Justice League Odyssey No. 7 review: Starfire the mighty

Arriving on Starfire’s homeworld of Tamaran, the Justice League Odyssey immediately encounters deadly resistance from Blackfire for their supposed involvement with Darkseid.

Justice League Odyssey has really felt like a mixed bag these past couple of issues, with the changes in creative teams happening with pretty much no warning. The story that’s being told continues across the creative teams, but something feels off with the connective tissue of the series as a whole. It’s not a bad series, and this isn’t a bad issue, it just feels like behind-the-scenes machinations are making what could have been one of the best Justice League stories ever, kind of flounder.

This issue itself seems incredibly fast-paced, even more fast-paced than other issues of Justice League Odyssey have been. The team travels to two different planets in the course of the issue, involving two pretty massive fights and some solid emotional beats, all in twenty-two pages. Somehow, Dan Abnett is able to make this fast pace work for the most part, even if there are moments and sequences that would have been helped by slowing down the pace a bit.

What this issue does really well though is the character moments that are present throughout, especially regarding Starfire. Starfire goes on an uncharacteristic rampage in this issue and, when you actually see the fallout and horror that she faces when she realizes what she’s done, it’s well written. This is something that could have been helped by slowing down the pace a bit and letting her choices breathe a bit, but it’s still effective. Azrael also has a great moment when he’s talking with Starfire where everything that she’s saying is who Azrael has been in the past. His encouragement and understanding are perfect for the moment and executed very well, except for a couple of moments of weird dialogue.

Image by DC Comics/Art by Will Conrad

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Cyborg and Jessica are also treated well with this issue, even if they do take a backseat to Starfire’s story. It’s nice to see Cyborg being portrayed as the poised leader that he’s seemingly always been headed for and, if you know the character of Jessica at all, what’s happening to her in the past couple of issues is terrifying, but her actions are incredible. Jessica is such a great addition to the Green Lantern roster.

Will Conrad does a great job on the art with this issue, as well. It’s a much more realistic style than previous issues, i.e. more Mike Deodato Jr. than Carmine Giandomenico, but it works in the context of this issue very well. The darker coloring and the shadows used give the issue a much darker feel than previous issues, which works for Starfire’s state of mind extremely well here. And when it comes to the actual grand-scale aspects of the issue, he does a wonderful job with those, as well. Power simply radiates from his characters in those situations.

Next. Justice League Odyssey No. 6 review. dark

7.5/10

Justice League Odyssey has another good issue that feels like it suffers from behind-the-scenes issues more than storyteller issues.

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