More endings and beginnings.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Trevor Hairsine, Andy Lanning
Colors: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
The galactic war has reached Earth-2 and the battle to save the last bastion of hope! With an unstoppable army of infected New Gods, Yellow Lanterns, and more…does humanity have any hope of survival?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a slight delay between issues, DCeased continues to be a property that just delivers in spades for me. The way of seeing characters not re-imagined but actually progressing forward and showing how they’d cope and deal with issues. Every time I think Tom Taylor is done with this story he ends up doing a bit more and I fall in love all over again. The 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.
As we’re closing in on the finale and things are continuing to escalate, it’s pretty chaotic and messy here as expected. Events are moving quickly and at a large scale but still manages to find the small moments of humanity – and one really big one. The loss of Kilowog and so many others, sixteen billion sentients, has put Superman in a bad place but he still knows how to control himself until the time he can really cut loose with all that righteous anger. The book deals with giving this a brief moment to reflect on what was lost and the impact on everyone, but also the realization of moving the bigger plan forward. The idea of getting some way to mass produce a cure and distribute it on a galactic scale is admittedly absurd, but it’s the kind of out-of-the-box thinking I’m curious to see unfold.
Of course, that doesn’t get a chance here as the Boom Box network has been corrupted and turned into Doom Boxes and the arrival of the undead army on Earth 2 – all while Myxtplk and the Spectre fight on a larger scale – just adds to the chaos. The bodies are certainly starting to drop on the civilian side, but we see some other losses that really start to change the narrative. What happens in particular comes as we see the loss of Jim Corrigan in the larger battle, which brings an end to the Spectre for the moment, but there’s a bigger loss in a sense on Earth 2 when Tompkins is turned into one of the undead. That finally breaks Alfred completely and his sense of vengeance that goes back across a lot of death and decades is so profound that we see him taking on the mantle. It’s not something I expected but it plays out beautifully and provides a chance at a narrative change to rally in the fight – though the big problem of the virus is still there.
In Summary:
When Darkseid – as a Yellow Lantern and virus twisted – isn’t the worst you’re facing in this story, you know things are going badly for the heroes. There are a lot of things going on here and what they’re facing still feels insurmountable, so I’m definitely curious to see what method they come up with to try and save the day at the end and to bring in some sense of normalcy and promise. Taylor’s script handles juggling so many things so well, from big galactic-ending level stuff to the small and personal. And with Hairsine and Lanning going all out with some strong layouts, good character expressiveness, and engaging action and dialogue, the book just flows wonderfully. I’m excited for what’s left once again.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics
Release Date: February 21st, 2023
MSRP: $3.99
