First there was “DCeased,” which writer Tom Taylor followed up with “DCeased: Unkillables” – Now DC Comics are following that up with “DCeased: Dead Planet”. The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Taylor to find out where things are headed next for the Zombie outbreak saga.
Dead Planet is the third series, but the second chapter of the story, with the current Unkillables acting as something closer to Chapter 1.5 — besides the fact of the current series being just plain fun, do you think waiting to continue the story adds something to the experience for the reader?
There wasn’t enough room in the first DCeased to incorporate every character’s story, so we decided to hold off on showing a lot of the villains and anti-heroes. Unkillables is a spinoff of DCeased, not a sequel. It’s the story of what the villains did when the heroes failed.
Dead Planet is the true sequel, set five years later. And, yes, I think a lot of people discovered the first DCeased in the collections, so waiting until more people had been immersed in the full horror of our universe made a lot of sense. That said, Trevor Hairsine, Ben Abernathy and I never really stepped out of this dying world. We’ve been planning and working the whole time. Trev has almost finished two issues and I’m writing issue three right now. Rain Beredo has even colored the first issue already, Saida Temofonte is already lettering. It’s great to keep the band together.
When we last saw the survivors of the Anti-Life Equation, they were looking for “Earth-2,” a new home after the original had been lost to the infection, and you’d essentially killed off the world’s greatest heroes — Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Aquaman and many more had succumbed to the infection. Without revealing too much of what’s to come, where can the story go next?
We may have killed off the Justice League but, at the same time, we carefully created a new Justice League to take their place. Jon Kent and Damian Wayne were positioned to inherit the mantles of their fallen fathers as a new Superman and Batman. Cassie Sandsmark survived the battle between the Amazons and the Atlanteans to become the new Wonder Woman. Mera also survived this attack, so a monarch of Atlantis is still there as Aquawoman. Wallace survived to be the new Flash. Black Canary was chosen to be the next Green Lantern after Hal’s death. Black Lightning is still around along with his powered daughters, Anissa and Jennifer.
Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter website.
I’m excited. I read DCeased in trade and was blown away. Great action and wonderful emotional scenes, even if a lot of those were devastating.
Another round of grimdark. Aren’t already doing the death metal thing?