The Immortal Men #5 Review

Must be Immortal Man Reborn

Writer: James Tynion IV
Art Team: Tyler Kirkham, Arif Prianto
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
DC Comics
Release Date: August 8, 2018
Cover Price: $2.99



Immortal Men, if you haven't heard already, has received the dreaded guillotine drop from the DC higher-ups, meaning issue five here serves as the penultimate issue to the series.  While I haven't been a fan of the series much at all, it always sucks for the fans that are out there, that one of their stories is ending sooner than it should be.  So without further ado, let's see what James Tynion can salvage, from a series that once held such promise based on concept alone.



Jumping into the story I'll be totally honest I'm throw off right away because Caden's bodyguard, whose name I just refuse to learn, is still looking for 'the lost boy' as he stumbles into a Build-A-Bear location, that he knows serves as an A.R.G.U.S. Black Site, from his checkered past with them.  This is not necessarily a bad idea for a comic book, it's just all very weird to be wasting so much page space on Caden's bodyguard now while trying to tie this book into the greater DC Universe. It's too late into the series, after it's already been truncated, and canceled, while there's so much more to do, feels like a wasteful way to spend part of this issues meager eighteen pages of story.

When we do catch back up to the Immortal Men, Caden ends up doing something relevant for our story finally. By doing, what I mean is stumbling into something important, where then something else happens with 'blood metal' I think (it's all quite unclear through both art and story), and the scene ends when Caden pops out the other end of what he stumbled into earning a 'Blood Mask', did I mention that it totally impresses everyone. Now I'm 0% clear on what exactly this new 'power' Caden now has does, or even really again how he got it, but it's enough to move our story and heroes forward.  Still with me? ... No?!... Yeah, me either!

The story begins its conclusion when the Immortal Men, lead by and following orders of Caden now, via some connection to the Immortal Man through his Blood Mask, decide it's time to rescue Reload.  When the team arrives at the Infinite Woman's base to rescue their friend, I.W. takes it as an act of war, voiding the twenty-four-hour treaty from the last issue, with the final fight to come next .... THANK GOD!

Overall, Immortal Men is a book that's been sub-par from the start, failing to find a note of interest, that would grab any attention, all before crashing and burning here in this penultimate issue, which emphasizes every problem this series has had from the get-go. An ambitious story with little direction, CHECK, boring characters we still don't really know bogged down by the introduction of even more new characters, CHECK, a general sense of non excitement and malaise, CHECK.  Although in fairness, the book was dead on arrival once word escaped Jim Lee was not going to be doing very much of the art at all. There just isn't much I find to celebrate.

Speaking of art, Tyler Kirkham returns this issue, which I would normally applaud. However, either he had to redraw a lot of panels on the fly with the story changing and the book canceled, or nobody's heart was into this series at all, because of its not very memorable work for someone capable of very high-quality stuff ... not to mention one of my favorite artists in comics.

Bits and Pieces

Immortal Men shows all the signs of a dead series and canceled book.  The already tough to digest story is only harder to chew on here as it becomes truncated and almost nonsensical at points. Even the art is far from the artists involved best work.  There's very little here to celebrate and if I ever see the Immortal Men again after next issue it will be too soon.

2.5/10