DC Comics has started a zombie outbreak it can no longer contain.
Or rather, DC’s six-issue zombie-heavy mini-series (that’s a lot of hyphens!) DCeased is now getting an extra DCeased one-shot. The book, dubbed DCeased: A Good Day to Die, is from writer Tom Taylor, and artists Darick Robertson and Laura Braga. It’s due out Sept. 4.
Most interestingly, it features a side story about some fan favorite characters that get spotlighted an estimated 400 times less than Batman. Specifically, this one-shot will look at Mister Miracle, Big Barda, Constantine, Blue Beetle, and Booster Gold.
IGN coordinated with DC on the official announcement earlier today, releasing the first details about the DCeased one-shot as well as this emailed statement from Taylor:
Honestly, as soon as I started writing DCeased, I realized I could write it for years. With the epic scope of this series, there was no way to fit all the characters and all the ideas I had into just six issues. … We had a whole cast of characters whose tale was ending up on the comics cutting room floor. Writing is about killing your darlings, but these were darlings I wasn’t even going to get the chance to kill… until the idea of this special was raised by editor Ben Abernathy.
For the uninitiated, DCeased is an out-of-continuity story about a technovirus infecting the good heroes of our beloved DC Universe. This DCeased one-shot will expand the world of the story, coming before the six-issue series presumably wraps up in October.
It reads like a spiritual successor of sorts to Injustice, the out-of-continuity years-long video game tie-in epic written largely by Taylor, in terms of it creating a world in which giant twisted things can happen to familiar heroes without altering any kind of corporate status quo for the publisher.
Taylor started teasing the announcement of the one-shot yesterday on his Twitter, which gave rise (as it always does) to fans predicting he would be writing the vast majority of DC characters, from Nightwing to Green Arrow to Justice League International. But alas, the fan-favorite Australian writer is still yet to land consistent work on a main universe DC title. If only there were something big coming open soon…(cough BATMAN cough).
Full solicit text along with the variant covers for the new DCeased one-shot can be found below:
DCEASED: A GOOD DAY TO DIE #1 (One-Shot)
Written by Tom Taylor
Art by Laura Braga, Darick Robertson and others
On sale 9/4/19
48 pages @ $4.99
Main/Standard Cover (Big Barda, Blue Beetle, Mister Miracle, Mr. Terrific)
“Portrait” Variant Cover by Francesco Mattina (Deathstroke)
Horror Movie homage Variant Cover by Yasmine Putri (“The DCeasening”)
Synopsis:
While the mainstays of the Justice League—Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman—battle the worldwide infection in the pages of DCEASED, a group of other heroes work to stop the impending apocalypse—no matter who they have to kill!
Mr. Terrific assembles a motley group of surviving heroes including Mister Miracle, Big Barda, John Constantine, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold as they attempt to fight back against the tide of death. Can this ragtag group save the world where the Justice League has thus far failed?
