The Good
Constantine is in the House of Mystery and trying to find a way to get the Justice League Dark to him. Nightmare Nurse comes on the scene and it gets a little awkward.
This is J.M. DeMatteis' first issue and his first time cracking into JLD. He's done a really nice job writing PHANTOM STRANGER, so the transition into this book shouldn't be too tough. He has a great grasp, and shows it, for all things super natural. The set-up for Blight happens pretty slowly, and you almost wouldn't notice it, since the time between that and Constantine worrying about the team is pretty split. It's a solid build to the new story. I'm really enjoying his first dip into JLD.
This is a Constantine heavy book. The rest of the JLD is missing [dead?], so DeMatteis had a whole issue to really establish Constantine in his book. He does so extremely well. He's really set the tone for his run and his version of Constantine. This feels like the first time, outside of the main CONSTANTINE series, that the reader has really gotten a good feel for the character and what makes him tick. It's really nice to get inside his head, which is pretty much this whole issue.
The final page of this issue is really awesome. It brings more of "The Dark" characters into the JLD book, but in a really weird way. I'm excited to see where DeMatteis goes with this.
The artwork on this series and issue is still amazing. Mikel Janin did the art, with Jeromy Cox on colors. Janin does some great things on this issue with perspective. Janin keeps it fresh by varying layouts and angles in this issue, and on top of everything else, his art is super-duper pretty to look at. Again, not only is the last page a cool reveal, it looks awesome. The art team is a really big selling point of this book. While the writing and story are great, I'd buy this book just for the art.
The Bad
I'm not a big fan of Nightmare Nurse. She's a very "blah" character. It's revealed that she and Constantine have a past, and she's not to happy to be around him. It could lead to some interesting things, but she's probably the weakest and most forgettable "member" (using that term loosely) member of this team.
There's a whole one page recap of Trinity War and Forever Evil, thus far. If you're reading JLD, you're a DC fan and you know what's going on. The recap seemed like a bit of a waste.
The Verdict
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK may have a new writer, but it's still an awesome book. J.M. DeMatteis provides a fun and somber issue here that will have you wanting more. Janin and Cox do some fantastic work on the art here, and even though I'm not the biggest fan of Nightmare Nurse, I really like the direction this is heading and the set-up for Blight. Overall, I highly recommend this issue.
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