The follow up to the smash hit DCeased, DCeased: Unkillables takes a look at what happens to others during the same timeframe as the original series. Mainly, what do the villains and other anti-heroes do during the apocalypse? The two leads of the book so far seem to be Deathstroke and Red Hood. While they are on separate tracks at the beginning, they eventually have to meet up.
This one-shot written by Sean Murphy, illustrated by legendary artist Kraus Janson, and colored by Matt Hollingsworth, is an interesting add-on to the Batman: White Knight mythos. As a recap of White Knight, it involved a giant freeze cannon built by Freeze, whose father was brought over to the U.S. under the sponsorship of Thomas Wayne during World War II. This story fleshes out what happened during World War II with the Fries family and we get a tale showcasing the breaking of friendships, the horrors of Nazi human experimentation, and the creation of new friendship bonds.
The tale that Jeff Lemire sets up starts off with a trope that is familiar in the annals of Joker stories: a doctor/psychiatrist/analyst is positive they will be the one who will finally cure the Joker of the mental illness or madness that is plaguing him. This usually ends in some sort of tragedy where that person ends up being dead. Not so, at least not yet, in this story. The analyst, in particular, Dr. Ben Arnell, believes he can build a mental wall between him and the Joker to prevent anything from happening to him.
Even though the character may have devoted fans, it is a rare sight to see a new book starring the Question in today’s modern comic book marketplace. It’s a treat to have this new title written by such a heavyweight as Jeff Lemire, and to have legendary the Question artists Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz all working on the project. This story revolves around the classic version of the Question, Vic Sage, who is a television pundit by day and the faceless vigilante by night.
Book Two continues Harleen’s tenure at Arkham studying the various inmates while grappling with how to handle the Joker, her feelings about him and herself, and moreover doubts about the work that she is doing. We see these doubts set against a backdrop of various callbacks from the previous issue, as she grapples with how to go about her work with the Joker. We get to watch her thought process about the proper actions to take play out as they are juxtaposed against the emergence of Two-Face and her own encounter with Batman.
Garth Ennis’s return to The Punisher is always welcome. The Punisher stories I have enjoyed the most have come from Ennis. In this opening issue, I am not quite sure where Ennis is taking the character or what the story is about, beyond him getting involved in a skirmish with a bunch of Russians. It opens with Frank Castle investigating a well-executed hit, admiring the work, and proceeding with trying to figure out who did it. We get a well-paced, thought-narrated story from Frank while he gets into trouble.
When we last left off, Mr. Thunderbolt had the H-Dial and granted powers to all the citizens of Metropolis. Powerless to stop it, the Operator presents Miguel with another, cyan-colored, H-Dial. Sam Humphries builds a nice conclusion to this arc with callbacks to the first issue, such as touching on Miguel’s vulnerabilities and his run-in with Superman. It is that emotional center that allows Humphries to let Miguel find the strength he needs to keep the promise made to himself and the city. We are left at the end of the issue with the reveal that multiple H-Dials exist.
The final issue of Life Story. I have to wonder if Chip Zdarsky was partially inspired to write this series since we are at the end of the decade, the 10s, to which this issue is dedicated. A little bit of a spoiler, we are treated to the last adventure of Peter Parker as Spider-Man. There is a bit of a call back to a previous issue’s iteration of Kraven the Hunter here, though primarily we are given this alternate universe’s take on Miles Morales and the dying Doctor Octopus storyline from Dan Slott.
To recap the events from the last issue, Peter Parker had traded places with his clone Ben Reily to allow him to take over the mantle of Spider-Man and the identity of Peter Parker. Unbeknownst to Ben, Peter had fooled him into thinking he was the original Peter Parker for the sole purpose of allowing the actual Peter to retire to a life with MJ and his children.
N.K. Jemisin sets up a compelling story right away by introducing a new character, Green Lantern Sojourner Mullein, in a sector of space that is the farthest away from anything we have ever seen. On page one, Jemisin dumps us immediately into a murder mystery in a world that hasn’t had a murder in over 500 years. This results in a solid issue that does a lot to world build and sucks the reader in without wasting pages on an origin story. At some point, I can imagine we will learn more about how Mullein became a Lantern.
