Marcus Helminiak Comic Reviews

Overall, Deadman’s first issue is a whole lot of dark, honest fun. It balances grim reality with hopeful, beautiful reality, and has gotten me plenty excited for whatever’s coming next. It’s rare to see a DC book balance its tone so well, especially without making any of the jumps feel overbearing. This miniseries has a very promising start, and if the rest of it is at the same quality, it’s bound to be something special. If you’re a fan of ghost stories, Deadman, or this team’s previous work, you’re sure to like this too!

Overall, this issue is very much more of the same with the series as a whole. If you’ve enjoyed Orlando’s work with Scarlet Witch, then you’re sure to love this issue, as it highlights a whole lot of his strengths. However, it also shows some of the run’s biggest weaknesses, with the lack of the grounding element that tethers Wanda to the world she works so hard to improve. Still, it covers a shocking amount of ground for a modern comic, and it definitely provides a fun story and some interesting new villains.

Overall, this issue is a mixed bag for me. It has a lot of potential that it flirts with constantly, but its rushed pacing killed a lot of my interest and stymied some of its greatest strengths. This could just be a problem with establishing the status quo, however. I can easily see it correcting this problem by issue two, and spending more time in Jor-El’s head, and developing his relationship with the world around him. This issue wasn’t for me, but I’ll definitely check out the next one to see how it handles its new status quo.