Justice League Dark #18 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire & Ray Fawkes (story), Mikel Janin (aart), Jeromy Cox (colors)

The Story: Nothing quite like having your dad step in and show you up in your own story.

The Review: While I still think the higher-ups at DC are a bit foolish for their prejudice against recap pages (which are just practical, especially for new/late readers), they have a fairly sensible rationale for it.  I agree that readers aren’t dumb and in a lot of ways, gathering information from context is several times more valuable than having it handed to you.  But if a writer just ends up dumping all that into the front-end of the issue anyway, then what’s the point of rejecting recaps?

If nothing else, that kind of clumsy exposition signals a major red flag for the rest of the issue, especially if it takes up a two-page splash as it does in this issue.  With DC’s shortened page count, two pages is quite a lot simply to summarize the same bullet points that have been summarized in every issue before: Zee and Tim in trouble, Tim as savior, Xanadu growing old, Orchid turning monster, Constantine as an honest Abe, world going to ruin, etc.  It just seems like Lemire-Fawkes have run out of ideas and are stalling with old material as much as they can.

Animal Man #17 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire & Scott Snyder (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Animal Man and Swamp Thing—reunited, and it feels so good.

The Review: The most disappointing thing about Rotworld has been the fact that at the end of the day, it’s another apocalyptic scenario with humanity on the brink of doom and a bunch of undead shambling around.  Granted, there’s plenty of stories that can be gleaned from that premise, but this title in particular hasn’t done much with it except feature a bunch of those shambling undead in superhero outfits.  Not quite the groundbreaking crossover we hoped for.

Another disappointment was the choice to separate Alec and Buddy, forcing them to find their way back to each other on their own.  Although Alec has accomplished a great deal during his time sojourning the world alone, Buddy, despite his company, has done little to help the war effort by comparison.  This series has already made it clear that Buddy, in the grand scheme of the Red, Green, and Rot, is really a second banana—but did they have to reduce him to sidekick in his own book?

Animal Man #16 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: This time, the Green Lanterns are really going green.

The Review: I generally don’t approve of internet speculation about the whys and wherefores of publishing or writing decisions, but I do love trying to predict what’s coming up next in a story.  With the former, my belief is unless you have a firsthand account of the business, you really have no basis for your theories.  With the latter, your basis is the story itself, as well as the vast ocean of comic book continuity that serves, in legal terms, as both evidence and precedent.

So I was mightily impressed by Ghost of Mars’ theory on my last review of Animal Man that the Lantern trapped beneath Metropolis was Driq of Criq.  For one, I just had to give props for Ghost’s knowledge of the Green Lantern mythos, and for another, considering Driq’s undead nature, it made a lot of sense for the story.  In fact, I could’ve been fairly disappointed by another choice of Lantern, had Lemire not used an even better one.

Justice League Dark #15 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire & Ray Fawkes (story), Mikel Janin (art), Jeromy Cox (colors)

The Story: Constantine telling the truth?  Good Lord—this world is all wrong!

The Review: You know what point of conflict I deeply wish will just go away from comics—or any other kind of story—forever?  The whole “science versus magic” debate.  Besides the fact that it’s just been done a thousand times, I find the whole argument forced and ridiculous, mostly because the skeptics often deny the existence of magic as they watch it happen right in front of them.  From a purely storytelling perspective, it just has no juice left in it anymore.

So while I appreciate Lemire and new writing partner Fawkes avoiding the argument itself, I still regard a plot revolving around the tension between science and magic with a little wariness.  To their credit, Lemire-Fawkes seem to find a very nice middle ground between the two opposing forces, where science has a place in understanding the effects the magic, though it remains completely baffled as to the cause.  Even in a world where science has clearly mastered the planet, it continues to refer to magical occurrences as an “anomaly” or “disordered energies.”

Animal Man #15 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: So it seems like the monster has become the master—of the monsters.

The Review: Being an ardent follower of both Animal Man and Swamp Thing can be, to use a well-worn cliché, a double-edged sword.  The sharp, shiny side is you have a plot enriched by two titles working together.  The dull, blunted side is dealing with moments where the two books cover the same terrain.  And let’s face it: if you’re reading either one of these series, you’re probably reading both.

That meant dealing with a lot of the same kind of exposition for the early issues of this arc.  Animal Man particularly suffered because Lemire doesn’t have quite the fleetness of language that his writing buddy does and he hasn’t been quite as aggressive with the pacing as he could have been.  Last issue felt like an especially low point for this series as a whole, burdened with more talk than action, and only the barest exploration of what’s left of the Rot-infested world.

Justice League Dark #14 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Graham Nolan (layouts), Victor Drujiniu (finishes), Jeromy Cox (colors)

The Story: It’ll be hell for the real estate agent who has to put this house on the market.

The Review: I must apologize for the delay on this one, but my shop actually received this issue late this week.  I’m actually not entirely sure how an entire slew of comics could be delivered on time and one got left out, but such are the vagaries of the modern day shipping system.  I once ordered a book from a seller who lived only two counties over, and another book from a seller across the country.  The cross-country book arrived two weeks before the intra-county one.*

Anyway, I’m not sure anyone really needed to rush-order this particular issue.  One major complaint I’ve had about nearly all of DC’s fantasy offerings is that none have really been very daring, creativity-wise.  I don’t quite understand how, in a setting where literally anything can happen, we can get so very little of novelty.  I’d hoped that Lemire’s chops would move at least this title out of that rut, but I’ve been sadly disappointed so far.

Animal Man #14 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: And just when your ruined world can’t get any worse, enter an evil sorcerer.

The Review: I’ll let you in on a little secret: I actually dislike reviewing issues that are mostly fighting sequences—actively dread them, really.  Unless the superpowers involved are fairly spectacular and innovative, I find it very hard to say anything about them.  They tend to reveal more about the artist’s strengths than the writers, and they rarely do much to inform the story, unless of course the characters engage in some awkward exposition in the middle of it all.

And I’ve already made plain my general dissatisfaction with the Rot horde as enemies.  As mindless, one-note creatures, they serve as nothing more than pure cannon fodder, stuff for our heroes to mow down indiscriminately.  Even the Rot-infestees don’t seem all that different from the normal type of Rotling, except for the fact that they wear clothes.  Since they pose so little challenge, it doesn’t take that much effort from Buddy and his gang to slaughter them, and leaving little for me to comment about on the issue’s first act.

Justice League Dark Annual #1 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Mikel Janin (art), Ulises Arreola (colors)

The Story: You got swords—three of them!—and you got sorcery.  That’s some legit fantasy.

The Review: I’d never have thought this series could get an annual of its own.  Generally, you associate annuals with already established bestsellers that the publisher can try to exploit even more sales out of.  But as I noted in Action Comics Annual #1, DC has taken a different route with these kinds of issues post-relaunch.  Now that they have more importance and purpose, the annual can be an invaluable tool to close big storylines in a splashy way.

Ultimately, I’m not quite as enthused about the way this arc ended as I thought I’d be, but there’s no denying that Lemire delivers a fairly spectacular conclusion to the search for the Books of Magic.  On paper, it’s everything you want it to be: a big group of DC’s most prominent occult figures, facing off against fire trolls and wood spirits and evil sorcerers, in the most sacred land of the DCU, all to retrieve the very sources of mystic power.  What’s not to like?

Justice League Dark #13 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Mikel Janin (pencils), Victor Drujiniu (inks), Ulises Arreola (colors)

The Story: Anyone know of good insurance for a magical house located in outer space-time?

The Review: Besides the sheer lameness of a name like “Justice League Dark,” I mostly dislike the title because I feel the Justice League operates in such vastly different world than its Dark counterpart that sharing a brand doesn’t make sense—particularly if no one recognizes it.  Still, the title does give you the idea that where magical threats are concerned, we’re dealing with some League-scale villains, which requires League-class heroes.

Certainly the potential for a major showdown between the mystic forces of good and evil is there.  The introduction of big ideas (the Houses of Mystery and Secrets, the Black Room, the Books of Magic) and big names in DC’s occult universe (Felix Faust, Dr. Mist, Timothy Hunter, and Dr. Occult) is evidence that Lemire wants to write that epic.  At the moment, though, he hasn’t quite put all these elements to the best work possible.

Animal Man #13 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Steve Pugh (art), Timothy Green II (pencils), Joseph Silver (inks), Lovern Kindzierski (colors)

The Story: Buddy discovers his world can cross its overpopulation problems off the list.

The Review: One complaint everyone pretty much has about Events from either of the publishers, one I join wholeheartedly on, is how many titles they end up invading.  Sometimes—who am I kidding?—almost all the time, there’s no actual reason to squeeze them into the plot.  But you can’t deny that there’s no better way to give a storyline an epic, important feel.  When one title has a world-spanning conflict no other title notices, why should you do any different?

Such is the rock and hard place we have in Rotworld.  I’m rather charmed that Lemire and Scott Snyder continue to claim that this dystopia their stars have entered is anything more than an alternate reality, as if there’s even a chance none of this grimness will reverse course after several issues.  Can we truly believe that once this arc ends, we’ll have other heroes sitting around, reminiscing about the time Hawkman turned into a deformed, flesh-eating zombie?

Justice League Dark #12 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Mikel Janin (art), Ulises Arreola (colors)

The Story: John Constantine mulls on the difficulties of having a magical love life.

The Review: When DC first announced the relaunch, the folks in charge promised it didn’t mean a complete reset of the universe or, to put it more clearly, it didn’t mean every piece of continuity and tradition of the last 70+ years would be abandoned.  Some things would be preserved as needed.  And granted, a few creators have kept up that promise, albeit mostly with things that already sell.  No need to rock the boat or fix what ain’t broken and all that.

Thus far, only a couple writers have gone out of his way to preserve the lesser-known, obscure bits of DC canon, and none more so than Lemire.  He has done more than his part to save all the great supernatural and occult stories for a new generation, but he doesn’t do so intrusively.  At no point does he indulge in excesses of nostalgia or force readers to dig through back issues to figure out what he’s talking about.  He makes every bit of new info clear and accessible.

Justice League Dark #11 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Mikel Janín (art), Ulises Arreola (colors)

The Story: Everyone knows the best part of a magical quest is the loot.

The Review: It’s been a while since my last lecture on magic in fiction, but now that this title has started to get its mystic cred again with Lemire on board, the time seems ripe to talk about it once more.  To start, let’s discuss Harry Potter.  A major part of that series’ appeal is its finite, highly constructed, almost scientific approach to its magic.  Spells must be done in a certain way, have limited effects, and bear enough resemblance to real world physics for us to understand.

But J.K. Rowling had the luxury of establishing all the magical laws of her story-world herself.  The sprawling universe of a major comic book publisher is a whole different deal, with each writer and artist having their own ideas for how things should and shouldn’t work.  But DC has a grand opportunity here, with its relaunch, to set some clear stakes for future writers to work with, even if those stakes are only tenuously propped up and stretch far and wide.

Justice League Dark #10 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Mikel Janín (art), Ulises Arreola (colors)

The Story: Dear Lord—you never leave John Constantine alone with an unopened box!

The Review: It seems a tad unfair to harp on the deficiencies of Peter Milligan’s writing on this title, which feels not unlike beating a dead horse, but reading this issue made me realize just how monotonously, well, dark his run was.  It started out on a low note, and each month things only got progressively grimmer until you felt mired in it.  After a certain point, too, it just got to be dull; indifference kicked in as a coping mechanism and all that darkness slid off your back.

Lemire brings an entirely different tone to his JLD.  Though largely contentious and pessimistic, the team doesn’t wallow in negativity, and their unusual lifestyles offer grounds for some oddball humor.  Case in point: N’aall, the House of Mystery’s demon caretaker, who, “due to a rather embarrassing set of circumstances I don’t care to relive,” must serve Constantine in a butler’s outfit, including old-timey eyeglasses and vest.  You can almost hear the British accent he had to affect per his master’s whims.

Justice League Dark #9 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Mikel Janín (art), Ulises Arreola (colors)

The Story: Once again, we learn that only horrible things happen in the jungle.

The Review: Considering the excitement I had when this series first launched, it felt almost painful when I ultimately decided to drop it.  Not to rehash old grievances, but the series at the time lacked focus, plain and simple.  Most of the cast had little to nothing to do, and the plot often wandered erratically.  Peter Milligan seemed so focused on fulfilling some abstract conception of “darkness” that he neglected character work and story development entirely.

While Lemire has been slightly overshadowed by his brother-in-arms at DC, Scott Snyder, no one can deny he is just as responsible for the new creative life coursing through the publisher’s veins at the moment.  From both Animal Man and Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E., we know he never lets tone or theme dictate the substance of his stories.  He builds his characters and plot first, and eventually, overarching motifs reveal themselves, giving the series unity.