They’re not quite ready to face reality yet.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Marco Failla
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
The heroes have regrouped at the Fortress of Solitude following the rescue of survivors from Jotunheim. As they plan their next course of action a possible weapon is discovered that could help balance the scales against the Anti-Living—and it’s in the hands of the Pied Piper?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The DCeased series moves a bit further along here as tough choices have to be made and secrets are confirmed. Tom Taylor digs into some of these choices here and puts some great characters at the forefront of it instead of the usual heavy hitters. We get some neat teases here to show what’s coming and Taylor keeps it all exciting even if there’s little undead action. Marc Failla steps in for this issue and it’s a decent looking book overall with some neat designs in some places while others just don’t click for me, such as Lois or how Damian looks with this particular style. It’s a bit of a looser and almost cartoonish style that I’m not quite sure fits the book but it works really well with the end storyline here.
The opening is fun as we get Superman lamenting what happened with Black Adam and getting support from Lois over it – just as Jimmy walks in. The panicked attempt at excuses is cute but it leads Jimmy to making it clear that he’s always known and understands exactly why. It’s a great little moment that lets us glide into the bigger picture feeling a bit of the shared humanity between them. What we get with the larger group is that Cyborg and Luthor have managed to get some limited satellite access that’s convenient but makes sense and that has them able to get a handle on where the undead, or anti-living, actually are. That they’re in clusters drawn to the living makes a lot of sense and provides an easy opportunity to do some rescues since they can see the groups. And with two locations to be able to bring survivors to, they’re able to protect them well enough.
What becomes really interesting is that as they start to put together plans, Talia calls them out for being foolish. Rather than focus on the living, she insists that they use the satellites to focus on the anti-living and destroy them. That runs opposite of Superman’s moral code and many others, which is why they largely back him on this, but Talia makes a compelling enough argument – with Lois going after her in return so that it doesn’t escalate too badly. Both are right in their own way but Talia is trying to make Superman be something he isn’t. And that all leads into a look at one of the clusters that’s close by in Central City which gives us a pair of very surprising survivors considering what’s happening all around them.
In Summary:
There’s a lot to like with this issue as I definitely had fun with the Jimmy bit and what we get at the end with the survivors and how they were managing. The core piece is the argument between Talia and Lois over what the best approach to dealing with the world and it sets some clear lines. It’s still largely a group of heroes here so it’s no surprise which way it goes, but I do hope that gets explode a bit more that there are times when the morality cannot hold and becomes the wrong thing in the face of darker times.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Amazon Kindle
Release Date: September 8th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
