Sometimes the plan has to be really big to work.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Trevor Hairsine, Gigi Baldassin
Colors: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Said Temofonte
What They Say:
A mysterious second “garden” has been located on the other side of the planet, and John Constantine and Swamp Thing lead a mission to investigate…but what they discover will fundamentally change everything! The road to “Earth War” begins!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
DCeased continues to be a property that just delivers in spades for me in ways of seeing characters not re-imagined but actually progressing forward and showing how they’d cope and deal with issues. It’s what makes this work so strong and why Tom Taylor is the talent that he is. I’ve long enjoyed Taylor’s writing going back to huge chunks of the Injustice property and this series, in particular, allows his talents to really shine as it’s not beholden to a sprawling continuity. This series has Trevor Hairsine handling the pencils on it with a great team behind him inking and coloring it so that it shows a real richness in design and layouts and captures both the power of the events and the humanity of it as well, whether dealing with Ollie or the last couple of pages and spreads there.
As events move forward we get more bodies dropping, though this issue deals more with the fallout from it. The group in Australia have managed to survive Plastic Man’s attack and Constantine has gotten Zatanna to basically blast him into nothingness. What’s worse, however, is that within this other Green that exists here is that it’s made up of the worst people in the world and those who have money. They’ve set up a class system as expected but have managed to survive with it being a cruel and hard life. What makes it worse, especially to Swamp Thing, is that they’re controlling this part of the Green he can’t access by controlling Floronic Man, which sends Swampy into an earned rage. Now, worth popping someone’s head off? Maybe not. But the reality is that it makes the whole scenario bad without learning that the bad guys here have built an army of Amazo’s to try and reclaim the world with.
Events back at Poison Ivy’s place aren’t bad, however. Superman is recovering well and Krypto is super happy and we get a good reunion between Damian and Gordon. But we also get a moment when Constantine is back that has him working a new plan. Meeting with Etrigan in Australia revealed to him that Trigon is looking to wipe the slate clean on Earth because the souls of the living are stuck in these undead people and Hell is reaching a tipping point of chaos. That has him looking to find a way to fix things and everyone is coming around to the idea of reaching out to the New Gods to try and figure out the rest of the equation that’s locked in Cyborg’s head. It’s a smart play but Constantine running his own side plot to get it accomplished makes it feel like it’s going to go really badly yet right in the end. I can only imagine how he’ll present it next time around now that he’s got his missing piece of the puzzle at the end here.
In Summary:
DCeased does a lot of stuff here with this installment of Dead Planet that I like. We get to see how more of those who have survived have managed to do so, highlighting terrible people are terrible, and we get some good moments of hope and inspiration as well. A reconnect with one of my favorite characters is a delight and just getting to see Damian grown up interacting with Gordon scratches a particular itch as he’s so aware of his father’s problems. I’m definitely curious to see if they’ll nudge the Jon and Mary bit any within this run but I just like the possibility of it all. There’s a lot of grim material here to be sure but it has so much that works so well.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: September 1st, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
