Constantine knows how to push all the right buttons.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Bruno Redondo & Xermanico
What They Say:
Disaster strikes in the house of Jason Blood as Batman and his allies face the greatest threat of all. It’s up to Batman to confront a god.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The arrival of the Spectre at the end of the previous issue was, for me, a bit surprising since I’ve only just started following this series and it’s not quite clear why he’s there beyond just general vengeance. And to up the body count as well, as we see how he reduced Jason Blood to just bones, which has now unified the soul within Etrigan in the demon world, causing him to be unable to interact with the world above. That’s not exactly a game changer, but it does cause Constantine and those on his side to lose an important player overall that has some muscle and ability. The death of Blood, and the wounding of Detective Chimp, is also a big demoralizing moment as well for the group.
That essentially turns the whole issue into a moment of survival since they have such a powerful opponent out there that demands vengeance. Zatanna does her best to provide protection for the moment while they recover, which even has a rather warm moment from Harley over Chimp’s hat. We get to see Klarion be useful for the moment as well, using Teekl to get outside and see what’s going on. For Constantine, this is a significant issue to be sure as the Spectre is on a whole other level and you can see his mind turning in a million different ways trying to find out an out. And naturally, Batman does what he does best by taking control of the situation, which leads to a dust-up between him and Constantine that riffs on a punch from decades ago, but without the same kind of humor.
What this ends up going into though is amusing as it is basically “classic” Batman as he walks out and just confronts the Spectre and talks to him, man of vengeance to man of vengeance. It’s a bold move to be sure and the disbelief from some is definitely fun to watch, but it provides the time the rest need to recover and hightail it out of there. Though Constantine was a bit more background last issue, he hits the forefront well here in his interactions with Batman and what what he’s really trying to do. Which, of course, you can’t get past Batman about. Be that as it may, there’s some good minor progress here and a change or two that leaves you in a position of wondering where it’ll go next.
In Summary:
With Batman having been out of commission for a bit after Superman broke him in the previous series, it’s not quite back to form for him here, but he’s on the right path at long last. Sometimes too long in the shadows can make it even harder to step back into the game. There’s a number of good smaller moments throughout this with the cast, from Etrigan to Klarion and a wonderful little moment from Harley, but it is once again Constantine’s show and that’s working just fine by me as they continue to try and figure out this larger, darker, evil threat that’s out there.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 21st, 2014
MSRP: $0.99
