Written by Peter Milligan
Illustrated by Mikel JaninThe 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 – but how can we put our trust in beings whose very presence makes ordinary people break out in a cold sweat?
As I said in Comics Should Be Cheap this week, the “Dark” side of the DCnU has by far been the most compelling and personally engaging arm of the entire relaunch, and this book has been purposely designed to sit at the head of this particular table. But how does it stack up with the other fantastic Dark debuts this month?
Wave your wands, click your heels and head on past the cut to find out!
Up until I read this issue, DCnU books could fit into two nice situational categories: the books that started completely fresh and were accessible to everyone and the books that continued on with their pre-relaunch status quo exactly where they left off that were, for lack of a better term, new reader kryptonite. However, Justice League Dark operates within the unique designation of “confusing for new readers AND old readers alike”, mostly in that some parts of it are rebooted from scratch and others very clearly pick up plot threads from the former DCU. But hey, at least it’s unique right?
Allow me to explain: I’ve been keeping track of the whereabouts of the DC Universe for quite some time now and the only book that could illuminate any of what I read in this issue was the Flashpoint Secret Seven mini-series and even then it only helped me know the NAMES of some of the characters I was reading about. Now, I know I know, lack of familiarity should normally be my problem, but I feel that the issue being a debut issue AND a debut issue that exist as 1/52nd of a universal reboot should have spent a little more time defining its characters rather than letting crucial things like who the hell June Moone is, how she’s connected to The Enchantress and, for that matter, who the Enchantress is slide like it did. On top of this, while I know why Zatanna and Batman SHOULD be chummy and I know why the Enchantress’ magic SHOULD hurt Superman because it was explained to me pre-relaunch. Am I to assume the same rules still apply and, if so, what should new readers think? And good lord, of all the things to survive the relaunch, the connection/relationship/weird posthumous coital whatever between Deadman and Dove had to live on and appear in a book that was not universally horrible? It’s like some elements of the story take reader understanding for granted and others don’t take it for granted enough.
That having been said, there is still a lot to like in this comic. Specifically everything involving Shade, the Changing Man. Given his past experience with the character, its no surprise that Milligan has given Shade the most powerful scene in this issue. The time taken to really define just how tortured Shade’s soul is at this point in his troubled existence is indicative of the kind of depth I always wish to see writers attribute to their characters or, more specifically, that Milligan attributed to any other character in the issue besides MAYBE Enchantress. It helps that Shade happens to be the character I am most drawn to in the entire book, but either way his introductory scene, in addition to the scene of the Justice League attempting to apprehend Enchantress really elevate the book.
On the art side of things, Mikel Janin is tragically inconsistent. I use the additive “tragic” because when he is on, he is COMPLETELY on. Like Salvador Larocca/Doug Braithwaite on. His lines were crisp, his pacing was on point, his use of shadow added just enough weight to the full page to define the character interactions perfectly. The only painful part is that for a little under half of the issue, he just seems rough and every bit of positive work ethic his pencils exhibit is taken down about six or seven notches to a shadow of what it was sometimes one page before. Now, let me make something clear: even his less good stuff is still better than most, its just damn unfortunate that it couldn’t have all looked like John Constantine’s one-page introduction to the series.
Overall, its very clear that Milligan is attempting, as he should be, to engage in some hardcore universe building in order to make this book something more than “the Justice League with all those magicians on it”, but he’s building his universe a lot like building anything from IKEA without those little dowels. In other words, he is missing the small details that really hold a universe together. That said, his first issue of X-Force (the book that would become X-Statix a year later) ended with him killing 90% of the cast, so he is obviously a writer that tends to fill in the gaps as he goes along. For that reason and that reason alone am I willing to give this book a shot based on the singular high points of this first issue.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – Buy
