The penultimate installment!
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Marco Failla
Colors: Rex Lokus
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
The Anti-Life Army has arrived at the Gotham Garden and the siege of humanity begins! In mankind’s darkest hour is there any hope left?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The DCeased series hits its penultimate installment with this issue as events finally escalate to where they need to be. Tom Taylor has already gotten another series out in print/digital that I haven’t read yet so that’s in my future, but I’ve been digging this bi-weekly look at some of the events set in-between the pages of the original miniseries. Marco Failla returns for this issue with the artwork as they dig into the scale of the problem at hand and it works well since we play with lots of good name characters and I really like Failla’s take on them with a kind of slim dynamic that feels like it blends comics and animation styles well.
With the anti-life army on the other side, everything is in place to try and deal with it and save the three million or so people that they’ve protecting. There’s some good character material early on as we see how the young trio prepare with a bit of humor and a group hug for Damian that he didn’t expect as a nice contrast to the seriousness of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern as the trio prepare for Black Adam breaking through. It’s an expected moment and one that turns into a pretty solid pitched fight between them as they need to pin him down so that the younger trio can get involved. The problem is that he’s near impossible to pin down and as good as Dinah has been as Green Lantern, she’s still new to it and her willpower is taking her only so far. That forces the kids’ hands and they find themselves rolling in the mud with the adults against Black Adam while trying to not get infected.
All this plays out while Luthor’s plan is about to go into motion – a plan that only Diana knows about beyond those that he involved directly. It’s engaging to watch even if you have the basic idea of what he’s going to do because most are expect the anti-life army to just break through the barrier like Black Adam did. But with a little magic that takes them to the garden via Nightshades power, sending in Pied Piper and Wink to use their combined abilities to draw their attention once inside for the bigger plan moves quickly. I love that it’s going to be a tight fight against time because we see only 10% get in by the end of this issue combined with how Wink and Hartley’s significant others are panicking over what’s happening since they weren’t told about the sacrifice that’s about to be made. It hits the right emotional notes and the view of what heroes like these would do.
In Summary:
As we get close to the end of this series I’m definitely going to miss it as it’s been a fun little romp. Tom Taylor takes us to the moments before the end pretty well here as the stakes are high even if we know the broad strokes of the outcome already. The way everyone acts and deals with the situation is great and leaves you wanting even more. Marc Failla has been a solid artist on this run and this installment is no different as he handles the established power players and the newer younger characters just as well. I’m excited to see how everything unfolds next time around and hope for more exploration of thise franchise in our future.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Amazon Kindle
Release Date: November 17th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
