Justice League Dark #28 Review

What do you believe in, John?

We’ve come to the end throes of the Blight event as John and his compatriots take on the Crime Syndicate’s dark team – Nick Necro and Felix Faust.

The in-between issues (from JLD #27 to this) are not needed as it is all explained in this issue only.

DeMatteis does some good work exploring the Zatanna-Constantine-Necro triumvate, and we get a much needed conversation.

Cifuentes does good work with the art, and that’s a massive help to an issue brimming with emotional backlogs.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…………….

In their journey to Nanda Parbat to stop Necro’s ‘Project Traumation’ and save Zatanna and the rest, most of the members of the  Dark team Constantine,  Deadman, Swamp Thing, Nightmare Nurse and Zauriel were captured. Pandora and the Phantom Stranger managed to escape along with Cassandra Craft, one of the many psychics imprisoned at Nanda Parbat.

We see Cassandra and the duo on an island on the South Pacific. A heated confrontation between Phantom Stranger and Craft leads to the latter somehow knocking down the Stranger. Pandora stops the argument and says that their ‘breach’ had led to a meltdown occurring at Nanda Parbat.

Felix is losing his head as he struggles to contain the meltdown but using Zauriel’s pure magic, they’re able to seal the breach. Zauriel tries to escape in the aftermath but Felix stops him and rips out his wings.

In another place, somewhere called the ‘Between’, Constantine and Zatanna discuss everything’s that happened until now. There’s some much needed words spoken as Zatanna tries to bring the rest of the Dark team to their realm. She realizes the spell is tearing them apart and decides to stop it.

Necro arrives and explains that only those intimately associated with the people there can appear on the ‘Between’ and offers them seats beside him, inplace of Faust. He explains that there is something that even the Crime Syndicate is afraid of and that is why Truamation was built.

Constantine and Zatanna rebuff his offer and this leads to the end of the mind link as Necro forcibly brings the duo out of the ‘Between’. He then indulges in a horrific process of exploding and reforming the duo over and over again. Felix manages to stop him and as Felix tells him that only ‘love’ could provoke such a reaction even as a tear falls from Necro’s eye.

Nick Necro has been one of the most compelling villains the Dark team has faced, given his mentor role to Constantine and love interest in Zatanna. Their complex relations are what make this issue such a good one.

Elsewhere, the Phantom Stranger decides to take Chris’s help in their battle, but is stopped by the Spectre.

SPOILERS END………………..

Competent art aside, the character moments are the highlights of this issue – especially when DeMatties is dealing with Necro. Though the Blight event has become a little too stretched, these interactions are what make the book work.

I’m not sure how much of a role Project Traumation is going to play in Forever Evil, but it gives most of the cast a chance at closure.

So, I give it 8.5 out of 10

+Some great character interactions
+Necro is proving to be a compelling villain
+Close up art is very good

-The event feels like it’s being stretched out