Justice League Dark #26 Review

The Sea-King is back.

Well, that was an enjoyable issue with a character whom I wish got more stuff to do in the main Forever Evil than what he does here. Still, he was great and the Dark team themselves gave us more of the magic and mayhem that has made Justice League Dark such a different beast.

For those in the know, this is the 5th part of the Blight event. Yes, I'll get into what happened between JLD #25 and JLD #26, but for now, I'll say the pieces are still being set and the main battle is yet to begin.

SPOILERS FOLLOW..................

First, every thing that happened between JLD #25 and JLD #26. Constantine managed to pull Phantom Stranger and Pandora from whatever they were doing and assigned them to the ranks of the new Dark team.

Elsewhere, Phantom Stranger's friend Chris (someone who died under his watch and was brought back from heaven by him with mysterious ghost powers) was possessed by Blight as an avatar to anchor it to the real world. Using the Sins, it fought Constantine and his team before each of them were killed one by one (and Constantine got his head loped off) just when the Nurse cast a spell.

Apparently, that spell caused everyone to go into limbo and then immediately transported them to Doctor Thirteen's house (associate of Phantom Stranger and well-known mystic).

But while in limbo, Constantine contacted Deadman and using that link, they tracked him to an undersea abandoned kingdom called 'Nan Madol'. There they found the Sea-King waiting for them.

A fight broke out before Pandora confirmed that Deadman was inside the Sea King's body and Constantine used Pandora's knife to cast a severing spell on Sea King.

With Deadman finally in control again, we learnt that during the Syndicate's arrival, Deadman went into the corpse of the Sea King and tried to hide in him, but the embedded evil overcame him and the Sea-King's personality came to the fore.

Removing the Sea-King's imprints, Constantine did a deplorable act by sealing Deadman inside the Sea-King's body. Elsewhere, Phantom Stranger appeared to have betrayed Thirteen and joined Blight.

Twisty, right?

SPOILERS END............................

The Dark universe of DC is getting some nice showcase here with complex spells and hexes. DeMatties may have put the character story to the back but he handles the non-stop action very well (especially the Sea-King) along with showing some character traits that separate the heroes from this group.

The art is fantastic and the sea floor looks great, with spectacular spells (what was the Sea-King saying anyway?) and magnificent creatures.

So, I give it 9.0 out of 10

+Beautiful art
+Characters are done justice
+The Spells are handled well

-Event is still a little slow to get out the door