Why The Eclipso Reveal Has Made Justice League vs. Suicide Squad a Great Event Comic

When Justice League vs. Suicide Squad was first announced, the event wasn't without some skeptics.

The idea of superheroes pummelling each other instead of fighting villains has become increasingly common and, in the wake of two major motion pictures about it last year and the divisive Civil War II event at Marvel, it felt a bit like DC was about to delve into some pretty thoroughly-explored territory and try to carve out something new.

Rather than something new, what they have done to create a great event comic is to embrace the past in a creative way.

Justice League vs. Suicide Squad has a number of things that you need to make a great event comic, and touches on characters, concepts, and villains from major DC events of the past.

While that, like the heroes-fighting-heroes trope, could have easily descended into predictability, the comic manages to keep the ideas fresh.

In the first issue, audiences learned that the villain of the piece was Maxwell Lord, a megalomaniacal former Justice League associate whose work for Checkmate made him a central villain in and around the Infinite Crisis storyline a decade or so ago. His master plan, which was revealed in bits and pieces over the next few issues, dealt with the roots of the Suicide Squad (either intentionally or unintentionally a callback to DC's first post-Crisis on Infinite Earths event miniseries, Legends, in which Amanda Waller and the modern Squad made their first appearance) and Lord's subsequent struggles for control of Checkmate with Waller (which, albeit in their pre-Flashpoint form, were chronicled in the Checkmate series that spun out of the events of Infinite Crisis).

His ultimate goal, as it turned out, was to get his hands on the Heart of Darkness diamond, used by the demon Eclipso to focus his near-limitless powers with the help of a human host. This iteration of the villain (who had originally been introduced in the '60s but didn't get the powers and personality most fans know him for until 1990) was the primary antagonist for the Eclipso: The Darkness Within event...and if you're starting to see a pattern here, it's by design.

DC's history -- abandoned in their quest for a fresh start during the 2011 New 52 reboot -- has come back in Rebirth...in fits and spurts. There wasn't ever a grand hand-of-God reworking of the post-Flashpoint reality to look more like the pre-Flashpoint DC Universe. Instead, there have been little indicators that certain stories "count" again or that certain characters are quietly returning to their pre-Flashpoint status quo.

Maxwell Lord and Lobo are chief among those in Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, but it wasn't until the revelation that he wanted to use the Heart of Darkness to enslave the Justice League that Maxwell Lord's plan came into sharp focus -- and it's arguably the most, most common-sense and believable thing Max has done since becoming a villain.

If every villain is the hero of their own story, then the path to victory isn't domination of the heroes; it's convincing them (and others) to see things your way. This is literally Maxwell Lord's power (which was revealed, by the way, in Invasion!, but even before he had powers he was good at it) and in Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #4 he sets about getting something that will augment his powers avatar give him his victory: The Heart of Darkness.

The power of Eclipso is a perfect fit for somebody like Maxwell Lord, and furthermore the whole thing was hidden right under fans' noses, since Eclipso actually appeared in that epic gatefold poster attached to most DC Comics the first week of Justice League vs. Suicide Squad. The fact that the character hadn't appeared yet by the series' midway point should have been a giant, neon sign...but the writers had done a good enough job convincing most readers that the "item" in question was Lord's Squad itself and not a physical item he was looking for.

The result of all of this has been a story that's tight, logical, and evokes many of the better events of DC's past. And while the Justice League vs. Suicide Squad readers were sold --a punch-'em-up between the two teams -- might have been a lot of fun, ultimately Maxwell Lord and Eclipso have given it gravitas, thematic resonance, and a sense of scope that books about heroes punching other heroes mostly lack.