DAY OF VENGEANCE #6 REVIEW

[T.C. Johnson]

<b>Review by:</b> T.C.Johnson <a href="mailto:tjohnson127@comcast.net">tjohnson@com cast.net</a>
<b>Quick Rating:</b> Good and Bad
<b>Title:</b> The Death of Magic

The best laid plans of mice and apes are often go awry.

<a href="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/media/855/DayOfVengeance6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixtreme.com/gallery/data/thumbnails/855/DayOfVengeance6.jpg" align="right" border="0"></a><b>Writer:</b> Bill Willingham
<b>Pencils:</b> Justiniano
<b>Inks:</b> Walden Wong
<b>Colors:</b> Chris Chuckry
<b>Letters:</b> Pat Brosseau
<b>Editor:</b> Joey Cavalieri
<b>Cover Art:</b> Walter Simpson
<b>Publisher:</b> DC Comics

<b><font color="darkred">Review:</font></b> And thus it ends….or does it? Yes, it just might.

This book started out with a specific goal: to redefine the state of magic in the DCU. To this end it did wonderful job. The finale of this series have created potential stories for years to come. A thousand different spells and a thousand different stories has been unleashed and will hopefully be picked up by many different writers. This miniseries did a great services to the DC editorial staff and filled its role perfectly.

As for this miniseries, the ending is a large disappointment. Nothing was resolved. The main villain was not stopped or even slowed down and the heroes had next to no impact on the overall story. Only one plot thread was tied up but in such a way that it could be undone easily, and probably will be in the next few months. The rest are loose ends that you will have to read Infinite Crisis to see resolved. It wasn’t that it was anti-climatic because there was definitely a climax. It was a climax that did not need a series to support it, in fact, and did not include any of the main heroes. This entire series could have been told in one issue and without the Shadow Pact. Yes, the story will continue in Infinite Crisis, but it is a shame the story itself cannot stand on its own legs.

It is not that this series was a complete waste of time. Willingham did an excellent job at re-introducing these characters to a larger audience. I hope to see them in their own Shadow Pact series. They were fun characters even if they had nothing to do. It also had some really excellent, well planned fight scenes that actually used strategy instead of brute force. Always a sign of good writing. As an overall story, however, it just fizzled at the end.

The art was servicable but I have never really felt it in this series. To be fair there is nothing wrong with it, I is just a style of comic book art that I never really cared for. I like cleaner lines and a greater variety of expressions in the faces.

Story:
Art:
Overall:

Visit X-World Comics for great prices on your favorite comics. Or do they have great prices? Yes...they just might.

[Mark Blicharz]

T.C., none of the minis are gonna actually "finish" in their books. It's all gonna finish up in Infinite Crisis. However, this did really close a lot of the story, with

one of the main villians beings topped.

The book was very good in my opinion and gives me just another reason to anticipate IC.

[chrismozer]

I was disappointed.

Wasn't a mini-series supposed to be a finite tale. I felt there might as well have been a "to be continued" blurb at the end. I like my mini-series to have a beginning and ending. Although the story set up many possibilities for future DCU stories, i cannot help but feel this was a lauching pad for an ongoing series with Ragman and his crew.

As for

one of the main villians beings stopped....when has any villian actually been stopped? They always reappear somewhere and sometime.

[DocDoom]

didn't pick this up, did not pick up rann thanagar 5, i never leave my mini series incomplete.. but both of these will be the exceptions, gonna finish Omac(i'm just mildly interested) and VU(great!!)and i'm gonna wait until IC to start picking up DC again.. i've had enough for a while

[Mark Blicharz]

Normally yeah, minis are supposed to be finite tales. However, none of these will be. Everything is set to be finished in Infinite Crisis. That's how all of their minis are gonna be.

[Cardiac]

What Goku said. Everyone knew the score when they picked up these minis.

[T.C. Johnson]

I knew that this would lead into the infinite crisis Minis, but there should have been more than this. The only important thing that happened in six issues is a battle between Specter and the Wizard Shazam. And the heroes of the comic were not even involved in it.

Defeating Eclipso? So what? It would take her boyfriend a few seconds to find her and then a few seconds to rescue her. That is only an inconvience. Unless of course they were saying Jean Loring is going to be burned alive out in space. Then I have a whole lot of other issues with that.

If they actually managed to seperate Jean Loring from eclipso and hurl the diamond into the sun, that would be one thing. Then they would have accomplished something. But they didn't.

The heroes of the story accomplished nothing, and they were only spectators at the big show down between the specter and the wizard. They should have at least been at the final fight. Perhaps the destruction of the Rock of Eternity would have destroyed all of North America and they kept the destruction to one city. Perhaps Eclipso had a plan to steal the Wizard's magic so that she would be as powerful as the Specter, but the Blood Pact stopped her and in stead scattered the items all around the world so she couldn't possess them.

In Villains united, there is going to be some resolution. There is going to be a showdown between the two criminal factions. And it will be a showdown between the Secret Six and the Society, not between the Society and the troops of Apokolips that was mentioned briefly in issue 5. They are going to reveal who Mockingbird really is and what his/her plans are. It will tell the story of the Secret Six and resolve their story, even though the society goes on to fight in infinite crisis.

This started out as a Shadow Pact story, and their should have been some resolution to their story. There should have been some growth. They should have accomplished something other than inconvience Eclipso. The climax of the story should have been about them, not the wizard and specter with the main characters sitting hundreds of miles away watching it on phantomvision.

The Shadow Pact were completely redundant to the story, and that is poor story telling.

[AmazingMattMan]

i enjoyed it, but i agree with everything T.C said

[Lord_Magneto]

I didn't know we won't recieve a proper ending. I thought there may be some implications to it, but still, i thought this was self-contained. Nevertheless, this was truly a great read. I fell inlove from the first issue and was never let down, right until the end. If there is an ongoing series of this gang, something written by Willingham, count me in.

[Cardiac]

Originally Posted by Lord_Magneto

I didn't know we won't recieve a proper ending. I thought there may be some implications to it, but still, i thought this was self-contained. Nevertheless, this was truly a great read. I fell inlove from the first issue and was never let down, right until the end. If there is an ongoing series of this gang, something written by Willingham, count me in.

They're appearing in Willingham's Robin soon I think. I'm not sure how long for.

[T.C. Johnson]

I heard Teen Titans.

[AmazingMattMan]

i heard theres gonna be a "death of magic" miniseries involving these guys and willingham. looking forward to that if its true

[fourmyle]

I couldn't be loving the Crisis minis more. This issue left me with my jaw on the floor. Yeah, there wasn't exactly resolution, yeah, the heroes didn't really "win" at all, but those are often my favorite kinds of stories. The Shadowpact knew from the beginning they didn't have a chance at stopping the Spectre, but they tried. They failed. The implications throughout the DCU will be enormous and every issue of the series was very enjoyable. These days I have a hard time getting excited by things that aren't Crisis-related. Even old favorite books like Titans (Leifield...*shudder*) and Lucifer get shucked behind Crisis tie-ins. Can't wait for the Crisis to actually hit, maybe then I'll get a little relief in the pocketbook, but until then I'll be enjoying the uber-connected DCU.