Broken Frontier

The Shadowpact is back, this time with back-up, in one final battle where the fate of magic itself hangs in the balance.

Having killed Shazam and attacked Atlantis, The Spectre continues his rampage against the remaining Lords of Order and Chaos, while Madame Xanadu, Zatanna, The Phantom Stranger, and Nabu meet to decide what steps to take next. Soon, The Shadowpact, backed-up by magical heroes as well-known as the Marvel Family and as obscure as El Muerto and Rex the Wonder Dog, arrives in Gotham City, ground-zero for the explosion of The Rock of Eternity. To deal with the crisis that’s come to the world of magic, they implement a threefold plan. Zatanna leads a group to reconstruct The Rock of Eternity, and The Shadowpact and The Phantom Stranger go hunting for the Seven Deadly Sins that escaped during The Rock’s explosion, while Nabu fights The Spectre alone. If the heroes are up to the task, then the crisis will be averted, but not without each leg of the plan resulting in serious consequences for the world of magic.

During his clash with Nabu, The Spectre says: "Nothing that is magic can possibly speak of reason. Magic is unreasonable by definition." However, awkwardly phrased, the sentiment captures my own frustration with the depiction of magic in comics. When the laws of nature are loose or non-existent, the rules of storytelling can be, as well. And without the special effects of film and television that engage the imagination enough to suspend disbelief, in comics it’s often difficult to create drama and tension when the rules of magic seem ad-hoc and a spell is all that’s needed to get out of a jam. So, for a reader like me, Day of Vengeance has to work that much harder to weave its own sort of spell—one that sells me big, draws me in, and makes me believe. It’s a credit to Bill Willingham’s writing and Justiniano’s art that I was hooked by the end of the six-issue miniseries, and geared-up for the further adventures of The Shadowpact by the time I finished the Infinite Crisis Special.

While the Day of Vengeance miniseries takes a few issues to rev up to speed, in the Infinite Crisis Special Willingham impressively keeps the scale of the story large, epic, and operatic. The first scene, in which Madame Xanadu predicts that The Spectre will ultimately win and Nabu takes immediate control of the operation, sets the tone that this is a story in which DC’s high-powered magical characters take center stage. Consequently, The Shadowpact, the true stars of the miniseries, are in the background as players in a much larger cast. But this helps rather than diminishes the story. The stakes are too huge for them to take center stage, and Willingham, wisely, keeps them in their place. Still, he features The Shadowpact effectively, playing their "little guy" status off other characters who are, or who think themselves, better or stronger.

As for action, Willingham provides plenty of it on three different stages. With more pages to work with—38 instead of 22—he builds the action steadily until all hell breaks loose. But what impresses most about the Day of Vengeance Infinite Crisis Special is the sense that something truly matters. This is not a story in which good triumphs over evil and restores the status quo. Far from it, in fact. Willingham not only nails the nature of the crisis in the magical portion of the DCU more distinctly in this issue than in the miniseries, but he also nails The Spectre. Despite his rage and insanity, The Spectre actually has a reasonable, perhaps believable, point about the state of magic in the DCU; and because many of his actions are irreversible—though magic cannot truly be destroyed, only transformed—the reader begins to see that this crisis was inevitable. Likewise, the heroes allied against The Spectre are resolved that much of what’s been done will stay done, and know as well that when the battle is over, the "order" that’s restored will be a new one and nothing like it once was. Understandably, the miniseries concluded with a number of loose ends and hardly a sense of resolution. With the IC Special ending with the status of three heavy hitters monumentally changed and one of the Shadowpact missing, Day of Vengeance now reads more like a satisfying whole. And yet, though there is a greater sense of resolution, the conclusion is much more a beginning for a new age of magic in the DC Universe.

The artwork in the DOV miniseries had a lighter mood and tone, one more conducive to defining The Shadowpact as a group and establishing the essentials of main characters with whom many readers might not have been familiar. With characters established and all the pieces moved into place as the final act begins, the IC Special artwork takes a different approach with a greater focus on action and a darker, more ominous mood. Justiniano continues developing and making a name for himself with some deft linework. His figures are lithe and sinewy, his free-form panels dynamic and detailed, and the result is a style that’s lyrical but also dense with information. One can see how he’s still learning to balance the two—a handful of his long shots seem too flat—but he’s definitely headed in the right direction. Indeed, complimenting his distinctive style is the ease with which he uses multiple angles to keep the story flowing. And though long and medium shots dominate, conveying that grand sense of scale in Willingham’s script, when Justiniano zooms in for tight close-ups, he displays his ability for capturing a wide array of emotions. Inkers Walden Wong and Wayne Faucher bring out the best in his images, and Chris Chuckry creates that dark mood with a muted, low-toned array of colors. I’m hoping that we’ll see more of this strong, story-oriented sort of art when The Shadowpact debuts in its own series in a few months.

If the other Infinite Crisis Specials are as good as Day of Vengeance, there may be more great stories over the next few months than any of our wallets can stand.