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Quote1 This so-called team... we don't actually have to like each other, do we? Quote2
John Constantinesrc

Justice League Dark is a branch of the Justice League dedicated to dealing with mystical and supernatural threats. Its founding members include Deadman, John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, Shade, the Changing Man and Zatanna. Its current members are John Constantine, Detective Chimp, Doctor Fate (Khalid Nassour), Ragman, Etrigan and Zatanna.

History

First Formation

In the Dark

 Main article: Justice League Dark: In the Dark

Madame Xanadu organized the group called Justice League Dark when she foresaw a terrible future only they could prevent. They were assembled to stop the Enchantress when she went on a rampage after being separated from her host June Moone.[2] Enchantress begun going insane and Xanadu gave her the names of those working against her.[3] John Constantine and Zatanna worked together to cast incantations. Madame Xanadu had Shade, the Changing Man reluctantly recruit Mindwarp.[4] Deadman tried to protect June, but Enchantress finally captured her when Shade messed up a spell.[5] The whole team met for the first time in their final battle with Enchantress, which ended when Constantine bonded her to June Moone again. He sacrificed her life to protect hundreds of others. When Xanadu then tried to rally them as a team, they all angrily refused her.[6] Eventually Constantine, Deadman, Shade and Zatanna begun having horrible nightmares and visited Xanadu again. She revealed tem that these were visions of what would come by if they would not form a team, and they became the Justice League Dark.[7]

Rise of the Vampires

 Main article: I, Vampire: Rise of the Vampires

Cain Sire of All Vampires 001

Cain strikes!

Andrew Bennett was killed and his death released Cain, a primordial evil known as the sire of all vampires.[8] This was the apocalypse the team was assembled to prevent, and Xanadu took all of them to fight him in Gotham City. Constantine and Deadman were sent into the afterlife to bring back Bennett, while Xanadu bartered for power with the Crystal One.[9] Bennett struggled with his purpose in Purgatory while Cain stole magic from the League members and used it to erase the vampire weaknesses, making his army unstoppable.[10] Xanadu balanced the scales by allowing Bennett to share Cain's power., but Shade finally had a complete mental breakdown, losing control of the M-Vest and slipping into the Area of Madness where he could finally be happy with his girlfriend Kathy George. Mary, Queen of Blood assisted the League, but they were nowhere near powerful enough to stop Cain. Constantine and Deadman were unable to convince Bennett to return, but he eventually came back on his own wielding god-like powers.[11] Bennett beheaded Cain and took control of the vampire army, making them peaceful. Constantine warned him that they'll come after him if they needed to, and Bennett promised the team a favor in return for helping his friends.[12]

The Black Room

 Main article: Justice League Dark: The Black Room

Steve Trevor of A.R.G.U.S. commissions the team for another mission, giving them the official codename Justice League Dark. For their services Constantine is promised ten minutes alone in the Black Room, the government's secret depository of mystic artifacts. They are sent to extract Doctor Mist and take down Felix Faust. Andrew Bennett and A.R.G.U.S. agent Black Orchid accompany Constantine, Deadman and Zatanna. Faust is discovered to be holding a map to the Books of Magic.[13] Constantine takes them back to the House of Mystery to decide what to do. Bennett quits the team, but Constantine reveals he can recall visitors to the House at any time. When they open the map, it releases the Demons Three. The Demons steal the map for their master and travel to A.R.G.U.S. Headquarters, breaking Faust out of confinement.[14] The League teleport in to fight the Demons, and Constantine finally gets access to the Black Room. Faust reveals that he manipulated them into opening the map for him, and Doctor Mist betrays the team by blasting Constantine in the head.[15]

War for the Books of Magic

Still inside the headquarters of A.R.G.U.S., the team deals with the betrayal of Doctor Mist and regroups. Constantine took a glimpse in the map before being hit, and found the place where the Books of Magic should be: the Slaughter Swamp nearby Gotham City. Zatanna decides also to track the magical signature of Mist, discovering he and Faust went back to Peru. Of course the team does not want to risk anything, so they split up: John and Black Orchid head to the Swamp while Zatanna and Deadman go hunting for the enemy.[16] Without knowing it, both of them were sent to a trap: John realizes it after him and Orchid defeat Black Boris. In Perù, Nick Necro reveals himself as the man behind both Faust and Dr. Mist. Still in his never-ending search of the Books of Magic, Nick also wants his revenge on his former students and lovers: Zatanna and Constantine.

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At the mercy of Nick Necro!

John comes to help them, but is shocked in seeing Nick back from Hell. Zatanna accepts to follow him inside the House of Secrets so that Necro would spare the life of the Hellblazer. Then, he heads to Nanda Parbat with John, Deadman and Orchid on the trail inside the House of Mystery. But Doctor Mist is powerful enough to send Constantine and his mates on a crash course, letting Nick escape.[17] As Nick reaches Nanda Parbat, a piece of his plan fails: Faust wasn't able to bring there Timothy Hunter, a kid destined to become the greatest magician of all time. Without the death of Timothy, no one can read the Books. Meanwhile, Constantine is in the Sahara Desert waiting for the House of Mystery to heal: now also with Frankenstein, Andrew Bennett and Princess Amaya, Constantine welcomes also Madame Xanadu and Timothy, as the diviner rescued him in London from Faust's attacks.

In a final encounter there, Nick is defeated thanks to a mere trick by Constantine, who fakes killing Timothy in exchange of Zatanna's lives, making the Books reject Necro (Timothy was in reality Black Orchid, using her shape-shifting powers). Attracted by the books, Timothy opens one of them who starts communicating with him, like a sort of device, and then initializes a tele-transportation: Zatanna instinctively grabs the kid trying to help him and her, too, disappears.[18]

The Battle in Epoch

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Fighting for the House of Mystery

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Trinity War

After Zatanna assisted to the start of a conflict in Kahndaq between the Justice League and the Justice League of America, both trying to prevent an international disaster because of the actions of Billy Batson, the Justice League Dark gets contacted by Wonder Woman who wants to know more about the myth behind a mysterious item who might have turned Superman into a killer: Pandora's Box.[19] While John Constantine is initially resentful about helping Diana, being also that he's in distress due the fact that Madame Xanadu is missing, the rest of the team accepts to help her. Constantine leads Diana inside the House of Mystery, the Justice League Dark's headquarters, but they surprisingly find that members of both the other Leagues are waiting for them.

There, the Phantom Stranger warns Diana that the Box is not involved in the Superman situation. Wonder Woman is angered by the Stranger's words, and tries to interrogate him with the Lasso of Truth, but the Stranger just answers he does not know the real cause of Superman's unexpected behavior. Still convinced the key is in magic, Diana tells that anyone who wants to follow her in searching for Pandora is welcome.[20] After the Box is found, all the heroes start to feel a calling to it, and anyone who lays hands on it becomes corrupted. Being already corrupt enough, John Constantine takes it without side effects but he cannot do much with it, as soon the man behind the Secret Society, the mysterious Outsider, comes out and uses the Box for its real function: opening a door to another dimension. From it, the Crime Syndicate comes to town ready to conquer everything.[21]

Forever Evil: Blight

After the Crime Syndicate appeared in the Temple of Hephaestus, all the Leagues were defeated. John Constantine wakes up inside the House of Mystery, where Asa, the Nightmare Nurse, tells him she just cured him from the effects of Pandora's Box.[22] In pain, John needs to know what happened to Zatanna and the others and tries an enchantment together with Asa and Swamp Thing to find them, but a powerful force blocks them. Constantine identifies it as the Blight, a creature living in the Collective Unconscious and formed by the evil inside all men. After trying to take him down in his home dimension, the three recruit also two thirds of the Trinity of Sin: the Phantom Stranger and Pandora.[23]

In New York City then, the new group fights Blight, who found a way to manifest on the physical plane using the body of Chris Esperanza as vessel. After deceiving the creature, making him believe they were dead, John decides to follow a lead: Deadman someway contacted him while in the Collective Unconscious. The vision leads them to Nan Madol, an ancient kingdom under the sea, fell long before Atlantis was born. There, a dead member of the Crime Syndicate, the Sea King, was possessed by the resentful spirits of the dead kingdom after its corpse was dumped in the ocean. Soon, the team discovers that Deadman possessed the corpse while in the temple, but couldn't control it as it was full of evil intentions.[24]

After both the Phantom Stranger and Pandora are apparently killed by Blight[25], Zauriel intervenes entering the deepest region of the Collective Unconscious to explain that everything is part of a plan made in Heaven. In fact, it is revealed that through the possession, Chris Esperanza will be reborn into a being of redemption. After Chris transforms himself, explaining he had to know the evil inside men to then forgive it and become what he was destined to turn into, Blight is once again locked in the depths of his home dimension. As the menace of Blight is extinguished, John Constantine succeeds in tracking the location of Zatanna.[26]

Forever Evil: Project Thaumaton

The problem is that Constantine enters a comatose state, thanks to the fact he used the Blackmare Curse on himself when fighting against Blight. The Phantom Stranger finds a way to wake him up, and John, combining his power with the magic of Pandora, discovers that Zatanna is held in Nanda Parbat where Nick Necro and Felix Faust are handling a secret operation as subordinates of the Crime Syndicate.[27] Trying to pass the defenses of Nanda Parbat, they all get captured and inserted into a mechanism who transforms magician into energy sources: it seems the Syndicate is preparing a magical weapon to face something they fear who might follow them from their home dimension. They call this Project Thaumaton. [28]

Soon though an opening manifests for the heroes to fight back: Necro and Faust start to have some issues due to the fact that Nick was concentrating too much on hurting Zatanna and Constantine.[29] Faust decides to pull of his move, and absorbs all the magical power stored in the weapon they were creating, but gets tricked by Constantine who takes the power for himself. With the idea of sacrificing himself to revive all other magician, Zatanna tries to make John be reasonable but soon discovers that in Nanda Parbat there are two John Constantine simultaneously. One of them commits the ultimate sacrifice, and it's revealed this Constantine was one of John's inner demons, turned into a human by the love that the Hellblazer felt for Zatanna. The original Constantine still lives, but without that part of him his love for Zee might be lost forever. As Faust and Necro are out, now the hellspawn they evoked as allies finds free to do what they want, and they decide killing some of the strongest magician on Earth could be useful. Constantine flees from the scene, betraying the team and leaving them without a leader: Zatanna takes the role of Constantine and leads the League to victory, utilizing the power of the spirits of Nanda Parbat. Zatanna then goes to the House of Mystery to confront John, kicking him out of the place with the revelation that the House is now bonded to her.[30]

Leaded by Zatanna

After the betrayal of Constantine, Zatanna takes the role of the team's leader, who sees its roster depleted after Frankenstein and Black Orchid decide to leave. Still, Deadman, Nightmare Nurse and Swamp Thing remain part of the group, reorganizing to keep protecting the Earth from the danger of magic. But soon a new crisis starts when a new personality arises in the Nightmare Nurse: the one of the mysterious Alice Winter.[31]The real spirit of Asa gets trapped in The Between and contacts John Constantine to find help: she must enter again in the body of Alice. Constantine then reaches the House and tries to convince Zatanna to let Asa possess Alice once again, but the sorceress denies it as the young girl is afraid of the Nightmare Nurse.

After Asa enters Zatanna's body[32], Constantine threatens her telling he will bring her once again to The Between, but his threat backfires transporting the whole House to that dimension. Asa then tells everybody she is ashamed about possessing Zee and that she took the body of Alice because she was dying from an illness: to prove she is a force of good, Asa sacrifices herself to let everyone get back. Still, Zatanna manages to pull off a dangerous spell able to resurrect the Nurse, who now with Alice's permission re-enters her host.[33] As Constantine tries to get back in the team, Deadman starts to feel a pull towards Nanda Parbat and after the magicians of the League fail in transporting him there, he follows the mysterious Brahma Dass who leads him there. He soon discovers that the creature he followed was an evil old god of Nanda Parbat, Pantheon, now woken after the actions of Project Thaumaton.[34]

Justice League Dark Vol 1 30 Textless

The Justice League Dark still stands!

Soon the team finds a way to reach him there and together with the real Brahma Dass, they defeat Pantheon when Deadman succeeds in possessing him. This gives back Nanda Parbat to her guardian spirits.[35] Back in their own dimension, the League gets involved in a conflict between the House of Mystery and the House of Secrets: the two living houses trick them into believing they are in conflict, while in truth they were trying to unite. Utilizing Zatanna and Constantine's unspoken love for each other, they find a way to join into the House of Wonder, a sentient house able to connect to the whole planet to conquer it. Breaking their love bond with a curse, Zee and John sacrifice their relationship for the sake of the world. But the destruction of the House of Wonder creates a rift in space and time, catapulting the team in different parts of the timestream.[36]

Healing the Timestream

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Second Formation

The Last Age of Magic

After the battle with the Omega Titans and the Source Wall breaking itself, it seems that magic has been someway broken. Wonder Woman finds her involved in this change, feeling she must act to discover the real matter behind it: the Justice League gives her the mission of leading a new formation of the Justice League Dark to take on this new problem. After recruiting Dr. Kirk Langstrom, in search of redemption, Diana tries to recruit Zatanna Zatara, who is aware of the problem, but gets a refusal by the sorceress, sustaining Diana is acting out of reach.

After talking about her feelings with Detective Chimp, who decides to join the team, Zatanna and Swamp Thing rescue them in their headquarters: the sorceress had a vision from the Tree of Wonder in Salem, together with Swamp Thing, in the form of her father, telling her the only way to stop what's happening is to gather together with Diana's team, as the threat of the Otherkind and their leader, the Upside-Down Man, is coming upon planet Earth.[37]

Justice League Dark Vol 2 3 Textless

The Upside-Down Man appears!

Now completely formed, the team's next step is to reach Salem to encounter Doctor Fate, hoping that the most powerful sorcerer on Earth can give them an insight about why magic is unstable and maybe, if he knows, explain to them who the Upside-Down Man is. Reaching the Tower of Fate, Swamp Thing stops outside as he wants once again to reconnect with the Tree of Wonder. In reality, he wants to have a private chat with John Constantine. As the other members of the team are granted access, Doctor Fate welcomes only Zatanna and Diana in his rooms, telling Detective Chimp and Man-Bat that they are two creatures standing at the opposite side of Order and for this, they cannot proceed.

Bobo and Kirk then start exploring the place, finding a kid trapped in a vase telling them to run. They cannot know that he was trying to warn them about the fact that Kent Nelson, the human host of the power of Fate, was not in control of the Helmet anymore: Nabu himself, the Lord of Order, imprisoned his host in a dimension inside the Helmet itself and plans to let the Otherkind enter the planet as he's tired of the Chaos magic brings on Earth. This is Nabu's duty, as a defender of Order, and even if both Diana and Zee try to make him have a clearer view, it is too late: the Upside-Down Man appears in front of the amazon.[38] A fight ensues, but the creature is too strong and in no time deprives Constantine of his demon blood, makes Swamp Thing rot and liquefies Bobo. Horrified by what's happening, Wonder Woman evokes from herself a magical power she did not know even possessing, a power capable of hurting the Upside-Down Man, something traditional magic could not. After banishing him and restoring both Bobo and Swamp Thing to their original form, Diana falls to the ground, exhausted.[39]

The Witching Hour

After a crisis in which Diana almost lost control of her body to her newfound power connected to the mysterious goddess Hecate, the team makes an escape to the Oblivion Bar where John Constantine was witness of a massacre: another witch, imbued with a power similar to the one of Diana, committed suicide killing several other women. Constantine tells everyone that their lives will come to an end, as the Witching Hour comes forth.[40] Trying to understand better her power, Diana together with the rest of the team, now also including Constantine, travels to the island of Aeaea, home of the witch Circe. Wonder Woman had suspicions about the nature of her power, and Circe confirms her she was right: it was the Greek goddess of witchcraft, Hecate, that gave her that power when she chose her to be one of the witch-marked. Circe, a protege of Hecate, explains that the goddess always chooses five women to store her power in, as one day she will retrieve it and by means of their bodies, she will rewrite magic so that it will serve herself and herself only. As Circe and Diana decide they could try to use Hecate's power against the goddess herself, Zatanna tries to convince Wonder Woman otherwise but the princess does not listen to the sorceress.

Justice League Dark and Wonder Woman The Witching Hour Vol 1 1 Textless Variant

Wonder Woman possessed!

They soon leave for Nanda Parbat, where another of the woken witch-marked, Manitou Dawn, is trying to conquer one of magic's places of power. Nanda Parbat is after all the gate to the underworld, and one of the stepping stones for Hecate to start her rewriting of magic's own nature.[41] Soon, Diana finds out that Zatanna was right, as Hecate takes control of her body and of the power stored in her while sending Wonder Woman's spirit in another dimension called the Collective Unconscious.[42] In a desperate attempt to set things right, Zatanna and Constantine try to exorcise Hecate's power out of Diana's body, but the different nature of Hecate's magic and also the instability in the traditional form of it makes the rite go wrong: the other two active witch-marked, Manitou Dawn and Black Orchid, are exorcised but all their power converges into Diana.

Now as powerful as a goddess, Diana conquers Nanda Parbat, making it Hecate's Necropolis, and then heads to the Sphere of the Gods, as Black Orchid already completed the conquest of the other place of power, the Parliament of Trees, without Swamp Thing able to do anything about it. Saved by Circe who transports every enemy of Hecate on her island, the team reorganizes for a final, almost suicidal attempt at stopping the witch-goddess, traveling to Mount Olympus.[43] There, Diana, in some way, regains control of her body and makes a bold decision: she lets the Upside-Down Man reach Hecate with her power, with the monster devouring the witch-goddess. Then, with the last part of her power, she restores Mount Olympus to his original form and takes everyone back in the Justice League Dark headquarters.

The Lords of Order

After helping Detective Chimp in his role of new Nightmaster, defender of the magical realm of Myrra, in re-establishing a normal situation there after Bobo tried to resurrect the old Nightmaster, Jim Rook, breaking the laws of death in Myrra and causing an invasion from undead warriors, the team had to face once again the problem of the Otherkind: the Upside-Down Man was starting his invasion, trying to establish his presence on Earth with a rather unexpected approach, as it seems the only way for them to stay in a dimensional plane is by making people believe they exist. Meanwhile, John Constantine together with Swamp Thing are helping the Phantom Stranger in his fight against Nabu who, it seems, is allied with the Upside-Down Man. After Nabu defeats the Stranger, Constantine knows it's his time to act and, allowing Alec to escape, carves something on his arm before being absorbed in the dimension within the Helmet of Fate. In that exact moment, what John wrote on his arm appears on Zatanna's: the Hellblazer wants Zee to find Mordru.[44]

In the team's headquarters, Man-Bat is possessed: he starts writing stories about the encounter of several members of the team with the Otherkind. Without realizing it, he has become a pawn in the hands of the Upside-Down Man, using him to increase the belief in the Otherkind making their presence stronger on Earth. What the monster does not know is that Giovanni Zatara, while imprisoned together with Sargon, manages to make Man-Bat write a story about himself, also using it as a mean of transmission for a powerful item, the Ruby of Life, which seems to be key for the team to be able to defeat their enemy. Of course, the jewel is destined to Giovanni's daughter, Zatanna.[45]

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Fighting the Lords of Order

The team soon isolates Man-Bat, not allowing him to participate in active duty. The scientist decides to try and perform an enchantment to free the kid him and Bobo found imprisoned in a jar inside the Tower of Fate. Meanwhile, Bobo and the others try to organize a mass evacuation of magical refugees who are escaping from the Otherkind, now all under shelter in the Oblivion Bar. Soon, the Upside-Down Man finds the place and attacks it, making Bobo take an abrupt decision: transferring everyone in Myrra, due to the fact that the Otherkind still cannot reach the Sphere of the Gods, the plane of reality where Myrra exists. Meanwhile, Kirk succeeds in freeing Khalid Nassour who warns him of an unexpected scenery: Nabu is not allied with the Upside-Down Man, but has a plan of his own to end both the threat of the Otherkind and of magic to the equilibrium of Order.[46]

Nabu found hosts for all the Lords of Order, and planned with them about letting the Otherkind consume most magical users while they would destroy the Sphere of the Gods, home of most of the magic. This would lead the Otherkind to starvation, and with their own sacrifice the Lords will grant that they disappear forever, leaving a safe world without magic behind. Without realizing it, Bobo allowed Nabu to even start his plan earlier, as he attacks Myrra and strips Jason Blood of his connection with the demon Etrigan. As Myrra is condemned and will die, everyone hiding there needs to find a new, safer place.[47] While escaping in a new dimension, one of the Lords, Sister Symmetry, offers everyone a chance: they can decide to keep living a life, but without either magic or the remembrance of it, or die here and now at the hands of the Lords.

At the same time, Zatanna and Wonder Woman are out, searching for Mordru, who maybe knows what they should do with the Ruby of Life. After finding out that Giovanni talked about the Otherkind with both Mordru and Circe many years before, and also after making the shocking discovery that John Constantine was recruited by Giovanni to make sure his daughter would follow the steps of Giovanni's plan, Circe tells both Zee and Diana that they cannot find Mordru: it's him who will find them, they just have to go home. [48] Following her counsel, Zatanna pronounces a formula that takes them "home": they are now in the Hall of Justice, and both Zee and Diana notice a weird-looking tavern in the middle of the Hall that was never there. It was created by Mordru himself to receive them, and them only.

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Call them Lords of Chaos!

Soon, Mordru makes things clear: he is the Lord of Chaos, he is a monstrous and cruel being that lived before both Zatanna and Diana and that will still live centuries after they both become dust. After stating his power and hurting, just for the pleasure, both women, Modrdu imbues the Ruby of Life with the power of Chaos, and then leaves them, affirming that the defeat or the victory of the Otherkind would not change things neither for the better nor for the worse, at least for what concerns him. Stepping out of the terrible experience with the sorcerer, Diana and Zatanna allow Chaos to flow through them, transforming them in new version of each other: they both now are Lords of Chaos. Meanwhile, the refugees led by Bobo and Swamp Thing are in Kor, where Jason Blood, speaking for the whole magical community, accepts the offer of the Lords, choosing a life without magic instead of certain death.[49]

As all seems lost, Zatanna and Diana appear in Kor and transform also Bobo, Swamp Thing and Man-Bat in Lords of Chaos. They defeat their counterparts of Order, the old comrades of Mordru himself, also freeing Kent Nelson, the Phantom Stranger and John Constantine from their prison inside the Helmet of Fate. All the Lords are contained within their items of power and in the end, magic is ready to be rewritten. Zatanna knows that is the purpose of the Ruby, but she also realizes that for her, magic is a foul, terrible and chaotic thing. She's not the right person to bring to the world a new, better version of it, capable of beating the Otherkind, and so Zee gives the Ruby to Diana. Wonder Woman, with the promise that magic will protect everyone from harm, refounds magic itself, smashing the jewel while doing it.[50]

The Witching War

In the aftermath of the battle against Nabu and the Lords of Order, Diana talks with both Kent Nelson and Khalid Nassour of the future of Doctor Fate's power, trying to understand who might wear the cape of the sorcerer next. In the Oblivion Bar, Zatanna and Constantine argue about John's involvement in Giovanni's plans, with Zatanna stating she won't trust one word out of the mouth of the Hellblazer from now on.

No one knows that in Aeaea, Circe is planning to overtake magic: in secret, she never revealed to be the fifth and last of Hecate's witch-marked and, when the ancient goddess fell at the hands of the Upside-Down Man, it was Circe herself that got all the power of the Greek divine sorceress. Now incredibly powerful, she receivers an offer from Lex Luthor, giving her the means to form a counter-team to battle against the Justice League Dark in a war for magic.[51]Suddenly, Diana experiences a nightmare related to what Circe is planning to do: Giovanni Zatara found a way to manifest in Diana's dreams, telling her she must think about who her real enemy is. If she will not be able to stop her from recruiting her final objective, magic and the world will be doomed. Panicking, Diana contacts Zatanna and the others telling they must discuss what happened in her dream. While the team finally meets in the headquarters, no one of them realizes that Klarion was inside and that he subjugated the mind of Kirk Langstrom. Soon, it's discovered that Klarion and his cat Teekl are two members of Circe's own team, the Injustice League Dark.[52]

Talking about the manifestation of Giovanni, Diana asks Zatanna and Kent to come with her for a private argument, then showing both a secret room where many dangerous and powerful magical items are stored, all things the Justice League collected in their adventures. The most dangerous of all things there is the Black Diamond, the prison of Eclipso: Diana thinks that with Zee and Kent's mastery of magic she can access the Collective Unconscious through the Diamond without freeing the prisoner who must be kept inside. The amazon wants to understand if she can stop Circe from Hecate's home dimension, without realizing that the final piece Giovanni cited inside her dream was Eclipso itself. Circe is also starting to move: she tries to recruit by her side the two places of power Hecate created, the Parliament of Flowers and Hecate's Necropolis.[53] Diana successfully enters the Collective Unconscious, realizing too late it was a mistake: after explaining her that Eclipso was the counterpart of Hecate created by other eternal beings to fill the void of the banished Upside-Down Man, Circe takes Diana's body for herself, without being noticed, to complete her plan freeing Eclipso and fusing him into herself, becoming unstoppable.

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The three aspects of Wonder Woman

As also the Parliament of Flowers and the Necropolis fall into the lap of Circe, Doom rises upon the sky. In the headquarters, Bobo and Khalid battle a berserk monstrous version of Kirk Langstrom, who injected himself with a new version of his serum that transformed him in an horrific amalgam of bat-themed monstrosities. [54] After sedating Kirk and acknowledging that Swamp Thing was rotting, probably due to the Parliament of Flowers acting against him, Bobo tells Diana the bad news and, seeing her strange reaction, understands that her body is possessed by another spirit. With her cover blown, Circe calls for her team and the fight ensues, with the Black Diamond as prize. Meanwhile, in the Collective Unconscious, Diana receives a visit from the terrible Upside-Down Man.[55] The creature offers her a deal: if she will be able to balance magic inside the universe, finally giving the Otherkind a purpose, she will help her get back and defeat Circe, with of course the promise that if she fails, Earth will be eaten without mercy by him and his servants. Diana accepts and prepares to counterattack, while Khalid Nassour, knowing they might lose the battle, takes the hard decision of becoming the new Doctor Fate.[56]

In the end, Diana comes back from Hecate's home dimension, wielding the three aspects of the witch-goddess: one is the original Wonder Woman, one is the witch-marked and one is herself as Lord of Chaos. With this power, the amazon brings Circe back to the Collective Unconscious and imprisons her and the power of Hecate there, promising Circe she will find a way to let her free and make her not a weapon full of spite, but an instrument of good. After Diana reveals that she was able to come back thanks to an agreement with the Upside-Down Man, the team starts to think about a way to restore Swamp Thing from his condition.[57]

The Parliaments of Life

Called for help in Los Angeles by the Animal Man, the Justice League Dark intervened to solve a problem connected to one of the Parliaments of Life, the Grey. Khalid Nassour, the new host of Nabu and thus new Doctor Fate, told the team that the Parliaments were in crisis after the shock of magic being reformed and that he needed to once again perform a rite that would get them back to their equilibrate state, or the world would be affected by other catastrophes as these.

Khalid then explained he would need all the guardians of the Parliaments: while the League already had Animal Man, guardian of the Red, and Floronic Man in custody, new guardian of the Green, they still needed to find the remaining three.[58]Zatanna and John Constantine headed to Virginia, trying to find Abigail Arcane, current guardian of the Rot, while Kent Nelson tried to obtain more information out of the Floronic Man, but with no success.[59] Animal Man proceeded in contacting the Divided, finding common ground with them and collaborating to defeat the fungi infection that the Grey was using to kill the Red, thus saving Los Angeles. At the same time, in Tanzania, Doctor Fate started the preparation for the ritual. Inside the Rot, Constantine was able to bring back Abigail Arcane to power while Zatanna, defeated and in danger, managed to send out an SOS so that the rest of the team could reach both her and the Hellblazer to help in the fight against a returned Anton Arcane.[60]

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Notes

Trivia

  • During creator Peter Milligan's run, the team did not actually call themselves Justice League Dark. They were unnamed until Jeff Lemire had Steve Trevor give them an A.R.G.U.S. codename.[13]
  • Several members of the Justice League Dark serve in a consultant basis as opposed to being full members:

See Also

Recommended Reading

Links and References

Footnotes

  1. Justice League (Volume 4) #29
  2. Justice League Dark #1
  3. Justice League Dark #2
  4. Justice League Dark #3
  5. Justice League Dark #4
  6. Justice League Dark #5
  7. Justice League Dark #6
  8. I, Vampire #6
  9. Justice League Dark #7
  10. I, Vampire #7
  11. Justice League Dark #8
  12. I, Vampire #8
  13. 13.0 13.1 Justice League Dark #9
  14. Justice League Dark #10
  15. Justice League Dark #11
  16. Justice League Dark #12
  17. Justice League Dark #13
  18. Justice League Dark Annual #1
  19. Justice League of America (Volume 3) #6
  20. Justice League Dark #22
  21. Justice League (Volume 2) #23
  22. Justice League Dark #24
  23. Justice League Dark #25
  24. Justice League Dark #26
  25. Trinity of Sin: Pandora #7
  26. Justice League Dark #27
  27. Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger #16
  28. Constantine #11
  29. Justice League Dark #28
  30. Justice League Dark #29
  31. Justice League Dark #30
  32. Justice League Dark #31
  33. Justice League Dark #32
  34. Justice League Dark #33
  35. Justice League Dark #34
  36. Justice League Dark Annual #2
  37. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #1
  38. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #2
  39. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #3
  40. Wonder Woman and Justice League Dark: The Witching Hour #1
  41. Wonder Woman (Volume 5) #56
  42. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #4
  43. Wonder Woman (Volume 5) #57
  44. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #6
  45. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #7
  46. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #8
  47. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #9
  48. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #10
  49. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #11
  50. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #12
  51. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #13
  52. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #14
  53. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #15
  54. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #16
  55. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #17
  56. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #18
  57. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #19
  58. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #21
  59. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #21
  60. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #22
  61. Karen Berger Confirms DC Characters to Leave Vertigo
  62. Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing (Volume 1)
  63. Peter Milligan interview
  64. 64.0 64.1 Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #13
  65. Justice League Dark (Volume 2) #23
  66. Superman (Volume 5) #24
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