The walls between magic and reality are thinning.
Creative Staff:
Story: James Tynion IV
Art: Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez
Colors: Brad Anderson
Letterer: Rob Leigh
What They Say:
Plagued by a rash of otherworldly resurrections, the new JLD team begins scouring the shadowy corners of the DCU looking for leads. Turns out, this latest mystery ties back to the Tree of Wonder, last seen laying down roots in JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE—and it bears poisoned fruit to boot. The Tree serves as a doorway from the Realm of Magic to our world, and the Upside Down Man is just the first of many all-powerful mystic entities looking for a new haunt. It’s gonna take a major twist of fate for our heroes to get out of this one…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While some aspects of it were awkward, much like parts of this installment, Justice League Dark is digging into some neat stuff amid the growing changes to the DC Universe. I’ve enjoyed James Tynion’s work on some of the more magic-oriented books from DC previously and this one is no exception as he gets himself established. It’s welcome to be tied to a good artistic time with Martinez and Fernandez as they capture a lot of it beautifully, such as the Tower of Fate and Diana herself. There’s a good flow to the book as a whole – though that page you have to turn to read is awkward on a desktop – and I like the larger narrative that’s built here.
The opening pages are interesting as it takes us back to when Diana was young and came across a ritual done in the woods by a group of women that brought forth some dark magic. That’s something that has been on her mind for a long time but has been in the background. Her careful watching of the vent is well-done as is the panicked flight once she’s discovered. She won’t be able to do that in the present as we see just how bad things go in this installment. Diana’s not exactly got a team to work with here but is keeping the group together after surviving the fight in the Justice League basement since it reaffirms her belief that things are very wrong with magic. What helps at this point is that Zatanna is now ready to talk about things after the vision she had of her father. As she says, the magic community is pretty tight overall and very wary of outsides.
That brings them to the Tower of Fate to meet with Nabu in order to get answers about what’s really going on. It’s confusing at first as Kent is in the costume but the answer as to where’s Khalid is dealt with in a good way. I didn’t want to see that series retconned out of existence. Nabu does eventually reveal some of what’s going on Zatanna and Diana as they’re the only ones allowed all the way in and it’s made clear how magic was ushered into the world, the creation of the Lords of Order, and the belief that Chaos is behind all of this to draw the magic back into itself. It’s not exactly the smoothest of background plot dumps but it’s effective overall in showing the past and just how intense Nabu is. The history lesson is interesting as a modern continuity piece but it left me wondering how much of past history was reworked to achieve it.
In Summary:
With a nice subplot that brings Constantine in to deal with Swamp Thing and his retirement plans, there’s a lot going on in this book. Langstrom and Bobo are kept to the sidelines with a few gags that land well and this lets the focus be on Diana and from there to others like Zatanna or Swampy as needed. I like the idea that’s at the foundation of the story in that the magic is being reclaimed and larger forces are at work that may be incomprehensible. And the use of Nabu and Kent is always welcome as I have such long and fond memories of the characters going back to the 80s. Justice League Dark is a solid book but it’s one that really insists on being binge-read.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: DC Comics via DC Universe
Release Date: August 22nd, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
