By Justin McCarty

So, this is Deadman. The latest attempt to resurrect Deadman might be DOA. I hadn’t read any Deadman comics before this. And, as far as I can tell, Deadman has never had a true ongoing series, not since the very first series debuted in the late sixties. He pops in and out of the DCU in much the same way he possesses the bodies of unwitting accomplices to his mission. He either appears in other character’s stories or in his own limited series. With a first issue, you might want to go easy on the newcomers to the lore. Adams has shown us no mercy.

Issue one has Deadman running around hunting Hook, his killer, Deadman is a ghost you see, and after two reads I’m still not sure what else happened. It seems Commissioner Gordon is inspecting a power plant in Japan. Deadman has tracked Hook there, where there seems to also be an attempt to assassinate Gordon. Ra’s Al Ghul shows up to punish Hook? After a few whas, huhs, and humphs, Batman seems to be there too? Deadman eventually gets help from The World’s Greatest Detective and sends him to continue his hunt for Hook and answers to why Boston Brand (Deadman) was murdered.

This was incredibly confusing. It offered no introduction to the character. Between readings, I had to consult Wikipedia to get a better idea of what Deadman was all about. Even after I got a better backstory on the character I still felt pretty lost. Narratively this is just a confusing mess. There’s no flow in the layouts, requiring me to double back on captions, thought balloons and dialogue to make sure I read it all in the right order. There was no connective tissue between events. We had leap after leap in the plot, nothing flowed naturally from one plot point to the next. It feels almost like an entire flashback book. It seems like Neal just wanted to pick right up where he left off forty years ago and wrote a story to just remind the die-hard fans of where we are in the story. 

Neal Adams really can draw. He is an established comic book legend after all. His ability to draw dynamic figures is definitely on full display here. When he takes time to draw a background it is well rendered, but most backgrounds seem to be a complete afterthought. Most of the book design feels like a throw-back to the seventies to my eye. It has thought balloons throughout, a feature that isn’t really in vogue in mainstream comics. Just like the plot though, very little actually connects one image to the next. But Neal can draw.

The captions add nothing to the dialogue. As a newcomer, I was completely unsure of where it was coming from. Sometimes it seemed as if it should be Deadman’s internal thoughts. Others, it seemed almost as if Adams himself was acting as an omniscient narrator, taunting his main character. That would have been genius if it had managed to inform or better contextualize the story. The second the plot takes hold we leave that story to jump to another time giving us no clear path from one point to the next.

I believe Neal wanted to pick up right where he left off all those years ago. (Again, I have never read any other Deadman series.) That’s what this feels like. This is actually number eight or nine or thirty in this series. This was also a missed opportunity to bring new readers to an obscure third tier hero. Number ones invite you to try a book, and I’m an easy sell on a number one. It’s chance to start from the beginning; there’s no baggage to confuse you. This book would immediately turn off anyone wishing to try it that isn’t already a superfan. It’s also the kind of storytelling that turns off non-comic readers. It’s hard to navigate the art, the text doesn’t flow, and the plot only works for the already initiated. This isn’t how you get new readers. I just can’t recommend this book. Not unless you’re already a superfan. My bet is you’re not.

Score: 1/5

Deadman #1
DC Comics