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.

Justice League Dark #0 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Lee Garbett (pencils), Cam Smith, Jack Purcell, Scott Hanna, Walden Wong (inks), Pete Pantazis (colors)

The Story: A threesome is messy and complicated enough without magic thrown into it.

The Review: Everyone loves a man of mystery.  That’s about the only explanation I can come up with for why, no matter how unscrupulous and contemptible he gets, Constantine retains such magnetic appeal, for the characters around him and for us as well.  Since he’s the very epitome of the antihero, you need faith that his choices will lead to good in the end, rather than place any trust in the nobility of any given action.

Even though Constantine’s always had a personal gain element to his character, I don’t know if reducing his motives to pure ambition makes him all that interesting.  Lemire lays the bottom line for John’s entire future of dirty dealing and manipulation from the first page: “I wanted real magic.  I wanted to be the best.”  Granted, we’re talking about a younger (therefore gutsier—and dumber) mage here, one more geared toward punk wear than the private eye outfit of later years, but you’d think his goals would be more subtle than that.