Art By: Andres Guinaldo, Walden Wong
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: August 27, 2014
Second Star To The Right and Straight On Till Morning
Last issue of JLD we focused in on Deadman after he received a vision of the destruction of Nanda Parbat. As you'll remember after Forever Evil: Blight, Nanda Parbat disappeared into another dimension and no matter what Boston's magical friends tried to do, they couldn't find the current location of Nanda Parbat, to check in on the mystical city. Eventually our ever lovin' Dead Man met up with Brahma Dass, who's the re-imagined person that grants Dead Man the chance to do some good with his life and become the ghost we know him to be. So Dead Man get's a luck dragon to ferry him to Nanda Parbat, where we found out that Brahma Dass wasn't Brahma Dass. No this impostor turned out to be a gigantic monster known as Pantheon, that intends to destroy the mystical city, so that's not any good. Also the rest of the JLD followed their friend and made their way sans luck dragon to Nanda Parbat and Dead Man is alive. Yeah that's right, he's alive and well, but stuck in a dungeon. So a lot of mixed feelings from Boston Brand. Let's see how the JLD will save the day this month. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
I'm kind of dreading this Explain It! because there is so much exposition and things going on in this issue, but I'll do my damnedest to get the point through. First off the rest of the JLD are captured and left bound in the desert of this dimension and it seems that they are seriously stuck at the moment. Oh and they think Swamp Thing is dead.......... So you can imagine everyone's state of mind.
Let's get back to Dead Man, because this is his story after all. So like I said Dead Man is just plain old Boston Brand again, because he's once more apart of this mortal coil. You might remember this happened to him a long time ago and then instantly and hilariously died again, so hopefully this time works out better. Only problem with that is that he's now stuck in a dungeon. It's a good thing that the real Brahma Dass shows up and releases him. It turns out that Nanda Parbat itself actually brought him back to life again and placed him in this dungeon to keep him safe from Pantheon. Now it's a time for a little back story because Dead Man doesn't understand why the mystical city would do this and neither do we. Well it turns out that when Boston was just a young boy, his parents were awful drunks and on one night young Boston pleaded for something to come and rescue him from his terrible life and to his shock, his prayers were answered. It turns out that Brahma Dass is some strange Peter Pan that spirits children out of their rooms at night and takes them to Nanda Parbat, so that they may play, have adventures and forget about their awful lives before he takes them back to them. I guess this is a good thing, but really it just sounds kind of cruel. Maybe it's just me. But anyway, this means that Boston is a child of Nanda Parbat and since he is, the city wants to protect him.
Back in the awful desert, it turns out that Swamp Thing isn't dead and has been trying to contact the green of this mystical place. Vines come out of the ground and enwrap our avatar of the green turning him into a gigantic green graboid looking thing from Tremors and using their mystical powers, break the binding spell on our heroes.
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| YEAH, THAT'S TERRIFYING |
Now it's off to join the fight and it's also time to get a bit of exposition from Swamp Thing's connection to Nanda Parbat's green. He finds out that Nanda Parbat once was ruled by dark gods until the time of enlightenment came where new gods came and forced the old ones out. These dark gods joined together in their hate and formed Pantheon. But the joined god was weak and stayed in a cosmic coma until the events of Forever Evil: Blight and the thaumaton project awoke it. After Nanda Parbat shifted to another dimension, Pantheon needed to find a way back and used Dead Man as a doorway to do so. But now the JLD are in the mix and nothing could possibly go wrong, right?
So Boston and Brahma Dass escape the dungeon and find that Pantheon has begun turning Nanda Parbat into a nightmare place and it's up to them to stop him and put this place right. Well first thing to happen is Boston dies again.......... Dude can't catch a break.
But now that he's Dead Man again, he fully intends to use his powers to right Pantheon's wrongs and luckily he won't have to do it alone. That's right the JLD finally show up and it's time to take the fight to Pantheon....... Well Pantheon takes the fight to them because that gigantic old god amalgam somehow shows up right behind them. Hell even T-Rex shook the damn ground in Jurassic Park, Pantheon must be wearing sneakers, for sneaking.
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| OH SHIT, IT'S PANTHEON! |
Brahma Dass tells Dead Man that they can't fight it physically because it will only make it stronger, so Dead Man and Brahma Dass enter the minds of Pantheon, changing it from the inside out by focusing their thoughts into something positive. Instantly once Pantheon is defeated the city returns to it's former glory. Now this seems a little too easy the way I'm describing it, but let me assure you that their is so much more to this than I can relate to you properly. To get the full affect, you really need to read this metaphysical story.
In the end Brahma Dass tells Dead Man he can stay here if he wants to, but our hero knows that he still has things he can do back on Earth. So Nanda Parbat is saved and our heroes return home to find their next adventure. That's it for this month's JLD and I really feel bad that I can't convey this awesome story better. But hopefully I'll get the book across next month when our mystical heroes take a journey to Five Years From Now in the Futures End event. See you then.
Bits and Pieces:
I've really enjoyed this Dead Man-centric JLD story and it makes me really interested to see how Boston's new origin is told through next month's Secret Origins after seeing some abridged flashbacks here. Just another home run from DeMatteis and Guinaldo and I'm a very selfish person so I hope that these two never leave this title. Yeah you guys are stuck, I so will it. Definitely gotta check this one out if your a fan of Dead Man or the dark characters in general. Such a good read.
8.5/10
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