Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Bruno Redondo & Xermanico
What They Say:
The war with the Green Lanterns is over, but it claimed a civilian victim–one whose death John Constantine will not let go unavenged.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Originally started a couple of years ago as a prequel to the game Injustice: Gods Among Us, the series has totally taken on a life of its own. While it runs as a digital series, it’s later collected in print and collections which can be easily added to most game stores to cross promote, or just to be visible in bookstores that can draw in more attention. I was certainly curious about the book when it started, but I wasn’t particularly keen on a weekly digital at the time and I never made it to picking up the trades, having lost it along the way only to realizes that it’s become quite popular. So when offered as a free book for the start of the third series, I was definitely game.
And the payoff is strong right from the start. This series exists in its own continuity rather than the mainline DC Comics world, so that gives it a lot more freedom to work with things and make real changes along the way, particularly with the whole heroes having gone bad and fights among them to try and fix things. This installment picks up after a war with the Green Lantern Corps that has caused a lot of pain and suffering around the world, which is noted as we see John Constantine in Liverpool, England visiting a house that had one of the Corps members fall on it after he was killed. The house had a lot of magical wards on it that basically made it invisible to magic based people, but it didn’t account for this kind of accident that would destroy its secret. And what a secret it is. While the two adults inside died, young Rose Constantine survived. And now something big and evil from the magical side of the world is going to be coming for her.
Constantine’s serious nature is one that I like, though we’ve also seen some real soft spots from him over the years as well, so his time with Rose is nicely done. But his main presentation of himself is there as well when he figures the safest place for her is in the otherdimensional Tower of Fate, where we see Dr. Fate and Zatanna conversing over the rising evil that they can feel as well. Bringing them all together is done well and we get a good bit of establishing dialogue for things, and a decent bit of snark as well. Constantine’s interactions with others are always fun and seeing them hash out a bit of the potential of who it could be works nicely, as does the very welcome twist when he heads off to get help from the World’s Greatest Detective…
In Summary:
Having not read anything prior to this in this universe, what we get is still largely accessible to comics fans because you know the characters and some of the personalities. What I liked in particular here is that it went without the big guys as there’s no Batman or Superman or any of the other top tier well known characters. We get Constantine kicking off the story, a welcome visit to Dr. Fate and Zatanna and a nice twist at the end that made me smile. Tom Taylor captures the tone of the characters well and moves through the issue at a good pace, taking time to give us some real dialogue and exposition. All of it is well complemented by the artwork from Xermanico and Bruno Redondo as they bring the magic side to life but also the very human side, while also touching a bit on the war that was. I may not dip into the other issues, but I’ll definitely be hunting up some trades.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 30th, 2014
MSRP: $0.99
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