newsarama's richard gray gave "justice league" #22 an 8 out of 10. gray stated that "johns does a terrific job of pulling together what has been essentially four or five separate stories, incorporating not only the three main titles that this will span over the coming months, but introducing several new players into the mix as well." he also praised that the story advanced and showed similar promise that the reboot to the new 52 did in 2011. joshua yehl of ign gave the first chapter of the trinity war a 7.8 out of 10. he felt the issue set the stage for the event and praised the character work. however, he thought that the conflict was not presented clearly yet and criticized the lack of the justice league dark in the first issue. comic book resources' doug zawisza gave the issue 4 stars out of 5, saying "johns manages to balance personality expositions with story breaks, giving readers a sense of who the opposing sides are, if nothing else. johns brings lots of big moments to the pages, but the emotions he wrings from those moments really help sell this book." zawisza was surprised by the amount of time that was spent on madame xanadu, feeling as though it was only there for reason to include the justice league dark, and was wary that the characters are in danger of being absorbed by the plot. all three praised the art in the issue, especially ivan reis' pencils.