Justice League Dark #29 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: J.M. DeMatteis
Art By: Vicente Cifuentes
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 26, 2014

Wrap It Up

When we last left Forever Evil: Blight, Felix Faust had downloaded all the knowledge of the magical beings hooked up to the Thaumaton device.  While this knowledge would give him the power to rebuild Project Thaumaton and stop the Crime Syndicate and whatever is following them from Earth 3, it would end up killing all the people he stole the knowledge from.  It's a good thing during his evil monologuing that Constantine got behind him, and knocked him out.  All powerful mage my ass.  In the end, Constantine believed that Faust had the right idea, the master of the machine would just have to be Constantine instead.  Let's go check out the finale to Forever Evil: Blight, and see if everything is wrapped up with a nice little bow.

Explain It!:

Our Blight finale starts with Constantine taking the knowledge out of Faust's mind, but with this comes the knowledge that this power will eventually kill him, and in a few minutes it will end up killing all the people he stole it from.  So making the final sacrifice, Constantine returns the knowledge and life force back to the prisoners of Project Thaumaton.  At this point all Doctor Who fans will have a chuckle, because this act looks like the 10th Doctor regenerating, or if you don't want to get specific any Doctor in the new series regenerating.  But this act actually costs the ultimate sacrifice.  Constantine dies.  But what's this?  That wasn't Constantine at all.  Way back Constantine was attacked by his own personal demons, and one of them escaped the House of Mystery, and followed Constantine.  Through the real Constantine's determination of love to find Zatanna, this demon was able to understand and feel, and ultimately become human himself.  So this ultimate act of bravery and sacrifice wasn't done by our man at all, but a demon.  What does that say about our hero?  

Once the team mourn their strange savior, it's time to jump back into action because the son's of Trigon figure if they kill all the magical beings of this world, they will have Trigon's favor, when he finally comes to this realm with his resistance already defeated.  The fight starts, and after witnessing his personal demon show such heroism, Constantine is all messed up inside.  When it comes down to it, he is not a hero, and when the chance arrives for him to take charge of the now reformed JLD, he casts a teleportation spell and leaves them high and dry.  Enraged by his selfishness Zatanna takes charge of the team, and they begin their final fight in Nanda Parbat.

Even though the team is back, and seriously want to end the Blight series, the fight isn't going well.  So it's time for a callback.  A few issues ago Felix Faust used Zauriel as a conduit to use the mystical energy of Nanda Parbat, and after he was done he ripped the wings from Zauriel's back.  So after all this fighting, and darkness the elder gods of Nanda Parbat want this mystical holy place to be pure again.  So using the feathers of Zauriel's wings, a portal is open to suck Nanda Parbat into another dimension.  This would surely kill everyone still there, so Zatanna uses a spell to transport everyone away, even though Phantom Stranger tells her this spell could have dire consequences.  Due to the amount of mystical beings with them, so expect this to bite the heroes in the ass down the line.  So everyone is safe, for now.

In the end Zatanna confronts Constantine in the House of Mystery, and forces him out.  That's right kiddos it turns out that the House has rejected Constantine and broken the bond they shared.  It also has chosen Zatanna as his successor.  So Constantine leaves, and we're left wondering what kind of piece of shit Constantine is.  I mean after all we went through with him in Forever Evil: Blight to find Zatanna, and now that it's all over, we're left with a Constantine that seems more selfish and depraved than what we started with.  Be sure to continue reading all the Dark titles to see who makes the cut for the new JLD, and to keep up with what your favorite Dark characters are up to.  It's been a bumpy journey, and it's finally over, and I'm torn how I feel about it.  But it's time to get back to basics, and that I can dig.  Boosh!

Bits and Pieces:

I don't know what to take away from this issue.  After all we've been through, there doesn't seem to be a real ending.  The big part of Forever Evil: Blight was the hunt for Zatanna, and the wackiness that ensued  to that conclusion.  But through this journey we got to know a new JLD team, and they feel oddly left out of this issue now that Zatanna is back.  I guess I'd have to describe this issue as a lot to swallow, and lackluster in the end.  I'll be happy to get back to the Dark characters in individual stories, and leave the JLD to their own title.  

6.5/10