140 Deadman By Kelley Jones: The Complete Collection

I'm sure I've mentioned on the blog my love of Deadman.  He's a character who always always always appeals to me.  And this collection is a great one.  It collects together three separate series drawn by Kelley Jones.  And this is why when I think the name Kelley Jones, the first thing that springs to my mind of Deadman.  His stylized version of the character is amazing.

What we have here is an 8 part story that originally ran in Action Comics Weekly.  It involves zombies and possession and all that good ol' New Orleans voodoo nonsense.  Mike Baron wrote the tale, as he did the other stories in this book.  It's followed up by the two part mini series Love After Death.  Deadman meets, well, for lack of a better term, Deadwoman and instantly falls in love.  It's a great tale of the supernatural, love and betrayal.  And finally, the mini series Exorcism, which follows up both of the previous stories in this volume.  Deadman is distraught after the events of the Love After Death series and his basically lost his mind.  Madame Waxahachie, a character first introduced in the Action Comics Weekly series is brought in to help fix what's happened.  It's a great, but disturbing tale (and it also features the Phantom Stranger, another of my favorites!)

If you're a Deadman fan, this book is for you.  It's such a great read, cover to cover

Deadman By Kelley Jones: The Complete Collection

Writer: Mike Baron

Artist: Kelley Jones, Tony DeZuniga, Pablo Marcos, Vince Giarrano

DC Comics

081 Deadman: Dark Mansion Of Forbidden Love

This is probably my favorite book in quite a while.  I was really iffy on it, but no longer.  This is fantastic.  It takes a lot of things that I love and throws them all together.  Deadman.  Check.  Ghost stories.  Check.  Romance comics.  Check.

Now I'm not sure what DC was thinking with this book.  It was announced as a three issue, bimonthly mini-series.  Bi-monthly automatically tells me they had no faith in the book.  When I read the book, I realized that each of the three issues were actually two issues combined into one book.  I'm scratching my head over why DC took this strategy with this book. 

Although Deadman is the titular character in this book, he's not the lead character.  He's more of a supporting character than anything.  The story centers on Berenice, a young woman who is living in this old mansion with her boyfriend as he's trying to write a novel.  Berenice is also psychically gifted.  The story is about a ghost that haunts the mansion and Deadman, who was drawn to the mansion but now can't escape.  It's a fascinating tale and I couldn't get enough of it.  I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Oh, and we get the real version of Deadman back, not that awful New 52 rendition.

Deadman: Dark Mansion Of Forbidden Love

Writer: Sarah Vaughn

Artist: Lan Medina, Phil Hester

DC Comics