And a further tumbling down of the world.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Trevor Hairsine, Stefano Gaudiano
Colors: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
The Daily Planet has become a beacon of hope for the living as the Anti-Life Equation sweeps the planet. What’s left of the Justice League have begun to gather there, bringing survivors and family alike. But the city is being overrun with infected humans…and superhumans! The war for Metropolis begins!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
When you see a title and you can’t help but think that it’s just DC Comics doing zombies, you may be right on some level. While they may couch it in other events such as the Anti-Life equation and the like, or go on about infected instead of undead, you’re still just dealing with a flavor of “zombiesm” when you get down to it. But there’s something to be said for how Tom Taylor delivers what’s essentially a Black Label book here. It’s like his time with Injustice in that no punches are pulled, the reality of how heroes and villains would react are presented right, and the simple truth that there are events that would unfold that you wouldn’t think would happen. And Trevor Hairsine along with Stefano Gaudiano are bringing it to life and death horribly beautifully.
The opening pages present this perfectly as Waller is working with Captain Atom to deal with quarantine controls for events like this that have been set up, which includes having Ray Palmer as the Atom shrink down to see how the virus actually works. But with Ray lost, they have to move to the next which is excising it and that has the supremely powerful Captain Atom going out to eliminate the infected. But the reality is that you have someone like the Atom out there that ends up infected, goes zombie-crazy wanting to cause death, and hops into the otherwise impervious Captain Atom and infects him that way. An infected Captain Atom combined with the Atom himself basically means that it’s all over, it’s just a matter of when. Thankfully, we get surreal scenes such as Giganta being infected and wandering around Metropolis at her heigh smashing buildings and causing chaos to distract us with.
A lot of the book continues to be small moments while Lois begins to call in all those that can get there safely and help. Mera seeks refuge with Diana, Alfred connects with Damian to pass along the suit, and we see other small areas like that come up. I love how they’re all so concerned about Superman falling prey as he’d be incredibly dangerous and how he reveals he’s been using just x-ray vision ever since so as to not fall to it. The arrival of Giganta starts to set more things in motion and it’s Cyborg who comes not long after to reveal that those that are infected truly are dead and must be destroyed. It’s not the most cheerful of rallying calls but there’s a sense of acceptance at what must be done in order to survive the day starting to come forward. And Taylor captures that kind of heavy dread and acceptance well in the dialogue while Hairsine captures it through their expressions perfectly.
In Summary:
With two issues to go and things at their bleakest here, it’s like Tom Taylor decided to just laugh at the DC universe and play Injustice-style with it all here. And that’s a wonderful thing because that book was exciting and unpredictable. DCeased is pretty unpredictable as well and he’s going all in on creative ideas to exploit the concept, the characters, and the deaths. I love where it’s at right now and know that based on his history, Taylor can find a way to wrap it up in two issues easily with it making sense and feeling perfectly earned. That said, I’d love it if this was twice the length and we got more exploration of events, but at six issues it’s a perfect run – one that I wish was being released weekly.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 7th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99