A little side story to set up more of the main book.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Laura Braga, Darick Robertson
Colors: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
While the mainstays of the Justice League-Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman-battle the worldwide infection in the pages of DCEASED, a group of other heroes work to stop the impending apocalypse-no matter who they have to kill!
Mr. Terrific assembles a motley group of surviving heroes including Mister Miracle, Big Barda, John Constantine, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold as they attempt to fight back against the tide of death. Can this ragtag group save the world where the Justice League has thus far failed?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having spent way too many years reading Tom Taylor’s work on Injustice, this special feels like it was pulled from there with him having fun with this set of characters. DCeased has been a strong little title since it’s debut with a good mix of material but this one leans more into how Injustice and Injustice 2 operated. It’s illustrated by Laura Braga for part of it and Darick Robertson the other, along with a host of other inkers that I had a hard time making out with the credits section. I’ve long enjoyed both of their work and they put together a very fun book here that, like Injustice, makes me wish this was a weekly thing that ran for a year with all sorts of detours and looks at the way everything went down across the whole DCU.
What we get here is a bit of a bigger look at events and how things are being reinforced with what’s happening. Opening with Scott and Barda finding Apoklips destroyed and being pretty glad about it all is priceless, but they do have to deal with the reality that the Earth is being overrun and there’s little to do. What helps is the arrival of Mr. Terrific as he realized where the virus originated from and it makes sense to go to them. It’s a lot of good humor mixed into how they interact, complete with a veggie plate, that sets the trio together to move forward. The fun of events like these is in how unexpected characters can make a difference, so touching on Ted and Booster is a lot of fun in a reunion kind of sense but throwing Waverider into it really takes me back a ways. It’s a pretty solid bit of material here as they try to figure out how Booster can save everything but events elsewhere change the future enough so that even Booster no longer exists.
While technology might seem like the best way to fight this, the other option is magic. And that has the team going after Constantine, who is suffering his own set of losses in England. It’s a pretty good look at how John operates, opting to go other-dimensional for a drink and just wait for everything to end, but then coming back because he can’t help but to do the right thing. It’s very similar to some of what we saw out of him during Injustice as well where he goes with some good ideas but can’t fight against the simple truth of this reality as others are ensuring events go forward. I do like that he gets a little bit of his own style of justice out of it when dealing with Waverider but watching as both Doctor Fate and Zatanna essentially cut him off at the knees is brutal and is definitely going to make him suffer as everything unfolds.
In Summary:
The main DCeased run is a whole lot of fun but also very smartly run with how it explores what the characters are going through. Giving us an oversized special to run through a couple of side stories with very fun characters is exactly what it needed and it’s just a delight. It brings back a lot of great memories of Taylor’s other works while also providing for some really enjoyable artwork from Braga and Robertson. This series continues to delight and the various tales here told as Mr. Terrific looks for ways to save that day adds a little more color to the main work and delivers the goods. Definitely recommended for fans of the mainline series.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 7th, 2019
MSRP: $3.99
