Half insane and damaged goods; exactly what a Justice League Dark should be.
What They Say:
The witch known as the Enchantress has gone mad, unleashing forces that not even the combined powers of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg can stop. And if those heroes can’t handle the job, who will stand against this mystical madness? Shade the Changing Man, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, Zatanna and John Constantine may be our only hope!
The Review:
When the solicitations began for the DC Comics relaunch and the dark line of titles in particular, Justice League Dark was at the top of my list of titles I was interested in. The concept itself works well by having a group that can deal with the magic problems that threaten the world and it brings together a very distinct and intriguing group of characters. What gave me some cause for concern though was that it was coming from the mind of Peter Milligan. I’ve long liked his work back when he did things before the Vertigo line with Shade the Changing Man and others but his work on the Flashpoint miniseries for Secret Seven gave me cause for concern as it was a hard read, very disjointed and difficult to enjoy. It had some great moments and interesting characters, several of which populate this book as well. Thankfully, the opening issue here definitely comes across as his style of work but it’s far more accessible while still having a lot of mystery to it.
Magic in the DC Universe has long been a favorite of mine though it has been shuffled to the Vertigo realm for quite awhile. The relaunch has changed that by bringing the two together and that’s helped to put the superhero side in a more serious light. The opening issue here has incidents happening across the country that causes three members of the Justice League to seek out the Enchantress as they believe she must be the root cause and potentially has gone insane. And there’s a leery nature about them in approaching her that’s wholly justified as she has gone off her rocker for undisclosed reasons. She acts out when it comes to them, taking down the big players easily, but there are some subtler aspects as well. Multiple versions of her other self, June Moone, are wandering the city and getting into accidents and the story follows one of them that’s unsure of herself and what’s going on, her mind filled with curious phrases that make no sense to her.
With Madame Xanadu seeing that the future is telling her to sod off, she knows that they have to start pulling together the right kind of people to handle the coming danger. And her choice to do it is certainly surprising, even after Secret Seven, as she insists that Shade be the one to do it, to gather the half insane and damaged people that are connected to the world of magic in order to deal with the Enchantress. The group doesn’t come together here, but the threads are plainly visible as we see Deadman, Zatanna and John Constantine all touched upon in addition to the others. It’s a significant group that’s in the formative stage here and unlike other team books that are slowly drawing together, this one feels very natural as the threat is already present and the larger scale of it is made clear at the end, but only in a scratching the surface way. Compared to the different ways that both Teen Titans and Justice League proper are introducing us to their teams, this one and Demon Knights do it far, far better.
Digital Notes:
This Comixology edition of Justice League Dark contains the main cover as seen with the print edition with no variants or other extras included.
In Summary:
Peter Milligan had me hedging my bets with this title but that was eased a bit with Red Lanterns which I rather enjoyed. Justice League Dark delivers on the promise of the solicitation and is likely to be a far more intense and better cast filled version of Shadowpact with hopefully intriguing ties to the Justice League proper. This is the kind of book that has needed to exist for some time and is ideal at this stage where magic is more formally blended back into the mainstream universe instead of being kept largely to the world of the Vertigo books. Milligan covers a lot of ground here and touches on a lot of characters and Mikel Janin does a great job of presenting it with the artwork, making each character distinct and handling the blending of the more well known superheroes just right. It has a great look to it with lots of detail and a sense of color and depth that lets it stand apart from a lot of other books. The more I thought about this issue and upon a second and third reading, the more I appreciated it and became more enthused about it as I wrote about it. Definitely a solid and worthy book to check out.
Grade: A-
