By Zack Quaintance — I am nothing if not a sucker for two things — No. 1: big (and often silly) superhero summer event stories, and No. 2: roads or countdowns to those same big (and often silly) superhero summer event stories. This is why I have not only been looking forward to Dark Crisis but also to this week’s Justice League - Road to Dark Crisis #1, which serves up five vignette stories. While this issue has a cover that features the tagline “It all. Starts. Here.”, it’s less of a beginning and more of a bridge between recent DC Comics storytelling — Justice League #75, the Shadow War crossover, and Infinite Frontier/Justice Incarnate/Legion of Superheroes —and next week’s Dark Crisis #1.

That said, it’s a very strong bridge, one I enjoyed quite a bit. Justice League - Road to Dark Crisis #1 wants to give us a picture of what happens in the aftermath of the Justice League being wiped out, and it wants to do it from multiple angles. The broad look at the world and fallout is mostly played out in the first three stories. In those vignettes, we get a Jon Kent-Dick Grayson team-up story where they unpack how worried should they be, and who should project leadership to the remaining heroes. We get a Green Lantern story about younger heroes stepping up, we get a Flash story about opportunistic and emboldened villains, and so on.

Those three stories are all well done, working in tandem to create a mosaic effect of where things in the DC Universe stand right now before the proper start of Dark Crisis. The opener is the Superman-Nightwing piece, from Joshua Williamson and Dan Jurgens. It comes right out and acknowledges that yes, superheroes die all the time and yes they come back, but that said, there’s still story to be wrung from that so let’s go. The next piece is by Jeremy Adams and Rosi Kampe. Adams has been doing great work on The Flash monthly book, anchoring it around an emerging relationship between Wally West and Wallace West, the former jokingly calling the latter “Ace.” This short story explains how the villains react post-super deaths, and it’s all good fun with a touch of heart.

Finally, the third “what’s happening where” story is a Green Lantern tale from Chuck Brown and Fico Ossio, that sees Hal Jordan giving a speech to Jackson Hyde about stepping up. At first, I thought it was odd Hal was spared because Death of the Justice League seemed bent on taking away non-legacy heroes…then I realized Hal is a legacy hero, so I’m curious to see how/if this gets explored, but I digress…

It is, however, actually the final two stories in this comic I found most interesting. The first is titled “Pariah” and it is (obviously) about Pariah, whose resurfacing for this event is to me perhaps the most intriguing element to Dark Crisis. Pariah is a character from Crisis on Infinite Earths who sort of set that whole thing into motion and as a result was tasked to watch whole realities get destroyed over and over and over. He’s subsequently only been lightly used, and if this story — written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and illustrated by Leila Del Duca, whose work with Jordie Bellair’s colors steals this show — is any indication, that’s about to change. Of all the pieces in this one, I think Pariah’s gives us the clearest indication of what the thematic heart of Dark Crisis might be — an argument that a messy DC multiverse is just fine and doesn’t need to be constantly tinkered with (which, I probably speak for most fans here when I say hell yes).

The final story is “Because the Night” by Stephanie Phillips and Clayton Henry, and I’m guessing (hoping?) this one is an indication of where the DC Universe may end up post Dark Crisis. Yes, it’s way too early to guess that, but based on Henry’s aesthetic choices — the opening pages felt like a deliberate flashback to the Bronze Age before things turned more modern — I have a hunch, a hunch that we may be headed for a post-event world where all of continuity is fair game to be incorporated in stories moving forward. I mean, that Bronze Age-looking page was overlaid with narration about how when stars die, their matter is swept back up into our bodies creating something new. Just makes you think…

All told, as I said near the start, I enjoyed Justice League - Road to Dark Crisis #1 quite a bit. It’s a nice table-setter for the event to come, and it’s also one that operates with restraint. It’s a new day at DC to be sure, but in the past, Infinite Crisis, for example, had four six-issue miniseries counting down to its beginning. This series of vignettes gets it all done, and done well. Also, not to keep playing the comparison game (comparison is the thief of joy, etc.), but I couldn’t help but think how much the last DC event, Death Metal, would have benefited from a set-up comic like this one, featuring as it did a major (and mostly unexplored) gap between the Justice League run that lead to it and the actual event.

Overall: An entertaining and fast set of five vignettes that set the table for Dark Crisis, Justice League - Road to Dark Crisis #1 bridges the gap left by Justice League #75 - Death of Justice League by giving us a look at the resulting status quo from many angles. 9/10

Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis #1

Justice League: Road to Dark Crisis #1
Writers: Joshua Williamson, Jeremy Adams, Chuck Brown, Phillip Kenned Johnson, and Stephanie Phillips
Artists: Dan Jurgens (inked by Norm Rapmund), Rosi Kampe, Fico Ossio, Leila Del Duca, Clayton Henry
Colorists: Hi-Fi, Matt Herms, Sebastian Cheng, Jordie Bellaire, Marcelo Maiolo
Letterer: Josh Reed
Publisher: DC Comics
The Justice League has tragically fallen in battle, and now we see the aftermath. How does the world react to the Justice League being gone? Which heroes rise up...and which villains try to take advantage? And what dark forces are lying in wait to attack? An all-star roster of DC talent showcases a world without a Justice League and sets the stage for next month's Dark Crisis event!
Price: $5.99
Buy It Here: Digital
Check out our Dark Crisis Reading List Checklist!

Read more great graphic novel and comics reviews!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He has written about comics for The Beat and NPR Books, among others. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.