Forever Evil

‘Face-turn’ is wrestling parlance for when a ‘baddie’ wrestler (or Heel) switches nature and becomes a ‘goodie’ (or ‘Face’, short for ‘Babyface’). In this case, ‘goodie’ and ‘baddie’ are not just subjective terms; Face wrestlers are virtuous, fight relentlessly against the odds and generally perform more impressive in-ring maneuvers, while Heel wrestlers are cowardly, cheat and usually avoid fair competition as much as possible. As a result, the crowd hates the Heels and loves the Faces, but they love nothing more than when a despised Heel turns Face. One of the most spectacular, and certainly unexpected Face-turns in superhero comics came in the 2013 DC event Forever Evil.

This was a massive crossover, spilling into dozens of separate comics, but the core story was told in Geoff Johns’ main Forever Evil miniseries, with strong supplemental material in the ongoing Justice League title, also written by Johns. Following directly on from the shock ending of the Trinity War crossover, and springboarding off of DC’s Villains Month in November, the story hits the ground running, with all the mightiest heroes missing/ presumed dead, and the Earth under occupation by a gang of malevolent Justice League doppelgangers from another dimension, where evil is the ruling status quo.

Indeed, the first few issues are quite hard-going, with a relentlessly grim tone, very few sympathetic characters, and several scenes of graphic violence. But by the end of the second issue, a ray of hope comes from the most unexpected source, as Superman’s arch nemesis Lex Luthor pledges to fight back against the villainous Crime Syndicate. The second and third acts are essentially a sequence of crowd-pleasing action beats as Luthor assembles his own team of classic DC villains, and they exact their own gruesome revenge on the invaders. It’s a plot arc which is more commonly seen in horror exploitation (think Last House On The Left, or I Spit On Your Grave), but if your stomach is strong enough, it’s thrilling to see played out with A-List villains such as Deathstroke, Sinestro, Captain Cold and Black Manta.

Johns’ real achievement here is to find the humanity in Lex Luthor, in particular through his relationship with a grotesque simpleton Superman clone that he has cultivated, known as B-Zero (or Bizarro). Like all good Face-turns, even as Luthor is redeemed, he maintains all the characteristics that defined him as a villain; Luthor’s methods are just as ruthless, it’s just that his agenda has shifted to the side of the angels.

Forever Evil (FE) gets a strong recommendation from me; especially if it’s preceded by the Villains Month prologues I mentioned earlier, along with the supporting issues of Justice League (JL) and Justice League America (JLA). If you can, try to read in the following order: FE#1, FE#2, JLA#8, JLA#9, JL#24, FE#3, JL#25, FE#4, JL#26, FE#5, FE#6, JL#27, JL#28, JL#29, FE#7.