Justice League Dark #18

I always like how Deadman has to be shown running into battle as well. He might as well just float above everyone cracking wise.

Constantine and his army have escaped from Epoch City, the new science capital of Faerie. Tim, Zatanna, and their army of mythological creatures are storming the city. And Tim's father is still trying to enter the Portal so that he can get Tim the solution to stopping the magic storm ripping all of the worlds apart.

A number of pages pass with people fighting and words being said before Tim and his Dragon finally destroy the shielding on the city allowing the Chaos Magic Storm to begin destroying the city.

And then Zatanna gets all touchy feely on everyone and decides that nobody should die in this war.

Too bad the "good guys" in war don't think the way Zatanna does. In fact, war should simply be a one on one, hand to hand death match between the leaders of two countries. Leaders are easy to reelect! And then the new leader can still challenge the other country's leader until one side is tired of having new elections. Although if it worked that way, I would suggest we elect a tiger or a grizzly bear as the president! His policies might suck after the other country finally stops sending in new leaders to challenge him. But he'd only be President Bear for four years! You know, I might actually like politics if there was a certain amount of randomness and whimsy inherent in the system! But that's the least of what the people who want to control everything for their own advantage want. They don't even want a level playing field! They continually rig the system to keep every advantage possible. "They" are whoever you want "them" to be. I don't have time to explain myself!

Zatanna casts a spell to help protect the citizens and then flies in with the captain of the science police, Vikar, to try to help him. Either he's going to try to kill her when he gets the chance or he's going to think, "Everything I ever learned ever was wrong! This magic person cares about human life! Where have I gone wrong? How could science teach me evil?!" And then he's going to jump off of a bridge and drown himself.

Tim's dad Jack Hunter (hee hee hee! His name has "cunt" in it!) finally arrives. And he's not the mundane nobody that everybody thought he was! He flies up to speak with Tim and freezes everything around them. I guess everybody in the Hunter family was born with the Hoodoo. And he brought Dr. Peril's plan along with him.

Why was I expecting the plan to make sense? I'm glad I didn't try guessing at it.

The plan works and everybody on Epoch lives happily ever after.

Constantine and the rest of Justice League Dark head back to Earth while Tim and Jack Hunter decide to stay behind. And back on Earth, Constantine decides Justice League Dark should be independent contractors.

I like how he simply poaches Black Orchid from A.R.G.U.S.

Justice League Dark #18 Rating: No change. This issue just seemed anti-climactic. I want to know why Black Orchid turned into a monster on the other side. Why was John incapable of lying? Why was Deadman once again alive? Why did Xanadu lose her immortality? Why didn't anything happen to Zatanna or Tim? I'm glad they won't be working for A.R.G.U.S. anymore. That was useful enough to explain the Justice League part of their name which will now stick. But if they stuck with A.R.G.U.S., it was only a matter of time before Amanda Waller was running the show.

Justice League Dark #16

She's probably still immortal; it's just that her age is now showing.

The last issue of Justice League Dark had the team arriving in Faerie while some really strange things happened to them. John Constantine suddenly can't lie. Black Orchid has been transformed into a Purple Swamp Thing. Madame Xanadu has undergone a reverse face lift. Deadman is literally a dead man. And Frankenstein hasn't shown any signs of change yet. Maybe he'll begin to decay throughout this issue. They've come to Faerie to rescue Zatanna and Tim Hunter. Zatanna and Tim Hunter have arrived in Faerie to help the fairies drive out the Technological Assholes that have taken over.

Luckily Deadman has practice at this being killed thing so the first thing he does is try to find his way out of Faerie's Land of the Dead. But while doing so, he runs into the keeper of the gates of the dead, Infernal Core!

Great! The entrance/exit to the land of the dead is guarded by some jerk created by reality television contestants. I hate him already.

Deadman escapes by tackling this jerk through the portal to the land of the fairies. And then the guy freaks out, screaming about how he doesn't belong here and he goes both ways and stop being so fucking insensitive! Then the Techno-Asshole jizzes all over Infernal Core who disappears in an explosion of blood. Unless it's fire. Whatever it is, good riddance. I'm glad they didn't spend much time with him since he was only here for a stupid reality show prize. Hey DC! Stop ruining my comics with gimmicks and publicity stunts! Or if you are going to do that kind of shit, save it for Superboy. Anyway, I'm kind of liking this Network Enforcer Vikar a little bit more now. That fucking Face-Off show just wasted six pages of this comic book, so the next fourteen had better be spectacular.

A few more pages are spent explaining to Tim why he's going to be the savior of Faerie. It's because his ancestor was the Faerie Champion, a wizard named The Hunter. If that's so, was Tim Hunter's father not his real father? He must have been because his DNA opened the Books of Magic. Perhaps this The Hunter was many, many, many generations ago and his ancestors escaped Faerie to live in the "real" world.

Oh Frankenstein. That's the cry of the loser! "How dare you keep your advantage over me? Lose it so that I can have the advantage!"

Network Administrator Vikar realizes that Frankenstein is a creature of pure science which explains why nothing strange has happened to him. Although that makes me wonder why Constantine suddenly couldn't lie. Perhaps the entire world has a Polygraph Induced Ethernet Wave cascading across it at all times. Constantine can't lie and doesn't even attempt any magic so Justice League Dark is eventually captured by the lone science guy. Yay science! Although his science is so advanced it might as well be magic. Yay magic!

Later, Tim learns of his ancestor's immigration.

So Tim Hunter is the savior of Faerie. Constantine, Frankenstein, Xanadu, and Deadman have been captured and taken to the technological capital city. Black Orchid has been left to die in the woods. Zatanna has no purpose. And the portal kept open by Dr. Peril on Earth is beginning to tear the two worlds apart. Perhaps Infernal Core will return to save everyone.

Justice League Dark #16 Rating: -2 Ranking. The drop in ranking is due to the fact that I just read a fucking publicity stunt instead of a Justice League Dark comic book. I think my whole mood while reading this comic book was upset by the inclusion of the Face-Off contest winner comic book character. It had no purpose other than to showcase it in a DC Comic book. In essence, the fans of Justice League Dark are subsidizing the prize for a reality show. Fuck you, DC. Normally I'd say you owe me ninety cents for the six wasted pages. But I think you owe me a full refund because those first six pages set the tone for the rest of the book.

Now if DC hadn't told me about the publicity stunt in the back pages of their very own comic book, I'd still be left wondering what the fuck that introduction of Infernal Core was because it goes nowhere. So at least I have a reason for that bullshit. Without knowing about Face-off, I would have just written this for the first six pages: "What the fuck was that about?!"