Justice League Dark: Rebirth Omnibus

Justice League Dark (2018) (Collected Editions) #1-4

by James Tynion IV, Ram V, Álvaro Martínez Bueno (Illustrator)

The mystical Tree of Wonder has opened a gate to another world.

The Justice League Dark, a team led by Wonder Woman featuring the monsters and magicians of the DC Universe, are humanity's only hope.

The last age of magic is upon us! Wonder Woman has gathered the DC Universe's greatest and strangest to form a new Justice League Dark to protect the world at any cost. But is it too late?

Collects Justice League Dark #1-29; Justice League Dark Annual #1; Justice League Dark 2021 Annual; Justice League Dark/Wonder Woman: The Witching Hour #1; Aquaman #66; Black Adam: Endless Winter Special #1; The Flash #767, #777-779; Justice League #58, #72-74; Justice League: Endless Winter #1-2; Superman: Endless Winter Special #1; Teen Titans: Endless Winter Special #1; Wonder Woman #56-57; Wonder Woman/Justice League Dark: The Witching Hour #1; and stories from Justice League #59-71, Future State: Justice League #1-2, and Secrets of Sinister House #1.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror

1456 pages, Hardcover

First published April 16, 2024

About the author

Prior to his first professional work, Tynion was a student of Scott Snyder's at Sarah Lawrence College. A few years later, he worked as for Vertigo as Fables editor Shelly Bond's intern. In late 2011, with DC deciding to give Batman (written by Snyder) a back up feature, Tynion was brought in by request of Snyder to script the back ups he had plotted. Tynion would later do the same with the Batman Annual #1, which was also co-plotted by Snyder. Beginning in September 2012, with DC's 0 issue month for the New 52, Tynion will be writing Talon, with art by Guillem March. In early 2013 it was announced that he'd take over writing duties for Red Hood and the Outlaws in April.

Tynion is also currently one of the writers in a rotating team in the weekly Batman Eternal series.

Reviews

[Remxo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gonna pull a Kurt Lorenz here and rate individual story arcs as I'm reading.

The Last Age of Magic, Tynion ☆☆☆
The Witching Hour, Tynion ☆☆☆
Tales of the Otherkind, Tynion ☆☆☆☆
The Lords of Order, Tynion ☆☆☆☆
The Witching War, Tynion ☆☆☆
The Parliaments of Life, Tynion & Ram V. ☆☆☆☆
As Above, So Below | A Battle of Realities | | Belief | The Cost, Ram V. ☆☆☆☆
Endless Winter, Lanning & Marz ☆☆☆
From Return to Caledonia till Vengeance is Mine, Ram V ☆☆☆☆
Vengeance is Mine, Adams ☆☆☆
Leagues of Chaos, Bendis ☆☆☆

Starts off just ok, with a ton of cool characters being introduced. Tynion's dialogues felt a bit stale and cliché-ridden to me. But it's entertaining, and if anything, it reminded me of bronze age Doctor Strange. The classic style of super compressed storytelling leaves very little room for interesting character beats though and with such a stellar cast I was left wanting more.

After the first two arcs, the whole book shifts its tone and gets better. In Tales of the Otherkind, Tynion does some cool world building, giving some of his cast members some space to shine. He writes Detective Chimp as a very interesting multi-layered anti-hero. The atmosphere at this point in the book is deliciously spooky - kinda what you want from JLD. Tynion seems to be taking some of his inspirations from horror and mystery classics like Eerie magazine and the old Twilight Zone TV show.

Halfway in and things get even more interesting as Ram V. takes over. It seems like he did some research into magic theory. His dialogues are interesting. It just feels a bit more inspired.

Written by Lanning & Marz, the Endless Winter arc (10 issues) felt like a bit of a break from the ongoing story. It's pretty standard superhero action involving the cast of JLD alongside other major superheroes. Not my cuppa, but that's just me.

My favorite part are the issues of Ram V with the amazing Sumit Kumar on art (These Savage Shores, Laila Star). Refreshing and fun and worth the price of entry imo.

Vengeance is Mine is a Flash story and Leagues of Chaos could both have been omitted. It would have made for a less complete but more consistent book imo. But all in all, this was a fun read. The art is seriously top notch throughout the entire book.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

If everything after "The Cost" was jettisoned, I would probably give this a 4. Better off just finding the individual trades and stopping before "Endless Winter" as everything in this book from that point on is a worthless waste of time imo.

[Gerry Sacco · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did it. Someone clap.

Over a thousand pages, but I did it.

This is a collection that makes absolutely no sense.

First off, the beginning of this book is 5 stars, no question. Great story, phenomenal art, out of the park. As I continued reading, character writing got a little weaker, story still good, villain good, 4 stars. Continuing to read. 3 stars. By the end I was just happy it was over.

This book went from 5 stars to 2 stars, and a big reason is that it collects, way, too, much. Why is there a Flash series at the end? Why do I care about Flash if bought a Justice League Dark book? The other issue was, this was a story searching for characters that over time strangled them. These are cool people, interesting, unique DC heroes, that by the end of their story they were completely lost in it.

Art was great overall, again tail end of book, got worse. At page count 1,000 i thought to myself wow this is impressive to have this much good art, then bam get hit with the last few issues.

On reread I'm going to end up stopping once the main story is over, which the editor should have. Would have made for a cheaper and smaller book.

[Leland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful run with a deeply interesting take of the world of magic in the DC universe.

Tynion's issues and Ram V's are very strong, with a refined and clear voice and vision for these characters and the greater picture of magic.

That being said, this collection loses a lot of steam in its final third. Specifically, everything involving endless winter, Adam's flash, and Bendis' Justice League.

Endless winter is a very uninspired event, that seldom features the justice league dark at all. Jeremy Adam's flash contradicts the occurrences in the JLD run, such as having Eclipso free. and Bendis has a terrible voice for magic, Zatanna especially.

Her spellcraft is backwards, pun intended. Spells would be too specific, or far too vague – her simply chanting "protect", repeatedly stands out. But also, the antagonist simply is not interesting, has nothing to say, and does nothing to further the story of the JLD.

Ultimately, everything by Tynion and Ram V is great, everything not, isn't.

[Andres Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arcos muy entretenidos, un ómnibus enfocado en wonder woman y zatanna que para mí son personajes que me encantan y por eso compré el ómnibus, lo malo es que recopila unos arcos innecesarios y rompe con la continuidad de la historia y al final te quedas perdido de que paso en el último arco y hasta pensé que me había me saltado hojas pero no, espero que publiquen el segundo tomo.

[Davide Pappalardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The quality of the omnibus as a whole is uneven. The first half is quite great, but starting with the stupid event Endless Winter (why is it even here?) things go downhill toward an uninspired borefest. Too bad, it could have been easily a 4 star experience with less but better content.

[Julio Valentin · Rating 3 out of 5]

First half is great (pure justice league dark). Then we get the entire endless winter, an ok story that didn't belong in this omnibus. Then you get the over-rated Ram V and some stories from other books with the jld guest starring. It started so good....what a shame

[Joey Amorim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty damn solid omnibus overall, but I’d say everything from “Endless Winter” and onwards feels really samey and boring and it became a lot more of a slog to get through.

[Hades Grayson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite comic arc. Wonderful art and the expansion of the magic side of DC was wonderfully executed.

[Yazan Al-Jurf · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a mixed bag, there were some great story lines and many just ok story lines. Overall it was ok.