Justice League #14 Review

Writers: Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV / Artists: Jim Cheung and Stephen Segovia / DC Comics Up until this point, if you said that the Thanagarians lived on Thanagar, you’d be completely right. But it was revealed back in Dark Nights: Metal, that Thanagar was actually a front to their real homeworld: Thanagar Prime. It’s like the dry cleaning service that hides the Speakeasy in the basement. Most of the known universe doesn’t know about the secret homeworld, which allows them to operate with virtual impunity. Meet the new mobsters of the DC Universe.  In this new arc, Martian Manhunter, Hawk Girl, and John Stewart travel to the Hawk homeworld to get some answers from the Martian Keep, the oldest and wisest of the Martian race who hold all of the planet’s history. The Keep is kind of like an alien refugee, seeking a home after her planet was destroyed. She’s the only other living green martian besides J’onn. And the information that she holds could give the League some much-needed answers to their specific questions. But there’s a bit of a problem. Something isn’t right on Thanagar Prime. And our heroes are being kept in the dark about what’s really going on.

There’s a lot to unpack from the intro to this arc. It’s easily the densest issue of the series. Having to seed the new origins of an entire planet while catching up with characters we haven’t seen in a few issues is hard work. But what I wanna focus on are the themes explored, because they’re at the center of all of …