Deadman was one of the pleasant surprises of the week for me. Having heard the really negative reaction to this book on the POTW podcast, I didn’t hold out much hope for it. But, having pre-ordered my copy anyway on the strength of the lead character (one of my favourites) and that amazing cover, I read through and found myself enjoying this one quite a bit. Seeing Boston Brand’s origin again didn’t bother me at all- my favourite version of that particular story, I have to say, is still the Kevin Maguire version from DC’s Secret Origins series of the 80’s- and I thought the pages spent on the retelling here offered new readers a good primer for the character. While it was certainly more wordy than a lot of books tend to be these days, I actually liked that aspect. I don’t need all the comics I read to be over in ten minutes, and I think Jenkins’ prose has a nice style to it that brings a refreshing change from a lot of books on the stands right now. I also found Bernard Chang’s artwork to be really good, solid stuff with a refreshing (there’s that word again) sense of storytelling and draughtsmanship.
I have no hesitation in saying that I’ll be back for more of this book next month, and I look forward to seeing what characters and creative reams DC has lined up for future arcs in this interesting format. Good job, guys.