Originally published on Patreon
I caught up with everything DCeased this last week, reading the entire series to date; and have come to like certain parts of this universe. Some of the moments of death hit genuinely hard, thanks in part to how well the characters have been written (please don't talk to me about losing all the villains in DCeased: Unkillables), and the younger heroes like Damian and Jon growing up and living up to their legacies have been great. And after reading the entire thing, seeing the loss of Earth, the fight to survive, and the battle to get it back, seeing the anti-life equation spread out into the wider galaxy has been quite depressing.
This issue opens by showing us that it's more than the returned Darkseid who's responsible for the spread of the disease, however. We begin with scenes that introduce us to Adam Strange, who's been battling Thanagarian forces on his adopted world of Rann. However, the Zeta Beam sends him back to Earth, a few months before the cure is found. Coming across the infected Wonder Woman, Adam of course doesn't stand a chance.
As Adam returns to Rann he brings the infection with him, which them moves on to the Thanagarians, who then use their armada to spread further out into the universe. This is perhaps the worst thing about the virus, that if given the chance it'll run out of control and spread faster than you can do anything about it.
One of the worlds we see this new infected armada stop off at is currently playing host to Lobo, who seems to be immune from it thanks to his healing factor. This is the big action scene of the issue, and we get to see the main man tear loose and take out some infected.
Back on Earth, the heroes have gathered for Diana's funeral on Themyscira. Artemis and Ollie get to shoot her pyre with flaming arrows, which is a nice moment that connects with her lives as an amazon, and as a hero. Unfortunately, her funeral gets crashed by Ares, the God of War, who's come to warn the amazons and heroes that a real war for life is coming.
And this is where we get some pretty big revelations for this series, and ones that change the way we'd look at the other DCeased titles that have come before. The anti-life equation isn't just a simple virus. It's an ancient god from a universe that was destroyed long before this one was around. Erebos, the god that destroyed all of reality then, is using the virus now to do the same to this universe. It's revealed that if they don't stop the virus now, reality as they know it will be lost.
This is a pretty big moment for the series, and certainly changes things up. The fact that the God of War didn't bat an eye at the destruction of Earth, but is getting involved now also shows that this might be the biggest battle in the series yet.
It was nice to get a moment to slow down a little here, to focus on some other parts of the story, and to spend time with characters whilst everything else is building out in space. I suspect that the revelations here won't just pertain to the end of this series, as it feels too big to be wrapped up this quickly. I suspect that there'll be more DCeased titles coming in the future, where Erebos is more of a plot point.
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