Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Marco Failla
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
It’s all out war as the heroes fight to save the thousands of refugees…but what fresh victims will the mighty Anti-Life Army take or turn?! Will this be the final stand of the junior Trinity?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The battle of Nantucket is one that was going to involve loss in some form. And with overwhelming numbers, it was going to be dicey as to whether there would be time to “bury the dead” in any sense. Tom Taylor has killed off many a hero and villain in his various non-mainstream works and each time it’s delivered better challenges for the hero and interesting moments for the fallen and those close to them. Here, Marco Failla gets to handle two key deaths of varying importance to fans but both are treated well and has the right amount of respect to it while still engaging in the actual action itself and the state of the fight with Black Adam and the rest of the anti-life corrupted.
The young group that’s fighting there knows things are pretty grim so it’s certainly welcome when some of the power hitters arrive with Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and two Flashes. That changes the nature of the fight quickly as Superman knocks Black Adam back a distance and they try to start getting people aboard boats that can get the civilians away. It’s a pretty nicely pitched fight as it plays out because we see how they make progress with Jimmy narrating it once again only for Steph to try and approach Black Manta to see if he wants to help. As he’s now been turned – unknowingly – he reacts wildly and ends up killing her and striking the boat, which sends everything into a brand new panic to save people.
It’s a good sequence that lets everyone step up to try and help but the worst is seeing J’onn on the ship trying to find other survivors, but having Black Adam step out of the fire that J’onn braved to do so? It’s just tragic and watching how he kills himself in order to protect others only magnifies the kind of brave soul that J’onn truly is. It plays out really well as we get the quick wrap-up to events in this area as the other heavy hitters push back on Black Adam to buy more time and to get people away to the garden itself where the bulk of survivors are. I do like that it takes the time to process things for Damian over Steph and that Cass is there for him, but more than Talia steps up in the right way in order to really do what’s needed for her son and shake off some of what makes her her father’s daughter.
In Summary:
DCeased delivers another solid installment of what it does best in putting heroes through difficult things while being true to who they are. Everyone steps up in their own way here and the help by the elder team definitely makes it so that more of them survived what just happened. If they hadn’t shown up the whole thing would have been a bloodbath. Taylor puts some great character moments into this issue, such as with J’onn and Damian, but everyone gets treated well and it has a good flow to it. Failla again delivers as needed when it comes to making the big impact moments really feel it and everything is smooth and engaging throughout. It’s definitely a solid team for this storyline.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Amazon Kindle
Release Date: October 20th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99