Reign in Hell has been a bizarre story for its entire existence, consigned to the realm to which I often refer, the realm of not bad enough to be terrible and not good enough to be interesting. This issue has to wrap up all the randomness that has happened thus far, including the odd stuff going on with Rama Kushna, Red Devil, and those people. For one, we get the fact that Dr. Fate is still a noob rammed down our throats again. And Satanus’ goons pick up Lobo, the guy whose presence here makes no sense. Black Alice makes her cameo that seems pointless yet actually results in the most important plot point in the whole series, Nightshade and Dr. Occult find their way out of Hell, and Lobo chases after the retreating heroes. The result? Somebody dies, and nobody cares. Really, there was no emotional depth to that event. Oh yeah, and the true ruler of Hell is revealed. For the people who read my Teen Titans review, you already know who it is. For the rest of you, it’s Blaze. I hope I didn’t ruin anyone’s day, but I doubt I did.
So, there’s a new order in Hell. Why should we care? Not sure. Thus far, the effects have only been felt in Teen Titans. And Neron himself wasn’t that important for years outside of that same series. So to be honest, since most of the mystic characters featured in this series aren’t that commonly seen, this has little of an effect on the DCU as a whole. Red Devil’s in Teen Titans, Zatanna’s in Justice League, and that’s about it, now that Shadowpact has been cancelled for a while. So the purpose of this? I have no idea. There doesn’t seem to be a burst of new, mystical comic books, so why was this even written? I don’t know. I have no idea why any of this even occurred. And in retrospect, the series was even worse than I gave it credit for with each individual issue. And Tom Derenick draws really ugly women. Cases in point: Black Alice in the aforementioned crucial moment, Nightshade as she says that she wants “it,” and Zatanna when the Enchantress rips that random hook off her shoulder. Which leaves no discernible wound. So my advice? Don’t buy the trade paperback. Just leave this series be and pretend it never happened. And hope that Keith Giffen either gets his groove back or just goes away.
Plot: 6.3 Art: 7.8 Dialogue: 7.5 Overall: 6.9
