Who Are DC’s ‘DCeased’?
Cryptic posts from comicbook writer Tom Taylor began cropping up on social media earlier this month, featuring images like the one below, followed by the hashtag #DCeased.
Fans were glued to Twitter and Facebook, wondering what that meant, what were they in for? The image is a reference to fellow writer Tom King’s popular maxi-series Mister Miracle, with a little twist. Taylor has been subsequently posting images for the upcoming series DCeased, a new miniseries written by Taylor with art by Trevor Hairsine and Stefan Gaudiano, among others.
The basis? Batman vs. Zombies. More specifically, techno-zombies.
The idea originated with editor Ben Abernathy. He had an idea to do a horror/zombie tale at DC, and hit me up to ask if I’d like to be involved. At the time I was pretty busy, but over the next few days, my mind was racing. I couldn’t stop thinking of new and terrible ways to torture my favorite heroes in ways that made Injustice (also written by Taylor) look tame by comparison.
-Tom Taylor
The six issue alternate universe mini-series will feature Batman going up against hordes of zombies, who are created by the release of a virus by villain Darkseid. The official synopsis of the series was released by DC Comics this week:
A mysterious techno-virus has been released on Earth, infecting 600 million people and turning them instantly into violent, monstrous engines of destruction. The heroes of the DCU are caught completely unprepared for a pandemic of this magnitude and struggle to save their loved ones first… but what happens to the World’s Greatest Heroes if the world ends?
Advanced review copies went out to some outlets this week, and response has been very positive. Joshua Yehl of IGN posted this on Twitter:
My reactions to reading #DCeased #1 include:
-gasping
-laughing
-gasping again
-more laughing
-sudden and uncontrollable gagging
-wondering why the hell DC let Tom do *that*
-screaming
-sitting in the corner, shaking
-cursing the name Tom TaylorY’all are in for a RIDE! https://t.co/FU0eAH8E5u
— Joshua Yehl (@JoshuaYehl) February 19, 2019
DCeased #1 goes on sale on May 1.
Rich Davenport graduated from Concordia University in St. Paul Minnesota with a B.A. in Mass Communication. He is a lifelong comicbook reader, a film fan and a hardcore video gamer. He also makes a lot of funny faces in pictures, much to his wife’s chagrin.
