When Neal Adams first appeared on the comic book scene and pencilled Strange Adventures 206, that was the moment the Bronze Age really began. His new and instantly recognisable style of storytelling captured readers instantly. It was no surprise that the titles and characters he worked on, like Deadman, Batman, and Green Lantern/Green Arrow have become famous not just within the comic book community, but also literature as a whole. You’ve got to remember that this was during the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time when the industry was changing. Today, virtually every artist is inspired deeply by Adams’s work and that’s no surprise. None, however, were influenced at all by his writing. With Strange Adventures 212, another episode in the ongoing Deadman saga about murdered acrobat Boston Brand and his return as a ghost, Neal Adams became writer. It wasn’t his best moment. Far from it. While his storytelling was at on-point as ever, his flimsy and overall amateur dialoguing was dreadful. Since then, Adams has remerged and while his art has radically changed beyond recognition almost, it’s sad to say that his dialogue has not gone through the desired transition.
Deadman (vol 5) 1-6 was written (apparently) and drawn entirely (apparently) by Neal Adams. It was published from January to June 2018. I’ve read the miniseries in
its trade paperback.
Neal Adams returned to DC in the late 2000s with a title exuding so much promise but delivering far more mediocrity. That was Batman Odyssey, two crazy miniseries written and drawn by Adams that sadly proved that not only was his writing just as bad as ever, but his art too had also taken a turn for the worse. The chances are I’ll never get around to reviewing Batman Odyssey for all-sorts of reasons, but the main one being is that it’s crap. It’s not funny bad like The Dark Knight Strikes Again for instance, it’s just bad. Regardless, I reviewed Superman: The Coming of the Supermen quite some time ago (mainly because it was a short miniseries and a gap needing filling) and that wasn’t a work of genius either. Will Neal Adams’s new Deadman miniseries be any different? For the two of you who are unaware, Deadman debuted in Strange Adventures 205 (written by Arnold Drake with art by Carmine Infantino) and his ongoing story was that he was assassinated, as Boston Brand, during his trapeze act by a mysterious gunman with a hook-hand. After another six or so issues of pure procrastination, Deadman follows the Hook and finds that he was working for the League of Assassins, a powerful group run by an old, but powerful man named Sensei. It’s also very important to note that the Hook was killed by Sensei for failing to kill Deadman (since Boston Brand was replaced in the circus by his brother, Cleveland) and our hero learns that he was randomly selected as a target by the Hook. This was all clearly written by Neal Adams due to how complicated it all is but fear not! Fifty years later, Neal Adams has torn up his own original script and replaced it with, well, this. For much of the first part (which is mainly an overture for things to come), it’s incredibly difficult to know what’s going for several reasons. Firstly, Neal Adams now draws everyone the same (I’ll get onto that in a bit) and more importantly, his dialoguing has got worse. It’s too verbose and just completely unrealistic. It begins with Commissioner Gordon acting as an ambassador to tour a nuclear power site. All seems to go well until Gordon meets an exact double of himself and Deadman turns up screaming about the Hook. Sure, the Hook has been dead for a while, but let’s ignore that because it’s what Neal wants. Even though there is an obligatory flashback moment which re-presents the highlights from Adams’s original Deadman run to us and shows us that the Hook clearly died, Deadman seems to think he’s returned because there’s someone else out there with a hook-hand. Regardless, the assassins go after Gordon, but it is quickly revealed to be Batman in disguise. It’s then revealed that this new Hook is actually the original Hook (surprising Deadman who already thought that his nemesis wasn’t truly dead) and that Sensei has hired him to lead an elite force with his new hook which can transform into a robotic hand. It doesn’t matter anyway since Batman and Deadman beat the Hook, before becoming idiotically surprised to learn that the Hook was hired by Sensei. The first issue’s end is effectively played for laughs and a rather embarrassing scene in which Deadman possesses Alfred and the ghostly figure has an argument with Batman because Sensei is still out there. This scene doesn’t matter anyway since Batman just gives Deadman Sensei’s location and that’s the end of that. Neal Adams cannot do pacing to save his life. For starters, he makes the fatal mistake of writing a story which doesn’t make sense and is too overcomplicated for its own good. I think Adams’s writing is meant to funny and we are meant to laugh at the fact that the story is a mess. But why would that be humorous? It’s just infuriating. Adams’s style of writing is just to throw everything out there at once. There is no breathing room for the story or us, and it only gets worse from here. Deadman travels to Hong Kong only to find that Sensei is hiding his spirit inside an innocent baby. I can only imagine Neal Adams’s laughing at his own ‘genius’. After a spiritual fight that Deadman cannot win without killing the baby, the Phantom Stranger magically appears, and you soon realise that he’s the only character in the story that Adams’s can still draw well. Anyway, he takes Deadman back to Hill’s Circus and we see the same old faces from Strange Adventures like Lorna, Tiny, and Cleve. While it’s great to see these faces again, the dialoguing is dreadful as Adams’s appears to write Cleve as a paranoid schizophrenic with explosive mood swings. This is all down to the fact that his parents are coming to the circus to watch Cleve’s performance. All-too predictably, since Adams’s lacks any original ideas, one of the trapeze artists is assassinated while the public watch. The assassin, this time not possessing a hook-hand, tries to escape, but an enraged Deadman uses Tiny’s body to beat him into submission before throwing him into the lion’s den (literally). For reasons unknown (or perhaps Adams’s just likes drawing, or getting his assistants, to draw more characters) the Phantom Stranger remerges this time (continued)
with the Spectre and the Demon to witness one of the most tiresome and cringe-worthy moments I’ve read in comic books. Like being at a friend’s house silently while the whole family have a massive argument, we watch as Cleve confronts his parents and all the secrets come out. Basically, Mr and Mrs Brand had two more children before Boston and Cleve. These children were Aaron and Zeea. Dee-Dee, the mother, was ill with something vague and she and her husband made a deal with Ra’s Al Ghul to save her in exchange for Aaron, who has to spend the rest of his life with the League of Assassins. By the way, this is all going on while the whole family really are punching each other. Years later, Zeea went in search of her brother, but never returned. By the way, this all links to Boston as somehow, the deal between Ra’s Al Ghul and the Brands fell apart and for revenge, the League of Assassins decided to kill Boston. Not only does this completely ignore and retcon the whole genius of Deadman’s backstory and the reason for his killing, but it goes against Neal Adams’s own work. It worked brilliantly in Strange Adventures that Deadman was killed randomly. It enraged him more when he learned that his death was simply random and not part of a lengthier plan. Adams’s completely tears that apart and instead replaces it with a plot from a bad soap opera. It’s revealed that Zeea was on her way to Nanda Parbat and for pretty much the rest of the story, it’s Deadman, the Phantom Stranger, Spectre, and the Demon, along with Zatanna and Doctor Fate, going to Nanda Parbat. Nothing else really happens, apart from a huge pointless fight in issue 5 which is also meant to be played for comedy but falls desperately flat. One of the more interesting, or important, bits of the story comes when the Boston parents are reunited with their son Aaron after meeting with Ra’s. Although the Demon attempts to rescue Aaron, he is badly beaten by him as he doesn’t want to leave the League. The only reason I say that this is important is because Batman Vs Ra’s Al Ghul, a six-issue miniseries that took two years to be fully released, is the follow up and I think that it continues that aspect of this story. Regardless, I still think the whole idea of two new siblings is awful since it didn’t need to happen, and it just proves how lazy a writer Neal Adams is. For the final issue, Deadman confronts Rama Kushna for the umpteenth time and learns that the mystical warnings that she littered throughout this mess weren’t from her, but from Tatsinda the whole time. Remember her? She was from the also terrible Aquaman 50-51 story from 1970, also written and drawn by Adams. I only remember her for turning into a freaky cat-looking creature. Don’t worry, she does that here, but that’s not the big revelation that serves as the cherry on the cake. No, that honour goes the final pages when Deadman demands to see his brother. Tatsinda reluctantly allows it, but Deadman is shocked to find his brother is none other than Ra’s Al Ghul. Sure, if you ignore the blatant problem that it doesn’t make sense, it’s a dramatic and shocking ending to the story. However, Adams doesn’t clear up anything by the end of the sixth issue. Virtually everything is still up in the air and while this is only the first of two miniseries, it should provide some closure. This is just proof that Neal Adams not only fails to successfully start a series, but he also fails miserably to conclude one. Why is that a surprise? The main question here however is a simple one: why did this need to exist? Not only did Adams finish his stint writing Deadman fifty years ago, but so many writers like Len Wein and Andrew Helfer came along and continued the story. They both did something far better, more productive, and eternally more interesting than Neal Adams did here. Let’s face facts. This was done for money. DC knew they could a sell Deadman again with Neal Adams in the same way they had done with Batman and Superman. Neal Adams was once a genius in the comic book industry, but now he is more than willing to use his name only to sell books with very little effort involved, contradicting his socialist views to the end of time. Neal Adams used to be great, but the comics of today are not the comics of the bronze age, and neither is the man either. Plainly put, it’s a pointless story and one that doesn’t deserve the sequel it’s received. It’s just sad to see Neal Adams’s fall down this like…
Back in the old days, you could always be certain that if a story was even unreadably crap, if Neal Adams’s name was down as penciller then you were in for a treat. He could make terrible stories look brilliant and convey them with drama and excitement. Fortunately, most stories he drew were written by masters like Dennis O’Neil. However, this is the new era of comics where every artist attempts to emulate not just Neal Adams, but also Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz. In theory, Adams’s style would look out-of-date for today’s comics, but he’s decided to reinvent himself by making his art look absolutely terrible. Sure, his storytelling magic is still there, but the finishes are abysmal. Every character is covered in black flicky lines of thick proportions and Adams’s art lacks the variety it once had. In short, everyone looks the same. The scratchy and rough style of the art that Adams’s possesses was always there (it could be seen when he used to ink himself in the bronze age), but never to this dangerous degree. The colouring too looks naff and amateur which, along with the rubbish and sketchy inks, just sadly proves that while the genius of Neal Adams’s success may still linger, it’s buried under an artist who rushes his work and produces mediocre stories.
VERDICT
Dear Neal, please retire.
Story: 2/10
Art: 1/10
Next Week: Batman: The Black Glove (Batman 667-669, 672-675). Written by Grant Morrison with art by J.H. Williams III, Tony S. Daniel, Ryan Benjamin, Jonathan Glapion, Mark Irwin, Sandu Florea, Saleem Crawford.
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