Stranded in space, the Justice League Odyssey must find the parts needed to fix their ship before Darkseid finds them. Minor spoilers for Justice League Odyssey #16 follow.
The past several issues of Justice League Odyssey have been pretty solid and have felt drastically different than how the series began. There’s been a lot of build to something grand even within the smaller bottle story being told. Now, with new characters being introduced, how does that fit into the overall story? It’s hard to tell right now, but this issue does a great job of building the mystery and threat, all while having humor and fun with its characters.
The best part of this series since the original cast was transformed by Darkseid has been the new cast. Well, the relatively new cast because Jessica is still present, but changed. This issue is no different from that because the best part of this issue is its use of its characters. Dan Abnett writes Jessica Cruz incredibly well and it’s obvious that he has a lot of fun writing her. You don’t write a line liked “I got nuked by Darkseid and I got better,” without loving a character. Abnett also writes her humor, or lack of humor, well too. It’s really great to see Jessica trying to crack jokes and failing miserably.
The rest of the cast is great too, even if they don’t have as much shine to them. Dex-Starr is funny as always cause c’mon, he’s a rage cat, that’s inherently funny. Blackfire brings a hint of maturity to the group and tries to be a minor voice of reason. And as for Orion, this issue really dives into his thought processes and assumptions that Darkseid is behind everything, even if that’s not the case. It’s a great subversion to the typical plot point where a legacy character arrives and reveals information that changes things drastically.
After several issues of build though, it really felt that there should be some drastic plot developments occurring in this issue. For the most part though, this doesn’t happen, which is disappointing. However, once the final couple of pages land, the story changes drastically and introduces a massive plot development. It’s disappointing that it took all issue to get it, but it presents a great intro into the next issue.
Cliff Richards brings some solid art to this issue as well. His style is similar to Will Conrad’s so there’s no jarring change in styles. However, he does bring a bit more Mike Deodato stylings into his art with some very sharp inks at times. His layouts are well done and he keeps the issue flowing, no matter if it’s simply a conversation or an action scene.