"DCeased: Dead Planet #4" Comic Review

With Earth all but lost to the Anti-Life equation, a glimmer of hope arrives. Somehow, there's a cure for this. The infected can be saved. The loved ones lost to this horrifying disease can be restored. The answers lie in New Genesis, but they won't be easy to get. Will our heroes find the hope they're looking for? Or will they find more death and destruction?

Writer Tom Taylor does some tremendous character work in his comics and DCeased: Dead Planet #4 is no different. We are already invested in characters like Superman and Batman (even though these are the next generation of the World's Finest), but Taylor brings that same weight to each and every character. I found myself fully invested in Mr. Miracle and the All-Father, two New Gods that I haven't really cared about in the past.

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The overall scheme for this cure is a little complicated, forcing our heroes to travel to different worlds and dimensions in an effort to save their own. While this is a little convoluted, you go with it because it's still a super hero book.

Trevor Hairsine's artwork has a gritty quality to it that mesh well with the dire circumstances these characters find themselves in. You can see the burden and sorrow they're each carrying with them. It weighs them down...except for Superman. Jon Kent, the son of the legendary Man of Steel, has taken up the mantle of his father and carries with him the same inspiring nature and can-do attitude.

A great example of this comes in an exchange with him, Mary Marvel, and Green Canary (Black Canary with a Green Lantern ring). It's in the rain and everything looks dreary. Canary is down and depressed since she's literally watching her undead husband try to eat her face off, yet Superman is there like a glimmer of hope. The line work on that infected is very disturbing. Inker Gigi Baldassini captures all the creepy details in there.

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Colorist Rain Beredo sets the tone for each scene, moving from the foreboding quality of the shots on Earth to the brighter shining buildings of New Genesis. This tracks with the overall story too, showing us how these heroes just might pull this off...before the rug is yanked out from under them.

DCeased: Dead Planet #4 finishes on one helluva cliffhanger. I love how Taylor pulls in the signature line from another recent title here with a frightening spin on it. Letterer Saida Temofonte works wonders with this, showing the narration like scraps of paper torn from a journal found well after all this is over.

Discounting a strange relationship between Damian Wayne and Wonder Girl, DCeased: Dead Planet #4 is another terrifying chapter in this undead saga. It could have just rested on its laurels, showing how cool it would be to have zombies in the DC Universe and relying on our existing love for these decades-old characters. Instead, it builds on that with new and interesting tales of love, heart, and pure, unbridled terror. It's pretty friggin' cool.