The Demon

Even though we've got a Justice League movie in development and Suicide Squad on the way next summer, it looks like DC and Warner Bros. aren't quite done bringing their teams to the big screen just yet. As you might have heard, Justice League Dark is back in development, a bit of news that sent excited superhero fans all over the world eagerly asking, "Wait, what the heck is Justice League Dark?" The basic idea is that they're a team of mystical heroes, so named because they fight against the darker magical threats to the DC Universe (and because we all agreed Justice League With Almonds was just a bit ridiculous), but if you need more information, look no further. We have your back with a breakdown of the characters you're likely to meet if Justice League Dark ever makes it to the big screen!

One of the noticeable differences between DC and Marvel is the number of prominent superheroes that wear capes. Compare any group shot of any number of Marvel superheroes to any group shot of DC superheroes and chances are good that there will be more capes on the DC side. There's a litany of reasons why this could have taken root in the intrinsic creative works of both companies, but one of the strongest is the role of one artist and creator in the building and evolution of both publishers into what we know of them today: Jack Kirby.

Q: The new Klarion series started this week, and aside from Seven Soldiers and Batman: the Animated Series, I know little about him. What's his deal? -- @T_Lawson A: Huh. Well this one oughtta be pretty easy, T: He's a Witch Boy. He's a Boy who is also a Witch. That's pretty much all there is to it; Kirby wasn't really all that into subtlety. Now who wants to go get lunch? [Editor's Note: Chris, we've talked about this.] Okay, fine. There actually is a little more to it than that, but to be honest, Klarion is less interesting to me on his own than he is in the context of Kirby's other work. He's a Witch Boy, a strange and sinister creature rooted completely in horror, happily existing in a world built for superheroes, and that's actually pretty cool.

Q: I'm interested in Hitman as a character in the larger DCU, and "the area of Gotham so bad that Batman doesn't go there," because Batman is a dude that has paid multiple visits to a planet literally called Apokolips. -- @kingimpulse A: For those of you who haven't been following the War Rocket Ajax podcast, Matt and I have been spending the entirety of 2014 ranking every single comic book story ever on a master list from the best (Amazing Spider-Man #33) to the worst (Identity Crisis). Last week, we finally got around to Hitman, and while it eventually fell between The Dark Knight Returns and Impulse #3, the conversation that we had about it involved me mentioning that Tommy Monaghan lived in a section of Gotham called "the Cauldron," which was so thoroughly lawless that they didn't even really notice when No Man's Land swept through. There's a pretty obvious reason why it went down that way, of course, but the more I thought about your question, the more I realized that it's the core of Hitman's complicated relationship with the universe where it's set, which is one of the best things about that comic.

As hopeful as Justice League fans are about the possibility of DC Comics' flagship heroes teaming up in a proper feature film come 2015, it seems those currently enjoying the magical and mystical corner of DC's New 52 in titles like Swamp Thing and Justice League Dark have just as much to be excited about in the not-too-distant future...

"Epic" is a word that's often thrown around before the phrase "sword and sorcery," probably because when there are wizards with white beards of formidable length abnd enchanted arms and armor and taverns that serve ale in wooden tankards, the stories that will follow are rarely succinct...