As I have discussed and explained before, since the 1960s, horror comics have become something of value to DC Comics due to the collapse of EC Comics in the 1950s. Due to this, numerous new creations and characters were made, most notably Swamp Thing, a now very well-known DC horror character due to Alan Moore’s unique run on the character. However, this wasn’t the only horror character that the company had created. No. Sometime before Swamp Thing, another character was born, one who was dead but alive. One who had the powers to possess people like the phantom he is. This character was called Deadman, who was created in Strange Adventures 205 in the late 1960s by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino. A man named Boston Brand worked as a trapeze artist in the circus, but one day, Boston was murdered during his act. However, this didn’t kill off Boston as he came back to life as Deadman, who although he was invisible to everybody around him, he could possess any one of them. This was thanks to the Hindu goddess, Rama Kushna, who gave Boston these powers so he could avenge himself by killing his murderer, a man with a hook hand. However, things went downhill for Deadman (under artist Neal Adams, who also writes these later stories in the run) once he discovered that his killer randomly chose him in order to gain access to a group of assassins. Since then, Deadman has been a lost spirit, wandering around aimlessly, but thankfully, the writers never forgot him. Despite his few appearances in previous titles, in the late 1980s, Deadman became a feature in Action Comics, which became a weekly published title starting from issue 601, the character featured in stories written by Mike Baron, along with numerous pencillers with inks mainly by Tony DeZuniga. Later on, though, a young horror artist named Kelley Jones, heavily influenced by Bernie Wrightson, takes up the pencilling job on the Deadman Action Comics Weekly tale. Together, Baron, Jones and DeZuniga create a short eight-part story with the help of some additional artists which although may not be remembered by a lot of fans, it introduced the world to Kelley Jones and his deeply unique and unnerving portrayal of Deadman.
The stories featuring Deadman in Action Comics Weekly, which were issues 618-621 and 623-626 (as Deadman didn’t appear in issue 622) were published weekly from September to November 1998. All stories are written by Mike Baron with art by Kelley Jones and Tony DeZuniga, with the exception of part six (Action Comics Weekly 624), which is pencilled by Vince Giarrano. Lastly, I have read all of these stories in the Deadman By Kelley Jones trade paperback.
THE PLOT
One night in a graveyard, Deadman notices three mysterious men about to dig up a body. However, Deadman notices that two of the men are actually dead, but still walking and that the third person is known as Wellman Legros, a voodoo king. Legros senses Deadman’s presence and tells him to leave, which he does while Legros and the undead men dig up the body of a man named Cosgrove. Legros and his men take the corpse in the coffin back to their hideout, where Deadman watches them again. Legros attempts to resurrect the dead Cosgrove (who was a policeman) in a ritual, which succeeds, but before he can talk to Cosgrove, Legros senses Deadman again, but thinks he just imagined it. Legros then tells Cosgrove to kidnap two young girls known as the Brogden twins at their school. However, Deadman intervenes again, possessing the body of Cosgrove and charging towards Legros. But Deadman is stopped by the undead slaves and finds that he cannot leave Cosgrove’s body. Legros then gets a knife out to cut out Cosgrove’s tongue to make sure he obeys him.
Just before he can lose his tongue, the possessed Cosgrove tells Legros that he obeys him, causing the villain to put his knife away and send Cosgrove away on his mission of kidnapping the twins. Later on, in a police car, Deadman decides to speak to other police officers using his walkie-talkie, but they don’t believe its really Cosgrove because he was buried days ago. Sometime later, Deadman arrives at the day care centre where the twins are, asking to see Madame Waxahachie, who runs the centre. However, without his control, the possessed Cosgrove picks up the twins and tries to leave the building with them. But he is stopped by Waxahachie, who has worked out that Cosgrove isn’t really a police officer, but a zombie being controlled by Legros. Deadman then attacks Waxahachie by trying to strangle her, but he is stopped when she breaks each of his fingers. Deadman then tells Waxahachie that he is a sprit inside of the zombie. Waxahachie then stabs the Cosgrove zombie with a knife, releasing Deadman from the body, who then posses Clara, Waxahachie’s assistant. Waxahachie tells Deadman that she has heard of him and Deadman then tells her that Legros wants the twins to create an army of zombies as the twins hold some strange powers. However, Sid, another assistant to Waxahachie, arrives and tells her that two zombies have kidnapped the Brogden twins.
After hearing about the kidnapping of the twins, Waxahachie decides that she must help get them back, otherwise their parents will be furious. Once she leaves her friend Uncle Estes to watch over the children (as Deadman is still in the body of Clara), Waxahachie and Deadman head towards Legros’s home in a car. However, on the way, the two of them notice hordes of zombies heading towards the city. It is then that Waxahachie explains that zombies are all over the town as some years ago, the twins resurrected the dead and tried to march them on the city but failed. Deadman and Waxahachie then arrive at Legros’s house, where Deadman plans about how to confront Legros as before, he sensed that Deadman was near him. Waxahachie comes up with the idea of possessing a random zombie in the group to get to Legros. Deadman agrees with that plan and takes over the body of one of the zombies walking to Legros. As a zombie, Deadman witnesses the twins locked in a cage, which Legros is proud of. Deadman then decides to end this here and now by leaving the zombie and possessing Legros, which succeeds. But then, the twins tell the zombies that Legros is an imposter and that he must be killed as they will guide the zombie takeover.
Although Deadman protests against the zombies as Legros, they release the twins from their cage. The twins then reveal themselves to really be Stella and Delia Pechshaw and that they are aware that Deadman is in the body of Legros. Although the twins don’t believe that he is called Deadman, he reveals that he was once Boston Brand and part of the circus, causing the twins to explain that they have seen Boston Brand in the circus years before. Meanwhile, Waxahachie leaves Clara in the car and heads inside Legros’s house, where she is nearly attacked by a zombie, but she defeats him using a strange mystical artefact. Deeper in the house, Waxahachie finds an unpossessed Legros, who has no knowledge of kidnapping the twins and using them. Legros then questions how Waxahachie could know his plans before he even executed them, and he prepares to kill her with a knife. Luckily, Deadman possesses Legros, stabs himself with the knife and leaves the body, resulting in Waxahachie knocking out Legros. Some time later, Deadman speaks to Waxahachie through Clara and explains that the twins are actually Stella and Delia Pechshaw. Waxahachie then explains that she has heard of the Pechshaw twins as they became voodoo queens. They later died and were buried, for a short time anyway. At the same time, the twins continue to resurrect people from their graves as zombies.
While the people are coming back as zombies, the twins wonder what to do with them. The twins then tell the zombies to meet them in the swamp later on as they must investigate the situation around them to see if mankind hasn’t already been invaded by zombies. Meanwhile in the car, Waxahachie explains to Deadman that the twins have come back as they were seventeen when they died and that was seventeen years ago and due to that, their powers have increased. Waxahachie then explains that the twins have pledged themselves as brides to Gage, an ancient African god. Waxahachie then speaks to Deadman himself and how that every time he invades another person’s body, he could have caused them psychical wounds and injuries. Deadman blames Rama Kushna for this, but instead of questioning who she is, Waxahachie decides that she wants Clara back, but Deadman can possess the body of another person. Some time later, Waxahachie introduces Deadman to Luke, a sad fool who seems to spend every moment of his life fishing. Deadman possesses his body, returning Clara, who is angry about the fact that a ghost keeps possessing her. In anger, she leaves Waxahachie, who is definite that her friend will come back soon. Some time later, after Deadman has an emotional moment about his life, which is cut short by Waxahachie’s fury, Deadman and Waxahachie head to the Pechshaw estate, where the twins were buried as they both killed themselves. Once Waxahachie explains the tragedy surrounding the Pechshaw family, the two of them arrive at the Pechshaw home, Wildwood, which has been abandoned for many years.
Deadman and Waxahachie enter Wildwood and speak about how they could the host bodies for the Pechshaw twins, but they come to the conclusion that they can’t because the Brogden twins are innocent. Waxahachie then explains to Deadman that they must head to the ballroom on the third floor, causing Deadman to wonder why Waxahachie knows so much about the house, to which she reveals that her mother worked for the family years ago. When the two of them enter the ballroom, they see numerous ghosts dancing. Waxahachie asks one of the ghosts where the twins are. The ghost, who is Tyson Pechshaw, the father of the twins, doesn’t recognise Waxahachie and decides to throw them out of the room. Deadman then enters the room again, but finds it is completely empty at first. However, the twins then appear the tease Deadman, who orders them to release the Brogden twins. Waxahachie then enters the room and begins to annoy the twins by speaking about their father and how he was a drunk and a bad husband. The ghost of the father then appears again and once Waxahachie tells him that he is a ghost, he doesn’t believe it. He then starts shouting at his children, but by using their powers, they make their ghostly father disappear. However, it isn’t over as the twins tell Deadman and Waxahachie that they can feel their zombie slaves coming closer.
When all of the zombies arrive at the house, awaiting orders from the twins, Waxahachie tells the twins that one of the zombies is their father. Although the twins give him the title of general of the zombies, he is easily defeated by another zombie. The twins then present Deadman and Waxahachie to the zombies to kill, leaving the twins to run away. Deadman takes this opportunity to leave Luke’s body to chase the twins, leaving Waxahachie and Luke to fight the zombies using their fists. Meanwhile, Deadman releases one of the twins from the Pechshaw’s grasp and the ghost of that Pechshaw sister speaks to Deadman while the released twin is comforted by Waxahachie. Deadman tries to convince the other sister to leave the body of the remaining Brodgen twin and thanks to the other Pechshaw twin, the last Brodgen twin is set free and both of the Pechshaw sisters are left in ghost form. However, they manage to escape from Deadman by tickling him, giving them to chance to run away. But they didn’t escape far, but instead, both escaped into the bodies of Waxahachie and Luke.
Although the twins are happy that they have defeated Deadman, he shows them that all of their zombies have collapsed and died. But the possessed Luke then leaves and (continues after image)
comes back with the Brogden twins. As part of a deal, Deadman promises to take over the body of Waxahachie, get in the car and drive away, leaving the twins forever with the Pechshaw’s. However, when entering Waxahachie’s body, Deadman kicks Luke’s possessed body in the boll*cks, causing the Brogden twins to run away. The other Pechshaw sister leaves Luke’s body and quickly, Luke, Waxahachie, Deadman and the Brogden twins leave the scene in their car. On their way home in the car, Deadman explains that the power of the Pechshaw sisters has been greatly reduced and if they don’t find the right body to possess soon, they will fade into nothingness. Meanwhile, the two Pechshaw sisters desperately look for new host bodies but can only find rats and bats.
MY THOUGHTS
First of all, before getting to the content of the story and what I think of it, I must say that I am thankful that this is one long(ish) story and not four or even eight short stories. This is because eight pages to tell one full story is no where near enough as it is incredibly difficult to write something ambitious and complex in such a small number of pages. Due to that, I am happy that the story has been paced out in this way and the transition between issues do feel very smooth. Moving to the main plot, I think that it works very well as a Deadman story which while it is full of horror, it does contain its fair share of entertainment and pretty silly moments. The tale begins perfectly in a graveyard, where Deadman once again ponders about why he is still Deadman. We are then introduced to Legros, a character who has a hint of mystery and fear about him and even though he is revealed to be a cover for the Pechshaw (continues after image)
sisters, he does prove to be a suitable villain to introduce us to the story. In the first part, we are nearly explicitly told or shown what Legros wants to achieve, but we do notice that he is involved in and working with raising the dead. This sense of obscurity is done very well, and it paces the story excellently as it gives us time to find out more about the villain of the story, or first villain of the story anyway. This string of mystery continues until the third part, but before we get there, we are introduced to Waxahachie, a character who certainly makes this story a whole lot better, funnier, serious and entertaining to read. This is for numerous reasons, one of which is her sassy, but serious character. This quality and almost every other quality of her character reminds me a lot of Amanda Waller from John Ostrander’s Legends miniseries and more notably, Suicide Squad (vol 1), which is funny actually as this came out around the same time as Suicide Squad (vol 1) was being published. Anyway, Waxahachie’s character quickly becomes involved in the story and her character works well and suitably to Deadman. In fact, for most of the story, Waxahachie is definitely more of a main character than Deadman, which isn’t a problem, but I do think that Deadman probably should have been more prominent in the story altogether. It is around this time in the story that Baron introduces us to the Brogden twins. These two characters stay in our heads when reading this story because you have to wonder what their relevance to the main plot and the Pechshaw family is and while we don’t find a direct answer in this story, we get to see why their characters are remembered so much by others like Deadman and Waxahachie. This presents a factor which I undoubtedly believe should be featured in comics more, which is the importance of the victim of the story. For the past two decades or so, most stories in comics just focus on the hero catching the bad guy rather than the hero rescuing the victim first. Saving somebody comes across as a more heroic act to me and I understand that Deadman is more of a horror comic, it still fits in that vein or superhero comics. The ending of the story complies brilliantly with what I just said, with the Brogden twins being the main objective that Deadman and Waxahachie must rescue, but I think its time to move onto another part of the story, which is the ending of part three, where the real villains are revealed to be the Pechshaw sisters instead of Legros. Although this is a bit of a shame as I thought that Legros was an interesting character, it does make for a shock when the twins pipe up about how they are the true masterminds behind this plan to wake up the dead. Not only that, but it seems to increase the length of the story in a positive way as it means that the content of the story is much more diverse than simply focusing on Legros. This spirals off into a whole new piece of the storyline, involving not only the Pechshaw sisters, but also their family and some of the background information surrounding them, which I’ll speak more about later. From part four of the story onwards, while I feel like the quality of the story gets lower and lower (not to a bad level), it still has some excellent pieces of writing and character in it. For example, there is some great moments featuring Deadman, most notably when Waxahachie speaks to him about how many people he has possessed and how that could have caused injuries to some of them. This adds a hint of realism and consideration of other characters, something which I think should always be displayed and explored with Deadman and his character. In fact, I believe it is an obvious piece of plot and I’m surprised that it hasn’t been done so much before. You have to remember that Deadman’s primary power is possessing the bodies of other people and as he has done that an uncountable amount of time, I think that it is interesting to see what it means for the host body. Like I said, it adds a hint of realism to the character. Another thing I mentioned before was that this story does contain some funny moments, most of which are connected to the Pechshaw twins. For example, some of the comedy between the zombies can be enjoyable and certainly the ending of the story where we see the sisters slowing fading away, turning to animals such as rats and bats to be their body hosts.
Now, to the things which I don’t really like… I would honestly say that the biggest problem with this story is most of the second half of it, mainly for the fact that it feels like Baron doesn’t really know what to write about within parts five to eight and the bits that I find interesting or integral to the story don’t really feel polished or developed enough. The content of the second half can feel bland due to the lack of action or what I think of as interesting plot, but the last two parts of the story feel pointless, definitely the eighth part. Okay, the seventh part of the story ends with the sisters possessing Waxahachie, fine, but then in the eighth part, the sisters are stupid enough to make a deal with Deadman, who takes over the body of Waxahachie, a fairly tough and beefy woman who is know to just beat the f*ck out of zombies with her bare hands. This pretty much defeats the sisters and if that’s the case, then why wasn’t it done earlier. Deadman and Waxahachie had so many instances in which they could do this, but no, they wait until the last minute. I feel like the story could have ended in part seven and if you wanted, part eight could have served as a good conclusion and aftermath to the story, focusing on the Brogden sisters. Like I mentioned before, there are parts of this story which don’t really feel developed, one huge instance of this is the zombies, who really don’t do anything, apart from attack
some of the main characters every once in a while. Although it may have made the story more violent, actually it definitely would of, I think it would have been better if we witnessed the zombies killing a few people and acting menacingly. I mean, I know that they are zombies and they shouldn’t be taken that seriously as enemies, but at least make them feel threatening. Also, the character of Luke feels pointless in the story and it felt like he didn’t add anything, apart from Deadman being able to use a body. In fact, I think that it would have made for an excellent ending if Luke was seriously hurt or injured as it would have played perfectly with the moment when Waxahachie tells Deadman that the people he inhabits tend to get hurt from his actions. This would have given an equally depressing, but hopeful ending to the story as Luke could have been injured or even died, the Brogden sisters are safe and alive. Speaking of characters that get forgotten about, Legros would fit right at home there as after he is revealed to not be the real villain, he only makes a brief appearance, where he is stabbed but not killed. I feel like he should have been a lot more important to the story as he was the villain who really introduced us and Deadman to it. Another forgotten character was Clara, who runs away after being angry (rightfully so) that she was possessed by a ghost. Waxahachie believes that she will come back, but she didn’t. I guess she was f*cking wrong then. Furthermore, a huge part of the story which I didn’t feel was developed nearly as much as it should have been was the Pechshaw sisters, their family and everything surrounding them. We learnt earlier in the story that the sisters had pledged themselves to some ghost, which eventually got them killed. But other than that, and some tragic history about their family, we learn nothing else and it feels like the gap in the information is far too empty. The information we are told is too vague. I guess it doesn’t help that I find that part of the story uninteresting, but still, I think that something significant could have been done with it.
Now, moving onto the art, starting with the main artists, Kelley Jones and Tony DeZuniga. As you may have read from my review of Detective Comics 1000 published six months ago (a long f*cking time ago) and my review of Swamp Thing: The Dead Don’t Sleep (not so long ago), you will know that I think Jones is an excellent artist styled brilliantly to horror and characters such as Deadman. Here, in Action Comics, while the zombie art certainly looks spooky and there are certainly some shining panels, I don’t find the art to be that great. It is good, but not very good and while that could be down to the fact that this is some of Jones’s earliest works, I’m pretty certain it is down to the inker, Tony DeZuniga, who seems to pretty much swamp most artists that he works with. In some cases, that can be a good thing. An example of that is his inks over Todd McFarlane on Infinity Inc (vol 1) as McFarlane was an even worse artist than he is now and DeZuniga sort of cleared him up and made his art presentable, but here, the inks don’t really reflect all of Jones’s spooky and creepy visual effects. They are times when the inks can look unusually messy and a lot of the aspects of what I call Kelley Jones have been ripped out, which is a real shame as it could have made numerous moments in the story feel a lot more interesting and creepy. Jones has had some excellent inkers over the years such as John Beatty and Malcom Jones III, but I’m afraid that DeZuniga isn’t one of them. There are also additionally inks by Pablo Marcos, but honestly, I couldn’t tell much of a difference between Marcos and DeZuniga, apart from the possibility that Marcos looks more presentable and cleaner. As Jones doesn’t do the art in part six, we get pencils by Vince Giarrano and while he isn’t as moody or creepy in terms of art, he does look (continues after image)
pretty good and his style reminds me a lot of how artists like Neal Adams or even Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez would draw Deadman. However, like with Jones, DeZuniga swamps him a little too much, resulting in some panels looking a bit unusual.
VERDICT
Overall, the Deadman story from Action Comics Weekly by Mike Baron and Kelley Jones is good, but I feel like it could have been a lot better. Like I mentioned, it does feature some excellent characters and moments, with the first three to four parts of the story being great, but afterwards, the story becomes a bit too lazy and unprofessional, as if the content hasn’t been as polished or though about as much as I think it could have, or should have been. The art by Jones isn’t at its best and while that may not be his fault, it does have that classic Jones eerie and creepy feel which is definitely visible in some panels and pages. However, this isn’t the end for Baron and Jones on Deadman as you’ll see with my next review…
Story: 6.5/10
Art: 7.5/10
Highlighted Character: Madame Waxahachie (for being the only character in the story to punch her way through her enemies)
Next Review: Deadman: Love After Death/Exorcism (Deadman: Love After Death 1-2. Deadman: Exorcism 1-2). Written by Mike Baron with art by Kelley Jones. Expected to be published by 06/10/2019.
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