Dark Knights of Steel #11 – Tom Taylor, Writer; Yasmin Putri, Artist; Arif Prianto, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: This series, coming back after a delay of a few months, is in an unusual position. It essentially played a shell game with us for the whole run, revealing that the irrational, sadistic behavior of characters we expected to be heroes was actually white martian invaders seeking to undermine the medieval kingdom of gods, aliens, and heroes. And the only one who knew was Alfred—aka, J’onn J’onnz in disguise. Taylor keeps giving Alfred key roles in his AUs, and I am all for it. But now, Taylor has only a few issues to tie things up and deliver a strong conclusion to the war against Protex. A big part of this issue is characters sorting out where they stand with each other now, including Bruce and Clark finally talking about the fact that they’re brothers, and Bruce and Alfred figuring out where they stand with each other now that the truth is revealed. These moments deliver an emotional punch, but the storm clouds are gathering.
Fire proves to be key to fending off the martians, which means cutting a deal with Ivy and her supernatural forest. New allies are also needed, and Bruce makes the controversial choice to free the prisoners from the keep of Castle El—including the man responsible for killing Jor-El. It’s a great look at how dramatically things change when there’s an actual war on, but not everyone is on board with the new program, leading to one more shocking betrayal as Protex prepares to make one last deadly move against the kingdom. This issue is basically a medieval arms race, as the two sides debut shocking new weapons that could spell the end of days. I’m just wondering—with only one issue left, is there time to wrap this up effectively? DCeased suffered from a slightly rushed ending, but hopefully this ending will only be Act One, as this is probably Taylor’s most original universe.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
