Zatanna

I’ve made a decision. I want to wait for death to come, whenever that monster chooses to kill us. I’m going to face it.

Mary

Right, a clapped out fortune teller and her goth chick sidekick versus evil personified. This’ll be hilarious.

Previously in Justice League Dark #7 (May 2012) and I, Vampire #7 (May 2012): – The vampire Andrew Bennett has been slain causing Cain, the primordial first vampire, to awaken. Cain has usurped control from Mary Seward of a massive vampire army that is current running rampant through Gotham City. He has neutralised their weaknesses by stealing all the magic. Zatanna and Rac Shade fight with Bennett’s friends to protect Madame Xanadu’s body while she seeks help on the astral plane. They also find themselves allied with Mary Seward (another vampire) against their common enemy. John Constantine and Deadman have travelled into the afterlife to find Andrew Bennett’s soul.

Deadman and Constantine plummet through the afterlife and find Bennett seated alone in the great white expanse of purgatory. They try to convince him to come back, but Bennett sees his current state as a fitting punishment for his inability to restrain Mary and her vampires.

Madame Xanadu’s body is defended from vampires while she journeys to the Astral Zone of a Buddha like entity called the Crystal One. Cain has siphoned the world’s magic into himself so Xanadu successfully petitions for the Crystal One to direct it to somebody more “worthy” instead. Cain senses the change as Madame Xanadu returns to the mortal plane. Rac Shade had been helping to defend her body, but his M-Vest erupts as he finally looses control of its reality warping abilities. He fades from this world into another where Kathy, or his recreation of her, is solid and well. They walk off into the sunset and Xanadu whispers “Goodbye, Changing Man.”

Xanadu, Zatanna, and Mary are left behind. Zatanna says that she does not want to wait to be overwhelmed. They charge Cain, but he easily bests them. Zatanna has just enough power to teleport them to Robinson Park, but Cain quickly follows. Deadman and Constantine reappear from the afterlife, but Bennett has refused to follow them. They ready themselves for Cain’s final onslaught when the wind suddenly changes direction. The Crystal One’s intervention has finally propagated and Gotham’s defenders sense the change. The dust swirling around them suddenly forms into the body of a reincarnated Andrew Bennett.

• Bennett has lived for 600 years putting the date of his birth sometime in circa 1400.
• Shade has been suffering from growing mental problems stemming from the accidental death of his girlfriend Kathy. He leaves the team with this issue.

Sales

My Thoughts

Surveying the Internets

ACB liked how Milligan focused upon his own group and made these issue almost standalone:

Going from issue #7 to #8 was a pretty good transition. It doesn’t hurt to have read both series, but if you’ve only read this title, you’re not too terribly out of the loop as Peter Milligan has done a pretty good job at focusing specifically on his group in his title and put together a really cool and eerie story.

Several reviews picked up on the lacking of pacing/momentum in these issues. Tim Vinton (Player Affinity) said that:

Unfortunately, despite the improvements here, I think the real problem with the series right now is a fundamental flaw in the current story arc. There is no tension in these two issues. We have our heroes fighting an army of vampires in Gotham City and somehow that is boring. At the end of the day, there just aren’t any real stakes here, if you’ll forgive the vampire parlance.

While Kelly Thompson (Comic Book Resources) took issue with the lack of forward momentum in this story:

Almost nobody does anything of merit in the book. At one point Zatanna makes the bold decision that she’s no longer going to wait for her death but instead face it. Mary Queen of Blood and Xanadu join her and I mentally cheered that we were going to see something actually happen. But less than a page later the three of them fold and escape again without ever having made this “big stand.”

The Verdicts