REVIEW: Young Justice #18

Today we’re checking out Young Justice #18, a Tim Drake / Stephanie Brown team-up issue!

But first, let’s talk covers! Artist John Timms and Colorist Gabe Eltaeb unite once again to give us a fantastic main cover, featuring a very NON-deceptive cover of Drake and Spoiler riding into action on Spoiler’s motorcycle. I didn’t notice this at first, but upon closer inspection of the cover, you can see that they’re riding the motorcycle not on the street, but up the side of the building. And as I said, this cover is not deceptive, because this scene is really in the book! I love it. This cover will be a real treat for long time fans of the couple.

As for the variant cover, Derrick Chew returns to give us a spectacular digital painting depicting the entire team. Man, I’d give my left hand to be able to draw like this. Another utterly frameable cover, with our boy Kon-El front and center! The pseudo anime feel really shines through in the females of the piece, who all look fantastic.

Story-wise, this issue is not only a continuation of our Young Justice team’s adventures, but a great continuation of Tim and Stephanie’s continuing story, featured prominently most recently in Detective Comics Rebirth. Stephanie calls upon her beau to assist her in taking down her father’s new criminal empire, (The Cluemaster). This prompts Tim to bring in Young Justice to remind Stephanie that she’s a part of a team now and can count on her friends. A really great message. 

We get a brief interlude by returning guest artist Michael Avon Oeming, (who I just realized is Bendis’ artist from Powers), who draws a flashback sequence. Not sure if this was because of time constraints, or if Bendis is just wanting to bring in his friends to be a part of the book.

It’s a pretty straight forward story, with some classic Bendis style dialogue shining through Clue Master. I just really enjoyed a fun simple look into Tim and Stephanie’s continued relationship. It’s so good to have these characters back in stories after so long.

We get some small bits of Superboy, my favorite being a brief shot of him now living at The Kent farm again. I’m assuming that means this issue takes place after The House of Kent story arc currently running in Action Comics. We see him in his black and red Superman t-shirt and for a moment I was concerned that he’d reverted back to his t-shirt and jeans look! Thankfully, he changed back into his new/original Superboy costume when it was time to head into action. I’m a big fan of members of the Superman family having ACTUAL costumes for their ‘superheroing’., but if his old T-shirt and jeans look became his new default civilian look, I think that would be awesome!

Once again Bendis & Walker have delivered a really great book here, which really explores the relationships of the characters. I’m really looking forward to where these final issues of the series lead us.

Haven’t read Young Justice #18 yet? You can pick up the standard cover by John Timms here (UK) or here (US). Or if you prefer the variant cover by Derrick Chew, you can get that here.