The evolution of a new Batman.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Marco Failia
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
Damian, Jon, and Cassie take a trip to the deadliest place on Earth—Gotham City! Damian has unfinished business in the fallen city and his best friends aren’t going to leave him to face it alone. A Trinity team-up for the ages!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As I lamented many times during the Injustice works, Tom Taylor is able to properly game out a story where consequences happen and you’re excited to see them even if it’s going to be nothing but trouble. With DCeased, we’re once again treated to a DC where change happens and you have to roll with it as it just keeps moving forward, no resets. Working with Marco Failia once again with this issue, we get a tale that focuses on the up and coming generation to great effect where, unlike in the mainstream continuity-laden universe, we get characters that I actually want to see and follow for some time to come – particularly under these circumstances.
With Damian having taken over the role of Batman now, quite formally and in a form-fitting version, he’s off to deal with things before he finally takes charge as much as he can. Unfortunately, both Jon and Cassie are aware that he’s stolen the invisible jet so they’re going to track him down first, mostly because they’re concerned about him really going all Bruce in the lone dark knight thing. Damian is working something specific here, however, in that he’s headed to Gotham to the safe house that he knows his mother is in with the intent of rescuing her. Not that Talia can’t take care of herself but the situation is reaching critical mass overload. It’s a beautiful reunion that works only because Damian is who he is and seeing the way Talia registers what happened for him to be in that suit really hits hard considering the way she and Bruce sparred for decades.
Jon and Cassie? They’re not liking her so much. But they get along well enough to go and visit where Bruce, Dick, and Tim have been buried and deal with a few more barbs from Talia while trying to give Damian what he needs before he can move on. The most beautiful part of this, however, is that Stephanie is there as she needed to know the truth herself and is intent on sticking with her friends through what comes next. Talia’s always been the key person in Damian’s life but it’s becoming clearer to both her and Damian that these friends are the ones he needs for who he is, even as raised by Talia, because of his exposure to the world. Seeing Stephanie understand exactly what Damian needs as well is fantastic and it gives him so much more than I think anyone else can understand.
In Summary:
This DCeased miniseries is giving me exactly what I was looking for once again without realizing the specifics. Damian is a character I still don’t care for but Taylor is expertly using him in a way that disarms me because it’s handled through those that are his friends. The story is dealing well with what this group has to cope with and as the future leaders I’m liking seeing their bonding going on here. Failia’s artwork continues to be really good for this run as I like his take on Damian in the cape and cowl and what we get out of Stephanie is perfect and I hope we get a lot more of all of these characters going forward.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Amazon Kindle
Release Date: July 14th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
