Broken Frontier

In the Day of Vengeance finale, the Shadowpact make one last stand against The Spectre, but are they enough to prevent the death of magic?

The Shadowpact’s battle against The Spectre and Eclipso continues. Black Alice is incapable of holding The Spectre’s power for very long, and as he escapes, the team turns its attention to Eclipso. Thanks to The Phantom Stranger, turned into a mouse by The Spectre, Nightshade defeats Eclipso by setting her in a continuous orbit around the Sun. Bigger things are afoot, however, as The Spectre seeks out Shazam, making quick work of Captain Marvel in the process. Shazam and The Spectre battle for the fate of magic itself, and as the Shadowpact prepare for the next chapter in their story, dark forces that haven’t seen the light of day for millennia stand on the verge of being loosed upon the world once again.

In many ways, Day of Vengeance has been the weakest of the four miniseries leading up to Infinite Crisis. The links that the other three series have to IC are fairly, though not totally clear. Day of Vengeance has been the odd-man-out in this respect. In addition, Day of Vengeance got off to a slow, ponderous start, focusing more on the rag-tag group of 4th-tier characters who would become The Shadowpact instead of the intense brawl between Captain Marvel and The Spectre, which was covered in the pages of JSA. Consequently, I really didn’t expect much of the title, and continued reading it only because I didn’t want to miss a page of the run-up to IC. However, much like Rann/Thanagar War, the more I read Day of Vengeance, the more I liked it.

Over six issues the characters making up The Shadowpact became likable, both individually and as a team. And while I grew more emotionally connected to the characters, I began taking the title—but, more importantly, the questions it raises—much more seriously as well. And now that the series has ended, the questions spinning out of Day of Vengeance are as important as those arising from the end of The OMAC Project, as well as the shocking conclusion of JLA #119. Specifically, we know that Eclipso turned on the Spectre, but who turned on Eclipso? What sort of connection could this unseen hand have to whoever is pulling the strings in The OMAC Project and Rann/Thanagar War? And do any them have a connection to either Luthor’s Villain Nation or Mockingbird? What will be the fate of Captain Marvel? What role will anarchic magic play in Infinite Crisis? Finally—and, to me, most importantly—with magic once again unleashed upon the world, what does this mean for any hero or heroine who wears a red "S" or has a balcony you could do Shakespeare from?

One might complain that Day of Vengeance ends with little or no resolution. In the classic, yes, but, like The OMAC Project, I see the ending of the series as its greatest strength. Instead of resolving a major conflict, Bill Willingham’s script ratchets the conflict to a level that only Infinite Crisis (one hopes) can resolve.

Technically, with issues #5 and #6, Willingham hits his stride with these characters. He finally knows them, and they become much more fleshed out than in earlier issues, in which they seemed more like pawns being moved into place. Nightmaster’s first-person narration is a great touch, conveying both The Shadowpact’s desperation and their resolve to fight to the last man. Likewise, The Spectre, at times psychotic and detached in previous issues, comes off as truly scary. He no longer seems manipulated by Eclipso. Rather, he’s on his own mission against magic. Willingham’s pacing is also much more crisp, and the scene in which Shazam tells The Spectre that magic cannot be destroyed, but only changed in form, is a neat plot twist that’s bound to have huge consequences.

I’ve grown to like Justiniano’s art as well over the course of Day of Vengeance. I like how he jam packs every panel with detail and information, as well as his lithe, sinuous figures. His storytelling skills need polishing, as do his figures in longshots and backgrounds dominated by a highly detailed foreground figure, but he shows promise, and has improved on both of these skills as the series has progressed. I wasn’t familiar with his work before, but after Day of Vengeance I’ll be following it more closely.

Though I have big problems with magic in fiction, after the magic Willingham and Justiniano perform on the characters, I ended Day of Vengeance with two words: More Shadowpact.