Review by Frank Plowright

Spirit World is plenty of fun, but let’s start by calling out the hypocrisy. While Marvel hardly prioritised broadening the diversity of their superheroes, DC were even slower on the uptake, waiting until 2023, then promoting their previous lack of concern with the self-congratulatory ‘We are Legends’ tagline. Better late than never, but really? Interestingly, the creator names are followed on the cover by Chinese characters, yet online translation engines don’t match these characters with the names.

Spirit World introduces Xanthe Zhou, who calls herself a spirit envoy, and an all-action introduction featuring John Constantine ends with Batgirl trapped in the Spirit World. The crux of what follows, then, is a rescue mission coupled with an exploration of what Xanthe can do. It involves a form of magic, that’s nebulous at best, but arming her with a massive sword enables some great action visuals from artist Haining, as Xanthe takes on some horrors.

While Xanthe and Constantine are attempting to reach Batgirl, Alyssa Wong has her meet the denizens of Spirit World. Haining makes it look much like a Chinese city of the past, so very decoratively drawn notwithstanding predatory denizens able to take various dangerous forms and who like nothing more than to feast on the living. Sebastian Cheng’s colours add richness and depth, and are important to defining a world where colours can equate with people.

There’s considerable world building involved in creating a mythology from scratch, and while Wong draws on Chinese legends she’s really put the work in to create a coherent environment and to feature other newly introduced characters transcending a stock cast. Among the most fascinating is Po Po Bowen, a wizened grandmother who’s vastly experienced with magical transitions. Along the way Wong also reveals there’s been a large gap in Cassandra Cain’s memories, making her more attuned the Spirit World, and maintains an action rush throughout as the cast head from frying pan to fire to inferno.

Wong and Haining’s vision is very enjoyable, with enough introduced to spark many more stories. It would be nice to see them, preferably with Xanthe’s very capable character standing on her own next time.