DCU Comic Book Reviews

SHADOWPACT #15

Part Two of the Redemption Contract:  The Night Chicago Died

September 2007

Written by Bill Willingham

Pencils by Tom Derenick

Inks by Wayne Faucher

Cover by Tom Derenick and Wayne Faucher

Synopsis

Doctor Gotham has captured a buss full of children and is holding high above the city of Chicago.  When a police negotiator arrives to talk to them, the good asks if there is anyway he can contact Shadowpact.  Meanwhile, in hell, Blue Devil is attempting to free his parents and his brother when he suddenly remembers he has a sister, Mary.  Elsewhere in hell, Blue Devil’s lawyers request documents from the powers of the lower depths to help in the court case.  In Chicago, the Shadowpact do battle against Doctor Gotham.  When Zauriel actually manages to hurt him, Doctor Gotham then unleashes a volcano in the middle of the city, causing wholesale destruction when it erupts.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

There are times when the nature of monthly comic books can have an ill effect on how an issue of said monthly comic book can be written.  Each issue builds to a cliffhanger.   So each part of the story needs to end a specific way.  Case in point with this issue which ends with a volcano spilling out all over Chicago.  When he first crafted the story and plot, I would guess that Willingham had the volcano in mind for the ending.  So, he wrote this issue knowing where it would end.  And as good as that cliffhanger is, the rest of the story just kinda limps along until that point.  The entire 5-page opening sequence does little for the comic.  Granted it leads to the great phone conversation as the police look for the titular team, but other than that, those first five pages are filler.  I am not saying it is bad; Willingham is a good writer and imbues that scene with some good characterization.  I just think it doesn’t add much to the plot.  We are more than halfway in this issue before we get to the meat:  the fight with Doctor Gotham.  Well, it’s not really a fight so much as a stab by Zauriel and then a spoken magical word.  This either means one or two things:  the fight with Doctor Gotham will occur in a later issue, which means Willingham was forced to write other scenes in order to get the cliffhanger or the fight was short because Willingham needed to get to the cliffhanger.  Either way, you can see how the ending impacted how the rest of the comic was written.  Personally, I would have liked to see more of Shadowpact fighting Doctor Gotham.  This issue cried out for some action and it just didn’t happen. 

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