DCeased: Hope At World’s End #2
Chapter 2 of 14
DC Comics
Written by Tom Taylor
Art by Renato Guedes
Colors by Rex Lokus
Letters by Saida Temofonte
Editor: Ben Abernathy
(Warning: Spoilers for DCeased: Hope at World’s End #2 ahead)
This installment into the DCeased franchise is very much so another character driven issue, which appears to be the primary angle that Taylor is cracking at in this series.
While I understand the motivations of the characters in this issue, I can’t help but feel the overall story was weak. Black Adam makes some pretty stupid choices near the tail end of the issue which wind up leading to the dictator’s demise in the final page. I appreciate the idea of Superman, the big blue boyscout he is, fostering a change of heart for Black Adam that ends up costing Adam his life in the form of vulnerability. I can’t say I don’t love the concepts presented in this book. I just think that the character is swayed a bit easily to act this recklessly and irresponsibly. One can make the argument that this could be chalked up to Adam’s ego, but I don’t think it works here, and makes the last moment of the issue not work for me.
The art also varies strongly in quality in this issue. I think there are some stellar panels by Guedes, an artist I’m personally unfamiliar with. That being said, for each beautiful panel, there’s an equally disturbing one waiting right after. A lot of this comes from character’s faces, which I guess works in a zombie book, but I’d be hard pressed to say that some of the uninfected didn’t look even more ghastly than the actual monsters.
Tom Taylor is no stranger to killing off characters, and it seems that this book is the ultimate “who will live, who will die” title, where absolutely no one is safe. That being said, I can’t say I was awfully impressed with the death in this issue, which makes me a bit more apprehensive with the character killing roulette game that this book is playing.
That all being said, I still think for 99 cents that this book is an absolute steal, and continues to be some of the best content that DC is putting out. This might be one of the weaker entries in the DCeased Universe, but I still would recommend you check out this series, and this issue.