Justice League Dark
Justice League Dark are a team that feature in DC Comics.
Contents |
History
Origin
The Justice League Dark were a team of magic tied superheroes that formed together to protect the world. 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. (Justice League Dark v1 #1) Enchantress begun going insane and Xanadu gave her the names of those working against her. (Justice League Dark v1 #2) John Constantine and Zatanna worked together to cast incantations. Madame Xanadu had Shade, the Changing Man reluctantly recruit Mindwarp. (Justice League Dark v1 #3) Deadman tried to protect June, but Enchantress finally captured her when Shade messed up a spell. (Justice League Dark v1 #4) The entire team later 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. (Justice League Dark v1 #5) 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. (Justice League Dark v1 #6)
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. (Justice League Dark v1 #9) 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. (Justice League Dark v1 #10) 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. (Justice League Dark v1 #11)
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. (Justice League Dark v1 #12) 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. 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 was powerful enough to send Constantine and his teammates on a crash course thus allowing Necro to escape. (Justice League Dark v1 #13) In their final encounter, Nick came to be defeated thanks to a mere trick by Constantine, who faked killing Timothy in exchange of Zatanna's lives. This made it so that the Books of Magic rejected Necro after it was revealed that 'Timothy' was in reality Black Orchid, using her shape-shifting powers. Attracted by the books, Timothy opened one of them who starts communicating with him, like a sort of device, and then initializes a tele-transportation. Zatanna instinctively grabbed the kid trying to help him but the two then disappeared. (Justice League Dark Annual v1 #1)
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. (Justice League of America v3 #6)
The Phantom Stranger warned Diana that the Box was not involved in the Superman situation. However, Wonder Woman was angered by the Stranger's words, and tried to interrogate him with the Lasso of Truth, but the Stranger just answered he did not know the real cause of Superman's unexpected behavior. Still convinced the key was in magic, Diana told that anyone who wants to follow her in searching for Pandora was welcome. (Justice League Dark v1 #22) After the Box was 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. (Justice League Dark v1 #23)
Second Formation
Magic itself later came to break following the battle of the Omega Titans and the Source Wall breaking itself. Wonder Woman came to find herself within this change and sought to discover the real reason behind it. This saw the Justice League giving her the mission to form a new incarnation of the Justice League Dark and tasked with solving this new problem. Among her first recruits was Dr. Kirk Langstrom who had been seeking redemption for his past actions as Man-Bat. Diana then looked to recruit Zatanna Zatara who was aware of the problems with magic but had refused to become involved. Zatanna would change her mind after talking about her feelings with Detective Chimp and join the team. She and Swamp Thing joined the team at their headquarters when Zatanna had a vision from the Tree of Wonder in Salem. Together with Swamp Thing, in the form of her father, came to tell her the only way to stop what was happening and to gather together with Diana's team, as the threat of the Otherkind and their leader, the Upside-Down Man, was coming to Earth. (Justice League Dark v2 #1)
Overview
In appearance, the Justice League Dark was a specialized defense organization whose core founding assembly consisted entirely of adult humanoid magicians, reanimated spirits, and extra-dimensional entities. The team expanded their visual identity by entirely rejecting uniform state military camouflages, standard metal plate armors, or matching corporate jumpsuits, allowing individual champions to wear custom vestments that highlighted their personal crimefighting personas. Their garments and everyday operational gear consisted of a vibrant, distinct mixture of styles. (Justice League Dark v1 #1) The team initially had no name but later received the code name Justice League Dark from A.R.G.U.S. (Justice League Dark v1 #9)
The Justice League Dark was an organization that naturally lacked any shared, uniform biological traits due to the stark genetic, metaphysical, and evolutionary differences between its diverse founding personnel. Its ranks consisted of seasoned occult detectives and elite tactical operators to execute highly synchronized rescue maneuvers, handle high-risk liability protection, and launch devastating team-based shock assaults against extra-planar entities. They did not possess a single shared, uniform superpower or collective physical invulnerability, relying instead on a highly diverse array of separate biological mutations, ancient sorceries, and advanced mystical artifacts. Their specialized capabilities allowed separate employee units to rewrite localized rules of physics down to the millisecond by speaking backward via Zatanna, possess the physical muscle structures of living target organisms via Deadman, manipulate raw reality-warping fabrics through the M-Vest via Shade, and execute complex counter-espionage hexes via Constantine. Their primary capabilities allowed them to override standard civilian police jurisdictions during supernatural emergencies, traverse the boundaries of hidden spiritual realms completely undetected, and maintain a highly disciplined global defense barrier capable of repelling cosmic invasions. (Justice League Dark v1 #2)
Members
- Constantine :
- Zatanna :
- Deadman :
- Frankenstein :
- Black Orchid :
- Detective Chimp :
- Doctor Fate :
- Kirk Langstrom :
- Animal Man :
- Ragman :
- Eternal Knight :
- Randhir Singh :
Notes
- The Justice League Dark was by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janín where they made their first appearance in Justice League Dark v1 #1 (November, 2011).
- Whilst the comic was named as Justice League Dark, the team had no name to identify themselves until a codename was given to them by A.R.G.U.S. in Justice League v1 Dark #9.
Alternate Versions
- In The New 52: Futures End v1 #2 (2014), an alternate version of the Justice League Dark appeared in the possible Future's End timeline in the Multiverse. This version consisted of Zatanna, Etrigan, Cassandra Craft, Black Orchid, the Nightmare Nurse, Madame Xanadu, Frankenstein, John Constantine, Amethyst, Blue Devil, Deadman, and Andrew Bennett.
- In Future State: Justice League v1 #1 (2021), an alternate version of the Justice League Dark appeared in the possible Future State timeline in the Multiverse. This version consisted of John Constantine, Zatanna, Madame Xanadu, Doctor Fate (Khalid Nassour), and Detective Chimp, the last becoming Etrigan's host after Merlin separated him from Jason Blood.
In other media
Films
- In Justice League Dark, the Justice League Dark appeared in the animated film where they were formed after a range of mystical dangers were forming around the world. The team was gathered by Batman and Zatanna following a string of murders where people began murdering others believing their victims to be demonic creatures. In this time, they followed clues that led to John Constantine. They were joined by Deadman, and the two lead Bruce to the House of Mystery, where they meet Constantine; Constantine reluctantly agrees to help investigate the supernatural occurrences. In this time, they came to learn that the Dreamstone was centered around these events when it was learnt that the sorcerer Doctor Destiny was responsible for the various murders. This led to the formation of the team which consisted of John Constantine, Zatanna Deadman, Etrigan the Demon, Swamp Thing, and Black Orchid who was the physical representation of the House of Mystery.
- In Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, the Justice League Dark appeared in the setting of the animated film sequel. The team appeared in the wider story that involved the invasion of Earth by Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips.
Video games
- In Injustice 2, the Justice League Dark appeared in the Raiden ending in the setting of the fighting video game. This incarnation consisted of Raiden, the Swamp Thing, Zatanna, John Constantine, Etrigan the Demon, and Deadman.
- In DC Legends, the Justice League Dark were referenced in the setting of the mobile video game.
Appearances
- Justice League Dark v1: (2011)
- Justice League of America v3:
- Justice League Dark v2:
External Links
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