Truth & Justice

Truth & Justice (2021) #1-21

by Geoffrey Thorne, Brandon Easton, ChrisCross (Illustrator)

The ideals of truth and justice are concepts synonymous with DC's superheroes from the Golden Age of Comics to the present day, and they're the foundation for this new anthology, Truth & Justice with stories starring Vixen, Superman and John Constantine!

This series explores the length and breadth of DC's rich character history, showcasing the heart and spirit of the wide-ranging characters featured across DC's Multiverse including Vixen, Superman and John Constantine.

Vixen teams up with Dr. Mist and Impala of the Global Guardians to face down an ancient deity that’s taken over the body of a scientist investigating powerful magical artifacts. She will need to dig deep and use all the abilities in the animal kingdom to face down this powerful primeval threat!

Prisoners around Metropolis are waking up in their old homes, unaware of how they got there and being accused of escaping from Stryker’s Island. Superman will need to use all his powers, and his journalistic skills, if he’s going to save the prisoners and get them properly exonerated!

What kind of man is John Constantine? Mage, con man, and a few other choice descriptors not fit to print—but sometimes, he tries to be a good guy. When he tries to stop a young teenager from getting in deep with Papa Midnite, he is faced not just with the past as he’d like to remember it, but with exactly the kind of wizard he really is.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Batman

232 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2021

About the author

Geoffrey Thorne is an American novelist and screenwriter.

Thorne was born in the United States and currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

After winning Second Prize in Simon & Schuster's sixth annual Strange New Worlds anthology with his story "The Soft Room," he went on to publish more stories in several media tie-in anthologies as well as the Star Trek: Titan novel Sword of Damocles.

As a screenwriter, Thorne has worked with Disney, Cartoon Network, STARZ, developing various properties. His TV work includes BEN 10: ULTIMATE ALIEN & OMNIVERSE, LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT and the hit TNT series', LEVERAGE and THE LIBRARIANS.

Thorne is the co-founder and writing partner in GENRE 19, a studio he formed with artist Todd Harris in 2008.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is something of a try out book for new writers. Each creative team gets one issue to create a story with one of DC's characters. It was a digital first initiative that has now reached print.


Vixen in The Pantheon by Geoffrey Thorne & CrissCross
Yay for the return of the Global Guardians! I've always enjoyed this team with members from various countries around the globe. Vixen teams up with Impala, Dr. Mist and the Olympian to defeat a god that has returned. Pretty good.

Superman in The Revolving Door by Brandon Easton & Jahnoy Lindsay
Clark Kent researches an article about The Mass Incarceration of Black Men in America while investigating a series of cases where black men close to getting out of prison wake up the next day in their homes surrounded by police. Lindsay's art was just OK. The art was too manga influenced for my tastes. Everyone looks like a child.

John Constantine in Save Yourself by Danny Lore, Ray-Anthony Height & Adriana Melo
Constantine mixes it up with Papa Midnite. Everything about this was just OK.

Red Hood in Haunted by the Past by Jeff Trammell & Rob Guillory
The Red Hood gets dosed with Scarecrow's fear toxin and faces his fear of failure. Rob Guillory's art doesn't really belong in a Batman book. All of these giant heads on slight bodies doesn't do it for me. The story also has some logic issues. Like how Scarecrow knew to kill Jason's childhood friend when Scarecrow doesn't know the Red Hood's true identity.

Batwoman in A Quiet Getawayby Grace Ellis & Maria Laura Sanapo
The best story so far. Batwoman heads to a cabin in the Appalachians for some downtime where she gets involved in a local Mothman legend. Good story. Great art.

Robin in Happy Birthday, Damian! by Andrew Aydin & Juni Ba
It's Damian's birthday, time for Ra's al Ghul to grant him immortal life. There's very little characterization of all of Batman's sidekicks. Everyone has Spider-Man's quippy personality including Damian who is nothing like that. Damian should be a little $#!t you want to punch but he can back his swagger up with his skills. Juni Ba's art looked really out of place in a superhero comic.

Zatanna in Dream a Little Dream by Preeti Chhibber & Lalit Sharma
Zatanna gets sucked into a dream world where her powers don't work and she can't figure out why. I'm not a fan of dream stories at all.

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read only for Jason and Damian stories, but this was just boring.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no real connective thread to this collection, but I enjoyed all of the individual entries. It was a bit of a shame that the one that I bought it for, the Zatanna one, felt very slight in comparison to the others? But like I said, I really did like the other entries.

[Shannon McShortall · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I love seeing digital comics reach print media, this collection unfortunately holds so much promise and doesn’t deliver on it. The premise suggests that these will be stories of heroes tackling “real” issues and focus on truth and justice as concepts, and outside of the Superman and maybe Red Hood or Constantine story, these are all just serviceable at best stories that bear no connection to each other. While some of these serviceable stories have some fun with the characters like the Damian Wayne story, some like Vixen’s seem like something you might find if you picked up a mid-run volume of a New 52 book. The lack of cohesiveness, mixed with a heavy continuity that seems to also be in a sort of ether, combine to form a book that really lacks identity. It gets props for a couple interesting elements and for the fact it’s a great place for unique writers and artists to combine their talents, but otherwise it’s a very missable book.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another digital first anthology series. This one doesn't feel like it has a central focus, which is fine. Sure, the cover copy says something about truth and justice as concepts, but that's so broad as to be functionally meaningless in comics. The stories are fine. None of them are terrible, but none of them are great. This is perfectly normal for an anthology series, of course. My favorite was the Constantine story, which felt like it had a good grasp of the character as a bastard. The Damian Wayne story, on the other hand, felt like Batfamily fanfic, with everybody being at least slightly out of character.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

This anthology series, offered digitally by DC, was definitely more misses than hits. There is a really good Red Hood story and a fun Damian tale but everything else is mostly pointless. The art was all over the place but it was great seeing Rob Guillory doing DC work. Overall, not worth the time.

[Will Cooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

IS this book about Truth and/or Justice? There is no through line for any of these anthology stories. Just tiny arcs for some characters that newer writers were trying out. Nothing terrible, just kinda boring.

[Lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Babe, wake up! Another ugly Jason Todd pannel just dropped!
No, seriously. What was that Jason Todd artstyle 😭😭

[Kurt Lorenz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vixen: The Pantheon, ☆☆
Superman: The Revolving Door, ☆☆☆
John Constantine: Save Yourself, ☆
Red Hood, Hunted By the Past, ☆☆
Batwoman, Quiet Getaway, ☆☆☆
Robin, Happy Birthday, Damian, ☆☆☆
Zatanna, Dream A Little Dream, ☆☆