TRANS-SCRIBE: DCeased: War of the Undead Gods #8

Tuesday, 18 April 2023

DCeased: War of the Undead Gods #8 - Comic Review

And thus, the DCeased universe comes to an end. At least for now. The journey to this point has been long, beloved characters have been lost along the way, new heroes have been born, legacies continues, and enemies become allies as the fight for life itself has torn the galaxy to pieces.

At the end of the last issue a cure for the anti-life infection was administered to the attacking forces, led by the twisted New Gods. Along with this, our heroes had gained some powerful new allies in the form of a thousand newly freed Kryptonians, and a new host for the Spectre. Even Darkseid, the man who caused all of this, ends up coming over to the side of the angels (for now at least) in order to get revenge on the thing that made him a puppet; Erebos.

With only a single issue left to wrap everything up I was hoping that this might be an indication that the series was going to continue, that we'd get another mini-series that would deal with taking the fight to Erebos and putting an end to things once and for all. But, it seems like a single issue is all that was needed to do this. And surprisingly, it didn't feel rushed at all. The pacing was decent, with enough time to give us some smaller character moments, time to outline the plan in a clear way, to go up against Erebos, and to say goodbye to one last hero.

In order to beat Erebos, Damian consults with the Black Racer and Cyborg, and comes up with a plan to use a Life Equation to fight the Anti-Life Equation. It's a bit complex, and the story does kind of gloss over some of the details; but all that we need to know is that Damian is smart enough to figure stuff out, and is able to put the key to beating Erebos inside himself. As the rest of the allied warriors, including Ares and Darkseid, take on Erebos in his realm of death, Damian takes Warworld inside the massive monster and allows the power inside him to detonate.

And this is where the main gut punch of the book comes in. Damian has to sacrifice himself to do this. It becomes clear that this is his plan earlier on in the book, when he and Cassie have a goodbye, and when in a moment when Jon tells him 'We're going to win tomorrow, and we're coming back' Damian simply agrees 'Yeah. We're going to win tomorrow.' Before is even happens I knew it was coming, but it doesn't stop it from hitting hard. Especially as it calls back to those very first few issues of DCeased.

As the heroes try to talk Damian down from his sacrifice play over the radio Damian reminds Ollie what he said to Bruce the day he died, 'Batman isn't going to be taken out by a virus. You're not going to get sick and fade away. You're going to sacrifice yourself for the galaxy outwitting an evil as old as the stars or something.' Is this a happy coincidence, or did Tom Taylor know all the way back then what the final ending was going to be? Either way, this moment shows just how much this version of Damian has grown into the mantle, and how whilst he's his own version of Batman, he is very much still Batman. But, this isn't the only heartbreaking nod to the beginning. Jon comes to be with Damian in his last moments, able to survive and escape what's about to happen. He doesn't try to stop his friend though, he just sits beside him and tells him 'I thought I'd just sit here. So you're not alone.' the same thing that he did for Damian when Bruce died.

It's these character moments that make this ending work. Would I have liked longer with this story? Yes, absolutely, but if this stuff is what we get instead it's a decent trade. We also get Alfred visiting the universe that Damian's sacrifice makes, watching out over a galaxy shaped like a bat. And there's possibly my favourite Guy Gardner moment in years when he mocks Darkseid, gets knocked down by Omega beams as a punishment and responds with 'Poking fun at Darkseid was a level of stupid that even I'm self-aware enough to realise.'

This was a fitting end to this series, a series that's about death and destruction on a galactic scale, where beloved heroes have died, where you've been made to fall in love with villains only to lose them too, where humanity has come to the brink of destruction again and again; and in this issue it's an act of sscrifice, one death given willingly, that brings peace and life to the universe. That's better than any huge super hero battle could have given us.