Sunday, January 29, 2012

Justice League Dark #5

Here's a series that's hanging on to my pull list by a thread. I've already given up on the first storyarc(no matter what happens in this issue I doubt it'll save this storyarc), but I'm planning on sticking around for at least another storyarc, since I still see SO much promise here...

Justice League Dark #5:

Summary: Having been dropped off near the Enchantress last issue, June Moone is rescued by John Constantine(where'd he come from?!). Constantine realizes that the only way to halt the Enchantress's worldwide attack was to reunite June and the Enchantress, even if June doesn't want to. With that, Constantine begins reciting the spell(actually that annoying rhyme from the past few issues) that would forcibly reunite the two. Deadman shows up and demands that Constantine leave the terrorized June alone, but Constantine refuses. Deadman tries to possess Constantine but can't because Constantine is too “filthy”(HA!), and Constantine finishes the spell, reuniting June and the Enchantress. Now combined into one being, Enchantress/June seems to have no recollection of what happened. With the threat over, Madame Xanadu has all of the characters involved in the storyline stop by her house and asks them to stay together for the good of the future. Constantine refuses to work with Xanadu, and storms off, as do the rest of the characters, leaving Xanadu alone amongst her cards.

Thoughts: Meh. This issue, much like the rest of this storyline, did nothing for me. If I had to say something positive, I'd say that it's nice to see that Peter Milligan finally featured Constantine prominently in this issue, since that was one of my main gripes about the prior few issues. But the Enchantress/June Moone storyline? I have no idea what happened, and to be honest, I could care less. The only thing that matters to me is that it's over, and hopefully things will get better moving forward.

Score: 5 out of 10.
justice league dark #5
Next issue: John Constantine recites Humpty Dumpty!

9 comments:

  1. Soooo yeah....about JLD....I am done with this comic as of issue 5. I've never been more confused reading a comic in my life. I just did not understand what the hell was going on in this arc. Like what was Madame Xanadu whole purpose? I mean since she failed so horribly at whatever she was trying to do, lol.

    And it sucks because I love Z, and it's the only thing she's in....and I can't even enjoy it. Depending on how long you stick with JLD I'll keep reading your reviews, maybe the next arc will be better.

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  2. I don't blame you in the least, Lisha. This storyarc was terrible. Seriously, I'm STILL not sure if Madame Xanadu is evil or not... And the story? Yeah, I can't explain it. I'll stick it out for at least one more arc(I mean it can't get any worse I hope!), but after that I may very well be dropping this too.

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  3. I'm with you about Madame X, is evil or good? I picked up a Madame X TPB from the library and just took ti back after seeing her in JLD....that was a pretty bad impressions of her for a first time reader of her character. I think I'll just look her up.

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  4. Cool. Madame Xanadu is a character that I know VERY little about, so if you dig up any good info, or find a good read with her in it, let me know.

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  5. My understanding, and trust me, I could be wrong, is that Madame Xanadu saw something very bad about the future in the cards and knew she'd need help to fight whatever it is. So, she ripped June Moon from the Enchantress in order to bring the heroes together to fight it. Then once they got together, she could keep them together to fight this larger future threat. When the team walks out on her at the end of this issue, she's looking at the card, seeing that future threat, which is the lead-in to the next arc I guess. It was a little confusing, but that was my take. I actually liked the story, somewhat (not great for sure), but I kinda get the direction. Xanadu was trying to do future good by doing bad in the present, ie, separating the Enchantress and June Moon to bring the team together.

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  6. Vancelot, I thank you. Because I read some of those issues twice and still didn't what the the hell was going on. Lol.

    So now that I know this about Madame Xanadu, am I suppose to think she's a bad person? A threat to the team? Or she's just a bad fortune teller, lol.

    Thank you for that rundown again.

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  7. No problem. That was just my interpretation, so take it for what you will. I guess Xanadu is supposed to be a "good guy" in the long term, although she's operating in shades of grey for now to get the needed results.

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  8. After being as confused as I was after reading that, I'll take your word for it. :) It just seems like she's making a BIG mess of things. I think that's the one thing that annoyed me with this comic.

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  9. Well, that makes way more sense than my theory about this series(my theory being that I had no theory!), Vancelot! I can definitely see everything you brought up, but if Milligan wanted to run that type of story, he really should have focused more on Xanadu. We'd get a glimpse of her here and there acting ambiguous, but little more... At least until the end when she wanted everybody to stick with her after she had been lying to the team from the start. More of a focus on Xanadu, and less of a focus on Deadman probably would have helped out SO much more with this story...

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