Justice League of America, Vol. 3: Panic in the Microverse

Justice League of America (2017)

by Steve Orlando, Ivan Reis (Illustrator)

The unlikeliest League ever continues their adventures in their new best-selling series with JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA VOL. 3, as part of DC Rebirth!

The unlikeliest League ever continues their adventures in their new best-selling series with JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA VOL. 3, as part of DC Rebirth!

It's the story you've been waiting for! Ryan Choi leads the JLA on a rescue mission into the Microverse to rescue his long-lost mentor, Ray Palmer, the original Atom, and unravel the mystery of his disappearance in DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH #1!

Steve Orlando (MIDNIGHTER, SUPERGIRL) and artist Andy MacDonald (TEEN TITANS: EARTH ONE VOL. 2) bring together Batman, Black Canary, the Ray, the Atom, Vixen, Killer Frost and Lobo in what is one of the most offbeat and compelling lineups the Justice League of America has ever seen. Collects JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #12-17.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Comic Book, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2018

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The JLA is finally headed to the microverse to save Ray Palmer. My problem with the story is that it's so high concept in places, it comes across as gobbledygook. In that respect, it's like those cosmic stories that bore me to tears. There's multiple issues that are just exposition explaining the concepts. It all ends with another appearance of the blue hand and Ryan Choi finally stepping up.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

A drawn-out, sci-fi heavy adventure that finally reveals "Whatever Happened to Ray Palmer?" (a.k.a. the original Atom), Vol. 3: Panic in the Microverse was a let-down. Only about half the JLA are really featured here - Black Canary, Vixen, and Ray are disappointingly left behind, per Batman's curt orders of "Maintain the JLA's presence here. Work the cases. The rest of us are going in." - and the others are more or less pushed to the background while Ryan Choi (the new Atom) takes center stage. He acquits himself nicely, but I guess I was looking for a story set in America with the entire team.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won't lie, I went into this thinking I'd hate it. I've had enough of the members of this JLA to know I don't like any of them. Even Batman doesn't behave like Batman. Then when I saw they were going into The Microverse I groaned as I really prefer DC stories that take place on Earth-1. However, I was very wrong in my assumptions. Yes, I still dislike these members of JLA but this was quite a clever plot that expands on the forgotten past of Rebirth and just gives a hint about the upcoming Watchmen re-entering the 'verse. Lots of action for sure makes this a quick read and the dialogue has some witty moments. I'm curious as to where this is going to go now.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Read as single issues]
After faffing around the elephant in the room for six months, the Justice League Of America finally head into the Microverse to rescue Ray Palmer, only to find themselves in a battle to save the fabric of reality itself - hey, that blue hand looks oddly familiar...

I feel like Steve Orlando is having great fun writing this book; he gets to drag up characters and concepts that have been absent from the DC Universe for ages and make them new again. The only thing is, some of them are so obscure that even I have no idea who they are, and there comes a point where I'm not sure who's an original character and who's a previously established character. Not necessarily a complaint, but it does feel like I'm missing something at points here.

There's a lot of high concept (or is that low concept, if it's tiny?) science going on too, plus a whole issue flashback that explains everything right when the action gets good, so the storytelling choices here aren't always a home run, but it's an overall good story arc that puts Ryan Choi in the spotlight after mostly being relegated to 'Killer Frost's love interest' for the first few issues of the book.

The art sees the return of Ivan Reis, which is always a treat, but I feel like he's very restricted here. I'm not sure if it's the deadlines of double shipping or the fact that this isn't his usual superhero story that means it doesn't feel exactly right. It's still gorgeous, but it's missing...something. There are also some fill-in issues from Felipe Watanabe (because expecting 5 issues from Reis (or most superhero artists) in 3 months is unfair) and you can see the step-down in quality. Watanabe's not a bad artist, but when you put people next to Ivan Reis, it's always going to show them up.

It's taken a while, but the JLA are finally on the right path for a change.

[Adan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was alright. I liked that this was sort of a very condensed reimagining of the old Sword of the Atom series from last time, but I didn’t like that the whole thing was basically more set-up for Doomsday Clock. At least they didn’t kill off Ryan Choi like I expected them to.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edge of the Seat, full of plot twists right from the start keeping you on your toes, gigantic eye ppoppping art, adventure and action! :D

[Will Robinson Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a less than impressive beginning to this series Steve Orlando finally gives us the story we have been waiting for since the start of DC Rebirth. What happen to Ray Palmer aka The Atom. Featuring artwork by one of my favorite DC comics artist Ivan Reis the JLA must venture into the Microverse to save Ray Palmer and maybe even the Multiverse. The artwork was good and I really enjoyed the introduction to DC comics interpretation of a microscopic world within our world. Orlando does a great job telling the origin story of the Microverse supervillain Null. I thought Null's motivations was interesting. Steve Orlando has also done a great job developing the legacy character Ryan Choi 's evolution into the mantle of The Atom. I feel that the Justice League books have been weak but this arc was quite enjoyable. This may not be a good book for newcomers to just jump into the series without reading a few previous issues in the series. I would suggest new readers should first read: DC Universe: Rebirth #1, Justice League of America: Road to Rebirth, and maybe Justice League of America Vol. 1: The Extremists. You can skip vol.2 of the series because it is more of a filler story.

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Public library copy.

I don't read tons of DC Comics or keep up with their million different superhero characters, but it seems to me Ray Palmer constantly turns up missing as I seem to recall several past events dealing with adventures such as that. I would not recommend this title to fans looking for interesting JLA stories.

[Alex E · Rating 4 out of 5]

So first off, this is more of an Atom book than a JLA book because it is 95% all Atom(s), all the time.

I never really got into the Atom as a character. However I had a vague idea of what kind of antics he would be getting into, and this story is very much those antics: Microverse, universal threat, shrinking down to sizes beyond the smallest thought possible, etc... and as mapped out as these story elements might be, this was actually pretty damn good. I thought the execution of the story was strong enough to bypass the usual setup. Also the addition of Ryan Choi as the rookie having to save Ray Palmer, the original atom, was a nice way to mix up things.

Of course, the other team members are there, but outside of Killer Frost, the others don't really have much of a role to play other than crowd control. Frost is there as a romantic interest to Ryan, which was a good motivation for him to succeed. Lobo and Batman were fun as well but very much relegated to the background.

Ivan Reis did a great job with the source material I thought. His more traditional style gave the book a silver age-y type feel, and that felt right at home with the subject matter. The art team overall did great as the worlds felt alien and strange.

Overall, this is easily my favorite JLA book of the Rebirth series. Recommended for fans of more traditional superhero stories.

[Logan Harrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10:
While this JLA roster is incredibly unique, the storyline showcased is rather lame and overly complicated. I love that both Ryan Choi and Ray Palmer have a large role in the story, both serving as bearers of the Atom mantle. The brotherly teacher/student relationship they have is really awesome and I loved seeing it evolve through this story.

Most of the other members of the JLA are a tad left out of the story (Killer Frost, Lobo, Vixen, Black Canary, The Ray), serving as massive side characters to Ryan Choi.

On the other hand, Batman feels absolutely essential to bridging the gaps from various stories leading into Doomsday Clock, particularly involving his encounters with Superman and Mr. Oz, a future version of Red Robin, an encounter with Flashpoint Batman (his own father, Thomas Wayne), and the mysterious button found by him and The Flash.

I’m so excited to see how all of these stories come together in Doomsday Clock, especially with the deep connections to Batman, Superman, and Dr. Manhattan!

[Sarospice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a Ryan Choi fan but if there was going to be a passing of the torch ATOM story this is as good as any.

[Matthew Marsili · Rating 1 out of 5]

1⭐️ Boring. It sucked. Don’t get this series. The only reason I’m reading it is for it not to go to waste.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this volume more than the last one. I can't say that this is one of my favorite series in Rebirth, but it's also not one that I've decided not to read. The character dynamics, especially with Killer Frost and Lobo, are interesting, and I actually enjoyed this trek into the Microverse. It was a pretty creative journey, living for a while in a universe too small for us to even begin to recognize. I liked getting to see the original Atom again, and I also liked this new Atom's journey to becoming more self-assured as a hero in his own right. Again, this isn't the kind of graphic novel that has me jotting down issue numbers to later purchase myself, but it was one that I can read and have a fun time with. And what's wrong with that? Plus, there were hints of some larger impact (which I'm guessing has something to do with that Watchmen crossover I've heard about), so that was some nice foreshadowing, too. All in all, if you're looking for an adventure that still has some merit in the larger scheme of DC, then this will deliver.

[Scott Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best volume of this series by far. The origin story was okay, its potential really limited to the potential of the individual characters more than the team. The first two volumes were okay, and Orlando began to develop some relationships, but it felt like the equivalent of world-building. I guess since it's within an established shared universe it was book or team building.

This volume felt like Orlando took the training wheels off and actually did something with the team. It was nice to see it as something other than just Batman's team as well. Having Choi as the leader made a for a neat twist, and Orlando handled the pacing and scale of the threat just right to make a story that fit the volume sign without being too easy for the team or too big to be believed.

[John Yelverton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope, Nuh-uh, Negative, Nix, Nil, Nada, Nay, No, No, No! Why must DC Comics insist on ramming Ryan Choi down our throats as The Atom!? I understand that you want a more ethnically diverse universe, but pull a Green Lantern and let multiple people hold that title. This was just a disgrace and a great disservice to the excellent character of Ray Palmer, the real Atom, by having him hand over his mantle as The Atom to Ryan Choi and actually proclaiming Choi to be the better Atom. What an insult to fans!

[Matt town · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Atom needs more stories! I don't know what it is about this one, but I nearly read it cover to cover! A surprisingly good time compared with how much I didn't enjoy the last two volumes of this series.

[Lukas Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice surprise. I was very bored with 2 but this actually delivered a pretty fun adventure story with great art.

[Dan Claffey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An epic ride through a plane of existence that is full of action. Interesting to see how it fits in with the DOOMSDAY CLOCK

[Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

[2.5 stars, rounded slightly up]

My Countdown to Doomsday Clock read-through continues. More Villains saying: "The world sucks, we should destroy it;" while Heroes counter with, "Nuh-uh!"

One of these reviews, I'm afraid I'll erupt over how shallow mainstream comics are. The notion that these writers should even attempt to expand what Alan Moore had closed, and then to produce what we've slogged through so far... [shudder]

I don't go in for "cosmic" comics, so when following a line-spanning story makes reading a cosmic book mandatory, I brace myself for the problems that spin every cosmic tale out of control -

tl,dr: no one can handle how big the universe is, so every attempt to tell a story "beyond" humanity just ends up a navel-gazing exploration of human foibles, and betrays the cosmic conceit. It's intellectually dishonest and a cheat

. Those problems are here in the Microverse in spades. Add the general problems with superhero team-ups (

The X-Men have a built-in excuse for being together, and even so they don't wholly escape the absurdity of adult humans donning spandex together; Batman and Superman... do not have that excuse. And, you're really going to send Batman to outer space? He's a morality tale about urban decay!

), and a Justice League Cosmic storyline is just going to crash and burn against the shoals of my disbelief.

So, yeah. Pretty much.

[Cale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Steve Orlando really seems to have liked the Grant Morrison Justice League run - his volumes feel very much inspired by them. But I don't think he pulls it off quite as well - there's a lot of wacky ideas here, but it doesn't really work. It's nice to see Ray Palmer here, and the dynamic between Palmer and Ryan Choi is the highlight of the collection. But micro-tunnels to alternate dimensions and Moz-Ga and the Null all get way out there, and there's isn't enough grounding to carry the weight of how far over the edge it all goes. That plus the sidelining of more than half of the team for most of the collection so we can focus on Ryan and Ray (Lobo, Batman and Caitlin are 'there' but they do almost nothing) means anyone who is a fan of this era of the Justice League of America spends most of the book reading about characters they care little or nothing about.
At least the art is dynamic and imaginative. And to be fair, the story is pretty imaginative too. Maybe too much for its own good.

[Krzysztof Grabowski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wtórne, nudne, przewidywalne, zmarnowany potencjał, zbędne postacie, średnia kreska. I tyle wam powinno wystarczyć, aby nie tracić czasu.

W nieco rozszerzonej wersji. Poszukiwania Raya Palmera, oryginalnego Atoma wyglądają jak ostatni film Marvela, czyli Ant-Man i Osa: Kwantomania (tylko, że omawiane 'dzieło' było nieco wcześniej). Też się zmniejszamy i lądujemy w "mikroświecie". Też mamy dziwnie wyglądający świat, z podobną florą. Pojawia się dwójka postaci, które niby coś wiedzą, ale czy można im zaufać, zwłaszcza że jedna ostrzega bohaterów przed drugą i vice wersja...

W dodatku Batman jest tu tak zbędny... Podobnie jak Killer Frost. Lobo to też grzeczna 'psinka' i ma swoją chwilę chwały, ale co oni z nim tu robią. I tylko ten nowy Atom dwoi się i troi, tyle że jest tak szablonową postacią... która walczy o swoją tożsamość, aby potem zostać TĄ NOWĄ, LEPSZĄ wersją starej postaci. No nie...

Ja to przeczytałem, wy nie musicie. Jedna z najgorszych serii w ramach DC Rebirth. I chyba tylko Hellblazer, Blue Beetle albo Cyborg są w stanie bardziej popsuć mi humor...

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the longest arc so far (all 6 issues). The team is going to the Microverse to find Ray Palmer and try to save the Microverse too (there is a storm re-writing the reality and basically the Microverse and all its people are going to be wiped out).

It is more an Atom story than a JLA story (the other members are useless here). It is one of those multiverse type of story with many "scientific" concepts related to it that are so blury to me. I just went along and kept reading and it was "meh". The villain's motivation is stupid. The art was good though.

It seems to be vaguely related to Doomsday Clock which I have not read yet so I cannot say if this is required background (most likely not). There is not much development (beside 2 pages teaser at the end) on the Might behind the Mirror story.

[Justin Nelson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was bad.
Terribly bad.
Really, really bad.
The whole story could be told in three parts instead of stretched out. The main team doesn't even appear in two whole parts! Are we supposed to care about The Atom? Or the destruction of this Microverse that we just met?
The story is not engaging and the art really misses an opportunity to show the alien beauty of a new fantasy world. They could have just gone insane with the art and made some unique aspect pop to this story. Instead, it's flat and boring.
It very, very tangentially ties back to the wider Rebirth mystery/The Button. That was the only intriguing part and it was about two pages.
How this series ran for 29 issues is beyond me. Uff dah.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Batman is still slumming it with the B-team, half of whom are ignored for 95% of the volume so we can focus on fake Atom. Frost is reduced to a fawning 50's stereotype with nothing to do except worry about her man, Vixen is shunted aside completely, and whatever Ray is, he is so forgettable that his one or two pages is jarring in that it reminds you the author has nothing for him to do except flame about.

Additionally, the plot is ludicrous - the real Atom's shtick is that he gets smaller than everyone else. Than they tease he found an even smaller place to go, then fake Atom comes along and goes to an even smaller place - repetitious and unoriginal ad infinitum.

[Martinio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, a decent story by Steve Orlando! Finally we get to see some much needed emotional character development. This time we are treated on the story of Ryan Choi (the Atom) in his quest to find his mentor Ray Palmer (which was teased in the DC Rebirth #1 one-shot).
This time Steve Orlando tells a tell on a bigger grander scale and I was impressed, hence 4 stars for this 3rd TPB of the Justice League of America. Great interaction between the members of the team and a really good cosmic adventure!

[Stephen Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series continues to underwhelm. I’m really not sure what purpose Batman served in this volume at all, considering how his lingering presence in the principal storyline. Orlando’s writing on Supergirl was much better than what he is producing here. Even more disappointing is the artwork. The style is so dated and it rarely rates any higher than mediocre; in many panels, there is a jarring dissonance between what the characters are saying and what they’re actually doing.

[J.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

PROs
-Really liked the Microverse. Really trippy, but fun to think about the whole "worlds within worlds" aspect of things.
-Lobo. Especially Lobo using his own arm (detached) as a weapon.

CONs
- Ugh. Can we PLEASE just have the originals back? Ray Palmer is the Atom. He finally gets to shine here a bit and then SPOILER! - he stays behind.
- The old... "did he make it or didn't he?" trope is here, more than once, and its not executed that well.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could have sworn Ray Palmer wasn't the Atom in the New 52, but apparently I was wrong. This has Ryan Choi recruit the JLA to find him in the Microverse, which looks way too much like Steve Orlando just saw Ant-Man the Wasp before writing it. Self-indulgent in all the quantum technobabble (which I don't think brought anything to the table) but a competent story of the JLA saving the universe.
But I'm sorry, Lobo? In the JLA? That's just ludicrous.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think there's just one more volume of this rather lackluster Steve Orlando JLA series. I mean, c'mon, Ray Palmer goes to a tiny universe and doesn't come back because he wants to help the natives and also fuck his new girlfriend? Hello, anyone here ever read Sword of the Atom? I expected better of Orlando than to rehash that storyline but here we are.

Reis's art is always great, but the two issues by some other dude were rather drawn badly.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only dip in and out of graphic novels as they come across my desk, so never get to follow a whole story from start to finish over multiple volumes. That said, I kind of like the idea of our big, brave superheroes being shrunk down to explore the Microverse and rescue one of their own (although the Batman here doesn't quite mesh with how I see Batman). The graphics were good and just the sort of bright, over the topness you expect.