Coming under the brand of “the dark”, these books are essentially the horror titles of the new DC universe. And they’re rather mixed. Despite some returning faces and fan favourite characters it’s hard to see how many of them will last.
Justice League Dark
Shadowpact was a nice little book of a few years ago, and this is a bit of a rejuggling of a similar idea. The magical JLA with an interesting roster which brings a few Vertigo mainstays back into the DC Universe proper: Shade the Changing Man, and John Constantine. Whether this works is going to be very much dependant on tone. I don’t think a comedic book, like Shadowpact, will work with these characters. A darker book with mature spooky stories could be worthwhile. But there are several factors in the way of that. The first is that yet again the Enchantress is being wheeled out as a villain and her screwball Elvira-esque personality is just too wacky to be taken seriously. The second is John Constantine. Don’t get me wrong; John’s a fantastic character in his own book. The lighter Constantine that was in The Search for Swamp Thing was almost unreadable, sounding more like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Every time he opened his mouth, I was having to translate what he was saying and it ripped me right out of the book. So it’s not looking good for this title. I’ll wait and see, but it’s not going on the pull list at this point.
Swamp Thing
Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing is one of my favourite comic runs of all times. Unfortunately ever since then, there’s really been nowhere to go with the character and few writers have even tried. He was a character with his best days long behind him. Now that he’s made the jump from Vertigo to the DCU, the powers that be are giving him a new shot at his own book. If you remember Alan Moore’s run, it established that Swamp Thing wasn’t really Dr Alec Holland. In fact, Holland was killed in the chemical explosion that created Swamp Thing, and his mind (and the emotional trauma of his death) had imprinted itself on mutating plant life, creating a whole new consciousness. Later on it revealed he was an elemental too, but the main point is that Swamp Thing was a separate being from Alec Holland. During Brightest Day, Holland and Swamp Thing returned and they were combined into a single entity again. While in some sense it’s a step backwards, to DC’s credit, it is at least something new. It’s just a Swamp Thing that isn’t nearly as interesting to me. I think it’s going to take a while for this to establish itself, and that’s time the book may not have.
Animal Man
An Animal Man that finally drops the self awareness is an Animal Man I can get behind. Like a lot of people, I enjoyed Grant Morrison’s run but the meta elements to Animal Man weren’t what really interested me in the character and ultimately Morrison’s hubris really just got in the way of things. This back-to-basics darker take on Buddy Baker holds a lot of promise. It’s a must-read for me.
Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE
After having one of the better miniseries’ in the Seven Soldiers event of a few years ago, Frankenstein’s new ongoing seems to cast him in a similar kind of role as Hellboy; the straight man in a team of misfits who fight supernatural evil. That’s no bad thing. I don’t think it will be in any way essential, but I think it’ll be accessible and a lot of fun. I hope this one will stick around.
I, Vampire
This is a reboot of a book from the early 80’s, which again sees a vampire attempt to make up for his past mistakes. In this case he turned his lover into a vampire, but, sigh, she went off the deep end and formed a cult bent on destroying the world. Seem familiar? Well yeah. In the time since his series ended and the present, we’ve heard the vampire seeking redemption story many many times. Now there’s probably a market for this book, but unless DC has the guts to wheel out Dracula himself and bring it into Tomb of Dracula territory, the faint whiff of Twilight/Angel /The Vampire Diaries will be keeping me well away.
Resurrection Man
I’d heard of this character but I have to admit I didn’t read his book back in the 90s so I’m not at all sure how his power can really work in an ongoing title. If you haven’t heard of him either, every time Mitch Shelly dies, he comes back with a different ‘gift’ which is influenced by the manner in which he died. He could really have any superpower the story requires, which ironically makes him less interesting to me, and how can him constantly dying not wind up as a joke? I might have to pick up the first issue just to see how they can possibly explain all this and make the character accessible.
Demon Knights
Oh boy. A title set in the dark ages of the DCU could be great and the faint hope that the excellent Shining Knight from Seven Soldiers could turn up is promising, but, and it’s a massive but, there’s Etrigan the demon to contend with. He’s one of the most annoying characters in DC’s long history and that’s purely down to his dialogue and the necessity to have everything he says rhyme. I find it completely maddening as a reader. This book seems to have a solid concept but unless I hear that Cornell won’t be using the traditional Etrigan, that characters presence means I won’t be checking it out.
Stormwatch
It’s a very interesting decision to bring what’s basically The Authority into the main DC Universe, and another interesting decision to make the Martian Manhunter one of them. Particularly since he immediately seems like a good fit. What’s the biggest draw for me is that the new characters have the potential to really shake up the status quo in the DCU and prevent DC wheeling out the same old stories. With a first arc centring on trying to recruit Midnighter and Apollo (!!) everything about this book screams that I have to pick it up.
Next time, the new 52’s The Edge (anti-hero?) titles….
Adventures in Comics 