Writer: Tom Taylor
Art Team: Laura Braga, Darick Robertson, Richard Friend, Trevor Scott, Rain BeredoRelease Date: September 4th, 2019
Cover Price: $4.99
The Zombie Comedy Hour
DCeased came storming out of the gate for DC Comics catching everyone, including the company, off guard a bit with how well it started selling. So of course in the age of comics books we live in now, the logical decision for DC to make is to rush and add some tie-ins to the sudden surprise seller, all to capitalize on the popularity of the title while they can. What we get from those decisions is DCceased: A Good Day to Die, so lets discuss, and see how necessary this tie in to a simple zombie story really is.
I'm going to start this off by stating something mildly controversial about this title. If you like Tom King's work on any DC book he's touched lately featuring the characters in this issue, Tom Taylor takes great care to make these characters sound like, and act like his buddy Tom King does. Every single step of the way down to the repeated jokes I never found funny the first time. So if you're a fan of how those characters were portrayed in stories like Mr. Miracle, and Heroes in Crisis, you will get more out of this issue than I did. I just don't need to read and pay for a writer throwing together and putting out a $4.99 homage to another writer friend of his. So this book, right away, started off trending down a wrong path and didn't do much to recover from there other than introduce Constantine into the mix of a mini series I found getting stale fast.
Aside from the overly jokey tone, to a book where 'heroes' are supposed to be running around doing something to save the world, there isn't much different here from a normal issue of Deceased to latch on too. Sure we finally get a few more glimpses of different characters, and locations besides the view from the Daily Planet rooftop, however (SPOILER ALERT) all but one of the 'main characters' here in this issue dies, so its not like those locations will add any depth to the ongoing proceedings for the remaining cast involved. It really just feels like a needless tie-in that serves as a bit of a cash grab. (Manship will definitely grab this)
A quick summary of the events at play here; Mr. Miracle and Barda meet up, fight some zombies, then head off to recruit Mr Terrific, Blue Beetle, and Booster Gold. They all act like insufferable clones of a Tom King story instead of themselves. The characters realize Darkseid and Apocalypse is totally gone to the dogs, that the only solution may be through magic and not technology, so they head off to find their old buddy Constantine. Surprise, surprise, John refuses to help at first, and goes to drink his sorrows away. Everyone dies, John realizes he's going to have to be the hero the Earth needs after all, albeit a bit to late, but hey we got a few more issues to fill here, so he heads off with Zatanna and Dr Fate to do some saving.
That's about it in forty pages of story, and while I admittedly enjoyed Tom Taylor's version of John Constantine, the rest of his characterizations were carbon copy cutouts of what Tom King has turned these once great DC characters into, and frankly I found it just wasn't good enough especially for $4.99. The art is the one thing that carries its weight this issue, and with a cast that is pretty big, they all did a fabulous job of making the story at least appear appealing. All the characters look great, the zombie look gross, its just they arent given much to work with in something that was obviously thrown together to capitalize on the Mr. Miracle buzz still out there, if there is any left.
As a whole, the decision to add a paper thin DCeased tie-in story, to an event that has already started to wear thin with this reader, was a confusing choice. On top of that the story had a very strange tone, which only served to add reference laden comedy to a dour zombie tie-in story. Tom Taylor, who I'm usually a huge fan of, misses big with this tie in. If you're in the mood for a book filled with Tom King callouts, than this one might be up your ally, however it doesn't do much for DCeased as a whole.
Well, i really liked this issue and the story. Maybe I´m just totally charmed by Tom Taylor, but i liked the conversations everybody had, how they portraied each character (for me they seem very true to their original design) and how i got some more insights in what other characters are doing during this apocalypse. I would love more of these issues. Well, I´m comparing them to the issues I´m reading right now (Still in March 2019...)
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