Review: DCeased: Dead Planet #6

Review: DCeased: Dead Planet #6  

[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]

Writer: Tom Taylor

Artist: Trevor Hairsine

Letters: Saida Temofonte

Colors: Rain Beredo  

Reviewed by: Carl Bryan

Summary

“I’ll be done soon.  The undead can wait a little longer” – Professor Ivo (creator of Amazo) to The Penguin

The remaining heroes of the DC Universe are stuck between Hell and a hard place! With the Justice League racing against the clock to create a cure, the cruel masters of the southern garden are determined to wipe all anti-life from the planet.

Just when you didn’t think it could get worse…the war to save Earth takes a devilish new direction! Trigon is coming to end the world as Hell is long due its payment in souls!

Positives

Tom Taylor’s a genius.  If only we could “live” in his universe.  Or at least scoop up the good stuff.  A race to find a cure for an apocalyptic virus?  Sure…we got it. 

The convergence of great minds to get the cure into production (see graphic below)….we got it.

Test subjects…who gets the cure first?  The struggle is real and Taylor solves it.

A race against time as an army of Amazos burns the world down that has the virus whereby our heroes try to save all those infected.  Not sure if this is real life, but it sure is scary to think about it in those terms.

I am sure Taylor didn’t imagine COVID-19 would be taking place while this story was in circulation.  After the popularity of Image’s The Walking Dead, it would seem natural for DC to want to cash in on this.  But Taylor’s work appears to be the playbook for 2020 and possibly 2021.  Whew…. good stuff!

Positives 2.0

I continue to applaud Taylor’s use of “shelved” characters like Swamp Thing, Amazo, Barta, and Ragman.  For a comic historian, it is great that Taylor, along with the artistic genius of Trevor Hairsine and lettering of Saida Temofonte breathe new life into these characters.

To see Constantine in an embrace with Zatanna and then adorned with Ragman’s cape and illuminated with Shazam/Captain Marvel’s  (sorry I am a traditionalist in that there can be two Captain Marvels) lightning bolt.  This is a blender full worthy of drinking from!

Negatives (not really)

Trigon…really.  It absolutely cannot get any worst as this is The Apocalyse.  However, it really sets up how Taylor is going to combine this work with Scott Snyder’s Dark Metal/Death Metal.  I really think its going into that type of Multiverse direction…. a guy can dream!

Also… a big shout out to the JLA in the current time stream in picking up some of Taylor’s use of antique characters.  Catman…you have to love it!

Verdict

Between Sean Murphy’s “Murphyverse” he has created with Batman and Tom Taylor’s DCeased world, I am not so sure I can go back to the way things are/were.   This version of DC needs to be explored more and more as it just cannot end.  This version of the Trinity has to have more adventures!