Justice League Dark

Milligan on two Constantines and damaged lives

Justice League Dark and Hellblazer writer Peter Milligan has spoken to Comic Book Resources about the challenges of writing two incarnations of John Constantine – the older married John in Hellblazer and the younger unattached John in JL Dark. The question as to whether its a challenge to separate the two versions is one he has been asked repeatedly:

You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve been asked this question! Of course it’s a challenge, but it’s not an insanely difficult one. I mean, I don’t have to perform some complex mental gymnastics to separate the two. How I see it, they’re the same John. The DCU John is younger, and operates on a different time or storyline from his Hellblazer/Vertigo cousin, but they are essentially the same person with the same kind of outlook and the same difficult relationship with morality.

I think the Justice League Dark Constantine has a bit more outright Occult ability than the Vertigo one, but the truth is, my Vertigo Constantine has a bit more occult about him than some of the other writer’s versions, anyway. The bottom line is, I’m confident that our readers are sophisticated enough to understand that this is the same character, expressed and characterized in different stories.

Milligan also outlined how he saw the JL Dark team as a group of people who have all left behind a string of destructive relationships.

I’m interested in what impact having these weird powers have on our characters’ lives — and also on the lives of those who our heroes touch. I have an idea that the members of Justice League Dark have strings of damaged and broken relationships behind them. With Boston [Brand, AKA Deadman] and Dove, we had a relationship that most readers would already know about. I wanted to show just how tough it must be, just how destructive their realities are.

New Justice League Logos

Newsarama has posted a graphic showing all the logos for the new DC 52 series. Included are the three Justice League logos. The default Justice League logo reminds me of the logo on All-Star Superman. The basic formula is a bold JUSTICE and a narrow lined LEAGUE with the third word, where there is one, emphasised by a perspective distortion. It works well for Justice League Dark, but I’m not so convinced about the JLI logo. It actually look me a while to realise that the mottling was the world map, but that may just have been the small size of the image.

JL Dark character designs

The relaunched iFanboy site has an exclusive look at JLD artist’s Mikel Janin’s character designs for the new series. They show a decidedly younger John Constantine, a goth Zatanna, and a more realistically dressed Enchantress. I can shake the feeling that each of those figures is based on a real person as the shading/tone-work is almost uncanny.

I think this series is one of the most interesting in the entire New 52 and could well be a massive hit if it can find the right balance between the super-heroics of the DCU and the ambience of the Vertigoverse.

Justice League Dark at SDCC

Neither Peter Milligan (writer) or Mikel Janin (artist) from JL Dark were present at the San Diego Comic-Con panel on DC’s Edge and Dark titles. So there was little or no discussion of the title, but some new coloured interior art was released.

The first piece (above right) was originally released in greytone as part of a previous interview on JLD, but was updated with colour for SDCC. Janin posted the greytone and coloured version on Deviant Art. The second piece (above left) shows the Justice League (Superman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg) preparing to battle a supernatural force which could be the Enchantress. Janin has also posted this image to his Deviant Art page and the greytone original. He has identified the colourist as Ulises Arreola and that the first piece is actually the first page of the first issue.

Peter Milligan JL Dark interview at CBR

Justice League Dark writer Peter Milligan has given an interview to CBR about the upcoming book.

First, the name. It was one of those titles that for a while, I think we were all seeing it as a kind of working title. But the longer we used it, the harder it was to call the book anything else. And none of the other names we came up with described the book as well.

He also talks about Deadman’s position on the team and acknowledges that Constantine and Zatanna have prior history in the relationship department. The interview is fairly light, but interesting nevertheless. What makes it worth checking out is the fantastic artwork by JLD artist Mikel Janin.

I’m beginning to change my mind on this title. JLD is something that really hasn’t been done before, but its being done by a writer who know the characters. This may end up being the best of the three Justice League titles.

Justice League Dark (updated with cover)

The third Justice League to appear in DC’s brave new world is Justice League Dark. This is a title that was rumoured by Bleeding Cool before all this rearrangement stuff started, but it’s only now that we get details. EW has a profile on DC’s new supernatural books/teams – material that would have once sat within Vertigo – and one of those is the JL Dark.

• Justice League Dark, what DC terms “a band of supernatural heroes” — John Constantine, Deadman, Shade the Changing Man and Madame Xanadu (wouldn’t it be cool if they really were supposed to be a band?) – written by Peter Milligan.

Peter Milligan should certainly be a safe pair of hands on these characters (a line I used about Jurgens on the JLI), but it’s not these characters with this writer that worries me. It’s these characters as a Justice League team – hell, as any team for that matter – that worries me. I honestly don’t really see how that team is going to work as a unit.

There are certainly other supernatural characters (Blue Devil, Zatanna, Zauriel, or any of the Shadowpact survivors) that would work better on a team. Deadman and Xanadu are interesting (her last Vertigo series was brilliant), but Shade the Changing Man has always left me cold (I’d prefer The Shade from James Robinson’s Starman). As for Constantine? I don’t know, as with so much to do with his reboot we’ll just have to wait and see.

Updated: The DCU Source have posted the above cover and have listed Mikel Janin as the artist. Mikel Janin was the artist on the “Anger” Green Arrow/Ragmen section of the last 80-Page Giant.  The posted image isn’t by him, but Janin identifies the artist on his DeviantArt page as Ryan Sook.

Looks like we’ve got another black-haired woman on a JL cover – the fishnet gloves do at least suggest Zatanna and she does have previous with Constantine. There is a huge slew of mystical/dark books in the Source post. I happy that Resurrection Man has been, erm, resurrected, but I’m nervous about how well a lot of these titles are going to do.

We are now at four Justice League books and counting – Justice League, Justice League International, Justice League Dark, and Young Justice (the Johnny DC/Earth-16 cartoon tie-in).