The Deadman #1- Wake Me Up Inside… Bring Me To (UnLife)

The Deadman #1 takes the DCU’s undead hero and takes his mythology to the Next Level with a creative team that is known for handling the darker side of supernatural things. The creative team do a great job of not immediately jump into a supernatural story, but take the time to, metaphorically speaking, flesh Boston Brand out and not assuming that every reader knows who he is or what he does.

The issue is very slice of (un)life, showing that Boston understands his role, and is comfortable with it, and not as angst-ridden that he has been portrayed as in the past. The idea of him being the Custodian of Death (before he is promoted to The Deadman) is a interesting concept and was fun to read in this issue, and could have been the focus of the whole series and still be interesting and a Top of the stack read.

Deadman’s antagonist looks to be an excitingly interesting character, in the same vein as the creative teams titular Ice Cream Man, but different enough to not be a carbon copy. Another fun concept that the creative team introduce is a town of spirits, like Brand, who are stuck in-between worlds, or outliers of The Spiritual Math.

It could be argued that the creative team is doing the samething again that they have done with other titles, but in this case it reads so far as having its own unique voice and take on the way the story is told. The use of the style concepts, and speaking to larger issues should work well for the character who, in the past has been regulated minor rolls in the larger universe.