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Forever Evil
Forever Evil #3
The first universe-wide event of The New 52 continues to explode across the DC Universe! With the world under the rule of the mysterious and deadly Crime Syndicate and our greatest heroes dead, it's up to the unlikeliest of defenders to rise up to save us-humanity's only hope-Lex Luthor?! Plus, a startling revelation about the dark secret of the Syndicate's mission on Earth-and what it means for the future of the DC Universe and its heroes and villains. This issue is also offered as a combo pack edition with a redemption code for a digital download of this issue.
32 pages, Comic
First published November 6, 2013
3 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
About the author
Geoff Johns
2,722 books2,421 followersGeoff Johns originally hails from Detroit, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University, where he earned a degree in Media Arts and Film. He moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s in search of work within the film industry. Through perseverance, Geoff ended up as the assistant to Richard Donner, working on Conspiracy Theory and Lethal Weapon 4. During that time, he also began his comics career writing Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. and JSA (co-written with David S. Goyer) for DC Comics. He worked with Richard Donner for four years, leaving the company to pursue writing full-time.
His first comics assignments led to a critically acclaimed five-year run on the The Flash. Since then, he has quickly become one of the most popular and prolific comics writers today, working on such titles including a highly successful re-imagining of Green Lantern, Action Comics (co-written with Richard Donner), Teen Titans, Justice Society of America, Infinite Crisis and the experimental breakout hit series 52 for DC with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid. Geoff received the Wizard Fan Award for Breakout Talent of 2002 and Writer of the Year for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 as well as the CBG Writer of the Year 2003 thru 2005, 2007 and CBG Best Comic Book Series for JSA 2001 thru 2005. Geoff also developed BLADE: THE SERIES with David S. Goyer, as well as penned the acclaimed “Legion” episode of SMALLVILLE. He also served as staff writer for the fourth season of ROBOT CHICKEN.
Geoff recently became a New York Times Bestselling author with the graphic novel Superman: Brainiac with art by Gary Frank.
His first comics assignments led to a critically acclaimed five-year run on the The Flash. Since then, he has quickly become one of the most popular and prolific comics writers today, working on such titles including a highly successful re-imagining of Green Lantern, Action Comics (co-written with Richard Donner), Teen Titans, Justice Society of America, Infinite Crisis and the experimental breakout hit series 52 for DC with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid. Geoff received the Wizard Fan Award for Breakout Talent of 2002 and Writer of the Year for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 as well as the CBG Writer of the Year 2003 thru 2005, 2007 and CBG Best Comic Book Series for JSA 2001 thru 2005. Geoff also developed BLADE: THE SERIES with David S. Goyer, as well as penned the acclaimed “Legion” episode of SMALLVILLE. He also served as staff writer for the fourth season of ROBOT CHICKEN.
Geoff recently became a New York Times Bestselling author with the graphic novel Superman: Brainiac with art by Gary Frank.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 10, 2013
The guys fighting on the cover (who don't fight in the comic) are the bad guy resistance, believe it or not, and this is their origin story. David Finch's art has never looked so bad - and it's usually not good - while the story itself has wound up in a cul-de-sac. The worst issue in the series so far! Read the full review here!
December 31, 2013
You can read the full review over at my blog:
http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/2013...
Event comics are often maligned because of their meta-perspective, giving us the overlay of events happening across an entire line. Some can be really good, such as how the recently concluded X-Men: Battle of the Atom was in its first month, or how Throne of Atlantis and Trinity War were. But some can be… bad, such as Infinity because the event comics don’t really give you a consistent story to follow. Or characters for that matter. Geoff Johns has had more experience with event comics than most writers today given all the work he did for Green Lantern in its pre-New 52 days, and so he’s often a dependable guy for such comics.
Sadly, he seems to be missing the mark again and again with Forever Evil, the main 7-issue event mini-series specifically. In two issues thus far he’s given a lot of different perspectives to advance the main storyline, setting up the various tie-in comics for the event, or even drawing on them to further the main storyline. Its a “feeding off each other” effect that isn’t really working for me. And the art is mediocre at best.
Forever Evil 03Currently there are four ongoing tie-ins to Forever Evil: there’s Matt Kindt’s ARGUS, Peter J. Tomasi’s Arkham War, Brian Buccellato’s Rogues Rebellion, and the multi-author Blight which takes place in the regular comics. Geoff set up a lot of these storylines back in the pages of Forever Evil #1 in September, and the other writers have taken that issue as the jump-off point for their own mini-series. Its an interesting move certainly, but it becomes frustrating when the main event comic deals with some of those events further down, as Forever Evil #3 does.
The biggest turnoff for me here was that we get to see the continuation of the great cliffhanger from Brian’s Rogues Rebellion #1 in this issue. It felt really odd and it didn’t feel like it had much of an impact. It was an “over and done with” kind of thing and it has kind of ruined Rogues Rebellion #2 for me since I was expecting this continuation to take place in that, not here. Now I have no idea what is going to happen in that issue since I don’t read the solicit texts. And besides, with an entire issue to deal with, I expected Brian to handle it much better, even though what Geoff did here isn’t so bad. It just feels out of place.
Then there’s the continuation of the Justice League #24 cliffhanger, which I expected to see resolved in Justice League #25, certainly not here. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen in that issue either. Of course, Geoff is writing both books and thus he can do whatever he want with these plot threads, but once again, its about the whole thing feeling out of place.
What it boils down to is the fact that all this doesn’t leave much room for the other stories, such as the return of certain characters from the dead in Forever Evil #2 or what many of the non-aligned villains are doing. That is, villains like Warp and Cheetah and the others who we haven’t seen yet. We get some moments with Lex Luthor and patient B-Zero and they are interesting in terms of what Lex is trying to accomplish, and what he ends up doing later, but since there are very few pages to handle that entire interaction, it all feels a little off.
What was nice however was to find out how the aforementioned “resurrected” characters survived the attack of the Crime Syndicate in Justice League #23 in August. We are finally starting to get some answers, even though a lot of it is still up in the air. But I liked it. Especially in terms of the brief look at one of the greatest thieves in the world. True to character, it was a really good moment, and its nice to see that even with just a handful of panels, Geoff can work his magic.
Generally, the story was good, but it seemed to be stuck in the “team assembling” mode. There are four more issues to go after this, so I’m hoping that the comics really up the pace sometime soon. That’d be welcome.
In terms of the art, it was a bit better than last time, even though some inconsistencies were still there. Such as how Weather Wizard appears to lose his beard and get it back in the space of three panels. Or how Captain Cold is drawn. Or the somewhat exaggerated physical look for Lex himself. Among others. David Finch’s art was slightly better this time around, but it didn’t help all that much since the story wasn’t all that good. I think Finch could do a much better job if he was drawing a straight set of characters from issue to issue rather than jumping back and forth so much. The big throw-down between Ultraman and Black Adam looks really good, and so does the throwdown between the Rogues and the duo of Firestorm and Power Ring, but that is balanced by the rather disappointing final page with the “team”. Sonia Oback’s colours and Richard Friend’s inks were fairly decent, once again, just the book needs to lose a little bit of its dark and shadowy look. That is holding back the art from being much better.
Also, that cover is entirely bonkers. That is not how things happen in the issue at all, not that this is a new thing. Its a trend that I see often and I realize it makes for a great cover, but it just ends up being disappointing when the story doesn’t match.
Overall, it was decent, but not great. Which is nothing new from how the previous two issues have been.
Rating: 7/10
http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/2013...
Event comics are often maligned because of their meta-perspective, giving us the overlay of events happening across an entire line. Some can be really good, such as how the recently concluded X-Men: Battle of the Atom was in its first month, or how Throne of Atlantis and Trinity War were. But some can be… bad, such as Infinity because the event comics don’t really give you a consistent story to follow. Or characters for that matter. Geoff Johns has had more experience with event comics than most writers today given all the work he did for Green Lantern in its pre-New 52 days, and so he’s often a dependable guy for such comics.
Sadly, he seems to be missing the mark again and again with Forever Evil, the main 7-issue event mini-series specifically. In two issues thus far he’s given a lot of different perspectives to advance the main storyline, setting up the various tie-in comics for the event, or even drawing on them to further the main storyline. Its a “feeding off each other” effect that isn’t really working for me. And the art is mediocre at best.
Forever Evil 03Currently there are four ongoing tie-ins to Forever Evil: there’s Matt Kindt’s ARGUS, Peter J. Tomasi’s Arkham War, Brian Buccellato’s Rogues Rebellion, and the multi-author Blight which takes place in the regular comics. Geoff set up a lot of these storylines back in the pages of Forever Evil #1 in September, and the other writers have taken that issue as the jump-off point for their own mini-series. Its an interesting move certainly, but it becomes frustrating when the main event comic deals with some of those events further down, as Forever Evil #3 does.
The biggest turnoff for me here was that we get to see the continuation of the great cliffhanger from Brian’s Rogues Rebellion #1 in this issue. It felt really odd and it didn’t feel like it had much of an impact. It was an “over and done with” kind of thing and it has kind of ruined Rogues Rebellion #2 for me since I was expecting this continuation to take place in that, not here. Now I have no idea what is going to happen in that issue since I don’t read the solicit texts. And besides, with an entire issue to deal with, I expected Brian to handle it much better, even though what Geoff did here isn’t so bad. It just feels out of place.
Then there’s the continuation of the Justice League #24 cliffhanger, which I expected to see resolved in Justice League #25, certainly not here. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen in that issue either. Of course, Geoff is writing both books and thus he can do whatever he want with these plot threads, but once again, its about the whole thing feeling out of place.
What it boils down to is the fact that all this doesn’t leave much room for the other stories, such as the return of certain characters from the dead in Forever Evil #2 or what many of the non-aligned villains are doing. That is, villains like Warp and Cheetah and the others who we haven’t seen yet. We get some moments with Lex Luthor and patient B-Zero and they are interesting in terms of what Lex is trying to accomplish, and what he ends up doing later, but since there are very few pages to handle that entire interaction, it all feels a little off.
What was nice however was to find out how the aforementioned “resurrected” characters survived the attack of the Crime Syndicate in Justice League #23 in August. We are finally starting to get some answers, even though a lot of it is still up in the air. But I liked it. Especially in terms of the brief look at one of the greatest thieves in the world. True to character, it was a really good moment, and its nice to see that even with just a handful of panels, Geoff can work his magic.
Generally, the story was good, but it seemed to be stuck in the “team assembling” mode. There are four more issues to go after this, so I’m hoping that the comics really up the pace sometime soon. That’d be welcome.
In terms of the art, it was a bit better than last time, even though some inconsistencies were still there. Such as how Weather Wizard appears to lose his beard and get it back in the space of three panels. Or how Captain Cold is drawn. Or the somewhat exaggerated physical look for Lex himself. Among others. David Finch’s art was slightly better this time around, but it didn’t help all that much since the story wasn’t all that good. I think Finch could do a much better job if he was drawing a straight set of characters from issue to issue rather than jumping back and forth so much. The big throw-down between Ultraman and Black Adam looks really good, and so does the throwdown between the Rogues and the duo of Firestorm and Power Ring, but that is balanced by the rather disappointing final page with the “team”. Sonia Oback’s colours and Richard Friend’s inks were fairly decent, once again, just the book needs to lose a little bit of its dark and shadowy look. That is holding back the art from being much better.
Also, that cover is entirely bonkers. That is not how things happen in the issue at all, not that this is a new thing. Its a trend that I see often and I realize it makes for a great cover, but it just ends up being disappointing when the story doesn’t match.
Overall, it was decent, but not great. Which is nothing new from how the previous two issues have been.
Rating: 7/10
September 24, 2017
Earth's villains start to rebel against the CSA. Captain Cold, Black Manta, and Black Adam join Luthor and B-Zero.
April 19, 2020
Why does Forever Evil feel so incredibly dull?
December 28, 2013
When Salvation Run came out a few years back (tying into the events of Final Crisis), I was excited cause I always love to see villainous people doing villainous shit. Well, those villains were in two different camps on a hell planet duking it out for supremacy (Joker's crew vs Lex's) and while the intent was there, it just fell a little flat. Forever Evil lives up to its name. There have been a few lame comments on here criticizing the art or criticizing the covers, or whatever (it's just the way it is I suppose), but don't pay them any mind. This is a great run so far, and Geoff Johns knows how to create a sense of true, unparalleled menace in his writing. And he's got some of my favorite villains to work with. I love his take on Ultraman; Johnny Quick (don't know if this still Earth 3 Johnny, not everything has been revealed) is just pure evil and absolutely hilarious; the Power Ring is also darkly hilarious since Johns basically just got done canonizing GL; and I always like to see Lex Luthor as Earth's savior. Lex, Black Manta, Captain Cold, and Lex's "sidekick" are about the only ones (besides the Teen Titans and Bats) capable of taking on this new menace that showed up as Cyborg got ripped a new one. I don't know about any one else, but I can't wait to see where this goes!
December 16, 2013
Not sure why some people don't like this book, I'm enjoying every minute of it. I'm glad we're seeing a rag tag team of villains in the fore front rather than the usual Justice League members. The story is good too and here we learn what actually happened to the missing League members and it's a bit of a stretch.
Apparently they're trapped in the Firestorm Matrix which begs the question why they were simply left there and how Batman and Catwoman slipped away unnoticed either way this is a minor speed bump in what was a enjoyable read. Superman crunching Black Adam's jaw was another highlight both visceral and effective. I do find that the villain's joining up at the end was rather random but still it was a minor flaw. I still find that some characters could be more detailed especially Deathstorm and Power Ring since they seem to be heavy hitters and Power Ring has an interesting twist on the ring power Hal Jordan wields. Deathstorm seems to be only Professor Stein given his more serious and controlled demeanor while there are details about Owlman that are hinted at and I'm hoping Johns answers these questions in future issues.
Apparently they're trapped in the Firestorm Matrix which begs the question why they were simply left there and how Batman and Catwoman slipped away unnoticed either way this is a minor speed bump in what was a enjoyable read. Superman crunching Black Adam's jaw was another highlight both visceral and effective. I do find that the villain's joining up at the end was rather random but still it was a minor flaw. I still find that some characters could be more detailed especially Deathstorm and Power Ring since they seem to be heavy hitters and Power Ring has an interesting twist on the ring power Hal Jordan wields. Deathstorm seems to be only Professor Stein given his more serious and controlled demeanor while there are details about Owlman that are hinted at and I'm hoping Johns answers these questions in future issues.
January 9, 2014
Continuing this series... are the bad guys the good guys now? I am so confused and it is awesome. Lex has started regretting his years against Superman now that he is not there to save the city and Lex is the city's hope for survival. Wow, Mind F...
November 13, 2013
Short version - disappointing issue, artwork wasn't great, story even less so. Story arc going downhill fast. Move to Marvel!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews