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Death of the New Gods #8

Death of the New Gods #8

Scheduled to arrive in stores: April 23, 2008

Cover date: June 2008

"The End"

Writer: Jim Starlin
Penciller: Jim Starlin
Inker: Art Thibert

Neal Bailey Reviewed by: Neal Bailey

Click to enlarge


Superman struggles back to Apokolips, finding Darkseid and The Source fighting, their blows rending holes into The Bleed.

Darkseid explains to The Source, at length, that he has stolen the powers of hundreds of thousands of New Gods from the second wall and used them to create his own power, and that he will imprison The Source so he can maintain his power, which can only be used by Darkseid's own genetic signature.

Superman attempts to intervene, but is smashed soundly by Darkseid, who promises to leave Superman alive to witness Darkseid's victory and suffer.

The Source calls Orion's soul back to fight his father. They do battle, and The Source frees itself.

Darkseid flees, and Orion, who cannot speak, tells Superman that it was worth it, for Apokolips and New Genesis have combined to form a single planet in the shape of a ying yang.

The Source departs, as does Orion, and Superman regrets the death of all of the New Gods.

2Story - 2: The writing was a one, but there were a few novel story concepts here, so take that for what it's worth. At its core, this book was one large piece of extrapolation through dialogue coupled with odd things that required knowledge of other books to enjoy strapped to thought bubbles disguised as captions.

That said, I enjoy the idea of New Genesis and Apokolips merging and the idea of Orion appearing to fight his father. The problem being, it relies very heavily on Countdown, which is odd, because nothing that happened in Countdown is reflected in this book, and it's a serious cop-out to have the resolution for this series occur in another book.

There are some really glaring flaws, though. Firstly, that though Orion is Darkseid's son, he doesn't have the same genetics, they're just genetically related. Also, Darkseid leaves Superman alive when he would kill him.

There's also that whole, "You freed yourself?" "I am the Source." Like, so I don't have to explain that plot point.

There's also the fact that I'm a big He-Man fan and they just co-ripped off the light hemisphere/dark hemisphere concept, which I love.

3Art - 3: Broad and sweeping in scope, but underwhelming with the smiley-face source, the contorted Superman facials, and a lot of the cartoonish aspects. The coloring really saves this. Most of the work looks fairly good, but the little details give it a kind of sloppy feel half the time.

1Cover Art - 1: Hokey, cheesy, words on the cover, stereotypical faces. Not that great at all, alas.

Mild Mannered Reviews

2008

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

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