, I’m still not entirely impressed. A noble effort and I am looking forward to seeing how they wrap it all up, but this one is only for DC mega fans.
My Rating: 3/5
