DCeased: Dead Planet
“DCeased” was a fun comic-book equivalent of a big summer blockbuster. Its follow-up “Unkillables” was an even more enjoyable story of what a bunch of familiar DC villains and anti-heroes got up to during the Anti-Life outbreak. Now we’re back with the actual sequel to the original miniseries, from its creators: Writer Tom Taylor and artist Trevor Hairsine. While it’s not a huge improvement over “DCeased,” “Dead Planet” does offer bigger, bloodier action, lots of clever new takes on familiar superheroes and villains, and what is certainly the best use of John Constantine in a superhero story that I’ve seen yet.
When the first miniseries concluded, Batman was dead, Wonder Woman was alive but infected, and Superman was too and is now trying to eat the sun. Most of the uninfected heroes and humans had escaped off-planet to a new world they were calling Earth-2. While they still had the occasional alien invasion to deal with, we see that most of the planet’s inhabitants were living a normal life at the start of this story. That is, until they pick up a distress call from Cyborg’s head on Earth.
We learned at the end of the first volume that the cure for the Anti-Life outbreak was in the hero all along. The heroes on Earth-2 don’t know that, but that’s not going to stop Jon “Superman” Kent, Damien “Batman” Wayne, Dinah “Black Canary/Green Lantern” Lance, Oliver “Green Arrow” Queen from heading back to Earth to save their friend. Still on-planet are Jason Todd, Ravager, Blue Devil, Zatanna, Detective Chimp, John Constantine, and more as they try to save people and bring them to the relative safety of the Gotham Garden. This is all going well and good for them, until Swamp Thing brings news that there’s another garden in Australia. One that’s torturing the Green itself in order to survive.
So while our protagonists still have to deal with the threat posed by the super-powered individuals and regular humans who have succumbed to the Anti-Life Outbreak, they’ve also got to figure out how to get the cure out of Cyborg’s body as well. Oh, and to deal with the threat posed by the Australian Bunker, because anyone who’s torturing the Green to survive can’t be good people. Oh, and then there’s the matter of the other problem that the demon Etrigan brings to Constantine’s attention. The problem that’s going to require the magician to be the best kind of bastard that he can be.
This all may seem like a lot of story to deal with, but Taylor delivers it in a way that’s easy to follow and usually quite entertaining. You’ve got plenty of big action setpieces, starting with the threat that brings down the spaceship in the first issue, continuing on into the assault on the Australian Bunker and the horror surrounding it in the second. In addition to the surprises they offer, Hairsine depicts them with appropriately gritty spectacle. He delivers these scenes with plenty of style and and flash – the latter comes in both visual and muzzle varieties.
There are also the various new connections that the writer has made with and between the surviving members of the DCU. Having Constantine join the Shadowpact is one example, while another, more darkly fun one is seeing which villains are inside and running the Australian Bunker and how they’ve managed to survive for so long. There’s also the matter of who managed to survive the events of the first series and how their involvement brings us to the New Gods (and further indulges Taylor’s fanboyish love of Tom King’s “Mister Miracle” series). Both previous “DCeased” miniseries thrived on making these kinds of connections between heroes and villains in this apocalyptic setting and that remains true for this one as well.
This is especially true for Constantine in this miniseries. While seeing him in the DCU usually prompts an eye roll for me and some complaining about “The good old days of Vertigo,” I didn’t have these issues here. That’s likely in part due to the setting, but mostly due to the fact that Taylor writes a really good take on the character here. “Rise & Fall” was fun, but this Constantine has seen the worst of what this world has to offer and he’s out to extract a little payback from it. How? By being the best bastard he can. The result is that we get to see the character as ruthless as he can be, yet not without some cleverness and humor to soften the blow. Simon Spurrier’s take on Constantine may have been the mature-readers version that I wanted, but he went way too dark in delivering it at the end. Even if he’s surrounded by superheroes here, Taylor’s version of the character in the story is the one I enjoyed more.
Problems? Well, even with all of the blood and gore, our heroes are always quick with a quip. That’s part of the series’ blockbuster appeal, even if it does take you out of the action at certain points. There’s also the fact that, on occasion, our heroes take the dumb approach to solving a problem rather than the smart one. It doesn’t happen often, which means that it really stands out when it does. “Dead Planet” also wraps up in a pretty conclusive fashion, even as it leaves a couple big sequel hooks dangling. Will Taylor and Hairsine come back for a third time to wrap them up? The magic 8-ball says, “Reply hazy, ask again later.”
A third volume is a pretty appealing prospect at this point. “Dead Planet” was a more enjoyable read than its predecessor and showed off a lot of creativity in its continued exploration of this specific apocalyptic DCU setting. Taylor and Hairsine showed that they still have plenty in the tank after this particular story, so I’d like to see what else they have to offer for future stories. Together, or with Karl Mostert for another round of “Unkillables.”