In between Max Lord murdering Ted Kord and the start of Infinite Crisis, DC released 4 mini-series related to the various problems that were building. OMAC Project was Batman's arrogance and paranoia coming back to bite everyone in the ass. Except Ted Kord, who was already dead because of Batman's arrogance and paranoia. Rann-Thanagar War was, well it's what it says on the tin, and was some stuff going on in space that never felt particularly connected to the larger event. Villains United was about a small group of villains that brought together by a mysterious person to resist the larger villain society that formed (that eventually became Secret Six, which we'll get to sometime this year.)
Day of Vengeance was the Spectre going bugfuck crazy (again?!) and trying to destroy all magic, and a bunch of relative castoffs - Nightmaster, Enchantress, Nightshade, Ragman, Blue Devil, Detective Chimp - banding together to try and stop him. After Infinite Crisis, the cast got this ongoing series.
This was the first issue I bought, when I was looking for something from DC I as interested in. Batgirl had been canceled earlier in the year. I dropped Robin after that abysmal One Year Later storyline established Cassandra Cain as crazy, evil, and possibly hot for Tim Drake. Teen Titans was a joyless book, whose characters all seemed to hate each other and want to be any where else. As to why this book, specifically, I guess the odd cast of characters I knew little about appealed to me. If I don't have any preconceived notions, I can't be as irritated if Willingham does something stupid with them, right?
I bought it for 9 issues. This issue was the one I liked best, seeing as it's the only one I've kept up to this point. And while the plot of the moment moves in the background, it largely about tweaking Ragman's backstory. Now the ragsuit has existed in different forms for thousands of years, and it's possible for one of the trapped souls to earn release if they help the wearer often enough to atone for their sins. Although the fact the soul we see released was a Roman soldier suggests an unfriendly parole board. But DC's God is always being presented as a capricious dick, so that tracks.
Beyond this issue, Willingham seemed to try and have various smaller plots that occupied 2-3 issues, while a larger story moves in the background, while also trying to delve into or expand the casts' abilities. Blue Devil gets promoted (or demoted, you move down in ranks in Hell) and becomes a rhymer, pissing of Erigan. Nightmaster figures out some stuff about himself. But it always seemed to boil down to this character or that needing to embrace their fate and stop raging against their sacred duty or whatever.
It's also got some of that weird affection for procedure or minutiae Willingham seems to like. The team calls a press conference to essentially explain the rules they intend to operate by, which seems pointless. Willingham even includes a segment where other heroes are asked their opinions and Nightwing basically says, "No shit, that's how all of us operate." So what was the point of that scene?
At any rate, it never quite lived up to what I envisioned. Maybe the stories weren't weird enough given the cast. Maybe Tom Derenick, who drew all the issues after this one that I bought, didn't do anything for me as an artist. Willingham stepped away from the book the same issue I did, replaced by Matt Sturges for the final 10 issues. Maybe I'd have liked his stuff better, although his JSA All-Stars didn't knock my socks off.
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