Justice League Dark #39

Stop being so adorable, cover.

Some people would nitpick this cover to show what huge pop culture brainiacs they are. But I'm cool with them genderswapping Velma and having Scooby Doo wear a trenchcoat.

Don't try to make sense of that last paragraph! I'm in a mood!

This issue starts off explaining how nothing turned into something and that something it turned into was God so that God could start making some things that make sense from a human perspective. But never mind that part about God being created from nothing because that's just nonsense. As every believer knows, something can't come from nothing. And something can't just have always existed without an explanation. It's better just to assume an intelligence so infinitely superior than ours has always existed and, for some reason, that intelligence didn't decide to make us until it had already existed for infinity. It couldn't love us that much or it would have created us as soon as possible! Which would have been after an infinite amount of time had passed. Just imagine how many other creations this infinite intelligence created before getting around to us! And we're a pretty shitty model, so you've got to assume that we were just another practice batch. The infinite intelligence is probably still trying to work out the kinks, like cancer and racists. And free will, probably, because that shit really fucks up the bake.

When did Swamp Thing get so knowledgeable about universal matters? Stick to bulb facts, Rooty!

This issue is called "Pralaya" for some reason. Isn't that one of those Denny's breakfast promotions? "Come in for Pralaya! All month long! All you can eat pancake stacks! Get 'em before they disappear in an unending miasma of entropy and butter!"

Justice League Dark are attacked by dark creatures of a dark so dark that they are what darkness was before we gave it a name and exposed it to the light. It's like dark that no human eye has never not seen! It's the kind of dark that lies behind the darkness that you can't see! Somebody should have brought a flashlight. I wanted to say "torch" so that I'd sound British but then I figured my American readers would believe I meant an actual torch and then they'd be all, "But wouldn't Frankenstein freak out?"

I don't really care what my American readers think anyway! So I should have just stuck to my blunderbusses and said torch!

Some vast, dark creature is narrating as it watches the Justice League Dark torn apart by its dark darklings. It marvels at how these creatures fight even though they're insignificant motes in an infinitely vast eye. It just makes the Narrator sound naive! As if every one of us, once we realize our lives don't matter, should put a bullet through the roof our mouths. Look, Narrator! Even if I knew my life wasn't just insignificant but actually harmful to all existence, I still wouldn't kill myself because only when I'm dead will there be no time for another cookie. But while I live, cookies!

Oh! Oh! I know what's happening!

When the Justice League Dark left the Land of Imagination at the Beginnings of Time, they teleported into John Constantine's toilet! Now he's been watching them struggle to battle his turds as he laughs about how insignificant they are in his eyes! His turds are full of curry which is why they burn when they touch, dissolving Frankie, Swampy, Orchid, and Boston. Now John has flushed and he's sending them all down around the bend. I bet as they start to whirl around the bowl, they'll begin to be attacked from above by the yellowest of yellow drippy creatures!

The Justice League Dark begins to fight back because how embarrassing would that be if they were taken down by a bunch of floating turds? Deadman rallies like never before as it finally dawns on him that he's a ghost. And one of the special powers given to ghosts by God is the ability to turn into an army of ghosts. Ectoplasm is an infinite resource, I guess.

It's shit like this that has caused me to grow weary of this book.

The mystic whatzits are always super powerful and nigh on unbeatable for mystic reasons. But then the Justice League Dark all individually rally back using whatever power they have so that it looks like they're going to defeat the mystic whatzits with their ingenuity! But then the mystic whatzits redouble their efforts and Justice League Dark falls to the mystic whatzits. Then they're captured and have to free themselves which they do because this time they decide to put their all into their magic because they were just half-assing it last time. And they rise up to defeat the mystic whatzits with the exact same magic they had at their disposal the whole time and in a way that isn't ingenious or imaginative at all. They just put more "oomph" into it!

The way they save themselves this time is something they always do as well! Somebody mentions a spell (this time it's Tempus Durant, Time Stop) and the others all say, "But that's so dangerous! Do you think we should?!" And then the one that's about to attempt the spell says, "We don't have any other choice! We're dead either way!" And the others all go, "Good point! Why did you even bring it up for discussion then and waste all of this time? Just cast it already!"

Always what? Always remember Paris? Always hate him? Always appreciate that he took the time to satisfy your needs before pulling on his pants and heading outside to have a fag?

The Nightmare Nurse refuses to let Zatanna die because she has really decent health insurance. Once she's all better, it's up to these three ladies to save the entire multiverse from the Dark Narrator!

Also, the Dark Narrator introduces herself before they get to the final battle which probably won't happen until the last issue anyway. For now, she's just a big naked hottie named Pralaya and she's out of pancakes.

"Party's over! Everybody back inside!"

Zatanna likes the sound of heading back inside the womb so she dissolves the Time Stop spell and allows Pralaya to consume them all (using her vagina, I'm assuming. Her own words!).

Once everybody is consumed and everything is dark and quiet, a new House comes blasting out of Pralaya's vagina! It's the House of Hope! Unless her IUD just slipped out.

Justice League Dark #39 Rating: No change. I guess JM DeMatteis has decided the DC Universe needs one house for each color of the spectrum? The House of Secrets is probably based on greed. The House of Mystery is based on fear. The House of Wonder is based on love. And now the House of Hope is based on hope. I can't wait to see all of the other houses! Somebody should really paint them in their appropriate colours.