Shadowpact: the Burning Age


By Matthew Sturges, Kieron Dwyer, Tom Derenick, Phil Winslade & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-141-0

With this final Shadowpact collection (reprinting issues #20-25 of the tragically defunct monthly comic-book series) scripter Matthew Sturges wraps up all the contiguous plot-lines in fine style over two discrete adventures.

In ‘Black and White’ Kieron Dwyer (part 1, ‘Unexpected Allies’), Tom Derenick & Wayne Faucher (part 2, ‘A Virus of the Mind’) and, Phil Winslade (part 3, ‘Come Together’) delineate the final fate of team-leader Nightmaster, as he and Ragman accompany Nightshade to her home dimension and stumble into an imminent eldritch invasion of Earth by the mystic zombies of The Unbound.

Meanwhile after completing Twelve Heroic Labours for the Vatican, Blue Devil and his lawyer finally get their day in the Courts of Hell to determine the final fate and disposition of the hero’s soul…

Reunited with a team-member long thought forever lost, the extra-dimensional wanderers save the world(s) again and are cataclysmically returned to their Earth-bound comrades just in time to face the invading god known as the Sun King and his disciple Dr. Gotham.

Over three apocalyptic chapters ‘The Burning Age’ (illustrated by Winslade) neatly ties up the entire series as the menace the Shadowpact was formed to battle finally makes its infernal move. The entire team (in fact all of the teams of mystical champions over hundreds of thousands of years) finally confront the ultimate enemy throughout all of time in a deadly magical duel to the death.

Spectacular, intriguing and immensely cathartic, this is a superb note on which to end a great series, whilst still leaving options open for a glorious return. Shadowpact is one of the best team-comic-books of recent years and if the temptation of a “complete set” is what it takes to make a fan out of you, I’ll even sink that low…

Infinite Crisis: Day of Vengeance (ISBN 1-84576-230-4), Shadowpact: the Pentacle Plot (ISBN: 1-84576-533-8), Shadowpact: Cursed (ISBN13: 978-1-84576-738-9), Shadowpact: Darkness and Light (ISBN13: 978-1-84576-892-8) and Shadowpact: the Burning Age: each volume is pure magic, so get ’em all…

© 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.