Justice League Dark 31 Spoilers

[Mark S. Ogilvie]

This is turning out to be a better book than I thought it would. I picked it up because I was interested in Zatanna, having hated it when they canceled her solo title, but after a rough start they use her well here. I wasn't too impressed with the Forever Evil plotline, but it wasn't that bad either. Z is a hard character to write because she's either too powerful before you gag her or too weak after you gag her and any story with her is sort of like Superman before and after kryptonite is used. In this issue Nightmare Nurse is cast out of the body she was using and we get a look at what she might actually look like. Sort of a cross between Alien and Terminator, with what looks like 3 heads. Apparently the battle with the Forever Evil crowd loosened the hold that NN has on a woman named Alice Winter and as Z delves into her mind we find that Alice was dying from some disease and that her nurse was Asa, the Nightmare Nurse in a very old body. NN has been jumping from body to body for a long time I think, Alice was dying 80 years ago and her nurse Asa might have been poisoning her. The memory of Asa attacks Z and claims that this is Alice's version of her, distorted by years of fear and loneliness. Z doesn't really buy that and Asa goes to Constantine and drags him into where she is, This is a place of mist called "The Between" which she says is "The world of forms empties out into the great void" and it -the void- is both sentient and dangerous. As Z probes deeper she sees Alice weaken and then as she about to die Asa takes over her body and has been using it ever since. Meanwhile Swamp Thing and Deadman are talking about the House of Mystery and it's hinted that the House has some sort of agenda. Constantine and Asa return as Z ends her probe. Asa wants back into her the body and Constantine makes the usual threats and 'trust me' sort of speech. There i a fight and Asa in trying to enter Alice's body takes over Zatanna's instead. I like the mystical touches with the void. I don't really know Nightmare Nurse so I don't know if this origin is a retcon or not.