Justice League #13 review

Steve Trevor's looking forward to an evening with his sister and her kids when Washington is hit by darkness. The elder god Eclipso has been freed and he's taking over the populace, amplifying and unleashing their worst instincts. 

With his colleagues a howling mob and the Justice League the slaves of Eclipso, Steve - for some reason unaffected - can rely only on himself if he's to get home and see his family is safe. 

Whoa! Writer Tim Seeley seems to have lost the DC Rebirth memo. You know, the one that banished the violent excesses of the New 52 in favour of optimism. Not that the concept of optimism is absent from this Justice League Vs Suicide Squad tie-in...

... it's just that it takes one heckuva beating. I'm not reproducing the panels, but among the moments artists Scot Eaton and Wayne Faucher have to draw are office workers licking colleagues' blood off the floor, an old lady eviscerating her pet dog and children attacking their bound, bloodied mother with hot pokers. The craft is good but the result, well, it's a truly unpleasant read. 

And I get it; I know we're supposed to appreciate how corrupting Eclipso is, but plenty of comics have shown it without making me want to look away. 

Was anyone hoping for a Steve Trevor spotlight in a Justice League issue? Apart from a fly-by from Wonder Woman and a spread showing how the team have been co-opted by evil, this is all Steve. And I can't tell you how much I hate him constantly being referred to as 'Master Chief', presumably his rank this week... It shouldn't annoy me in the least, but after seventy-odd years of Major or Colonel it just sounds weird, in a trying-too-hard way. 

Judged on its own terms, as a horror-tinged focus on Steve Trevor, I can't say this is a bad comic book. Seeley is a talented writer, and Eaton and Faucher are terrific storytellers who know how to nail an emotion. As an issue of DC's premiere super-team in the DC Rebirth era, though, it's a misstep.