This title has a lot going on. I’ve gone back a few times to makes sure that I haven’t missed anything. In this issue it seems to all start to come together. Jessica Cruz is insider her ring struggling to get free with the help of Cyborg, who downloaded his consciousness into the ring. Lex Luthor thinking he is invincible is trying to take on Mobius on his own. The Justice League and Crime Syndicate are a sneeze away from tearing each other apart. The only thing that is keeping them as “allies” for the moment is the baby that Superwoman is about to have, which according to Batman is the weapon that Owlman was talking about. The fight between the League and Mobius rages on when suddenly the Flash arrives warning everyone that death is near. Just as it looks like death had come for Lex, a boom tube opens and with that we have the arrival of Grail, her mother and Steve Trevor. At that moment we also have another arrival, Superwoman’s baby boy. Now we witness the power that has been infused into Steve, which is great enough to incinerate Mobius with a single blast! It seems that there is still some of Steve Trevor inside of him because he begs Diana for help, but he is clearly under the control of Grail. She now exclaims that Steve is going to destroy them all. But the bigger question is who is the father of the baby boy and why is he such a threat?

   What an action packed issue! I have to say that I am a little skeptical about the next issue because of so much that they have to wrap up. Not to mention the revelation that has been promised to us about the identity of the Joker. Can they wrap up the story in just one more issue? The one confusing element to the story that I don’t understand is what powers does Steve actually have? If someone could offer some help with that I would appreciate it. Something about this issue that I really liked was the timely arrival of the Flash, which signifies that death is near but we don’t know who. It’s a very clever way of adding suspense to the story. The big mystery now is what is the deal with this baby? Will it have some effect on Rebirth? We are going to have to wait until the end of this month to see how this all wraps up. I mean let’s not forget that we also have the Crime Syndicate, what is going to happen to them? Leave it to Geoff Johns to leave such a cliff hanger. So many questions!

   This book had a bit of a delay, Jason Fabok seemed to have a bit of trouble getting all the artwork done for these last few books. But flipping through the pages you can see why, his attention to details is ridiculous.  My favorite page is the one with Superwoman holding her new baby, with that sinister look in her facial expression, expressing to us that this is one baby that doesn’t bring joy to the world but trouble. But through twitter he has expressed that he has completed the next issue and will be taking a break (hopefully not too long). It is things like this that really make me value my commission he did for me at Wondercon that much more (this is me just bragging a bit). Overall this is a very suspenseful book hopefully setting up a great ending, who knows what Johns has in store for us!

Darkseid War Chapter 9: Power Mad

Publisher: DC Comics

Written by: Geoff Johns

Artwork by: Jason Fabok

Colors by: Brad Anderson