by Jared Gardner

I looked forward to the new Deadman for totally perverse reasons. After all, it was such a deliciously implausible event. Who on earth would have thought of translating this minor light of the DC-lite multiverse into a Vertigo title? And the moanings of Boston Brand’s fans (Deadman has fans: who knew?) as to the heresy of the act only made me more excited to see Bruce Jones succeed in this strange project. But depending on Jones to do innovative and exciting writing has not been a safe bet of late, to put it mildly, and I suspected that rooting for the new Vertigo version of DC’s old second-stringer would only be another in a long succession of bad object choices on my part. So I was very surprised to discover in issue #1 several very good reasons to like the new “mature” Deadman, at the very head of which is the dazzling art of John Watkiss.

I find that artists who come to comics with extensive storyboarding experience bring a certain stiffness to graphic narrative, and their books often feel more like material to bring to a Hollywood meeting than anything truly engaged with the form. Watkiss is different. He has a cinematic sense of camera angles and lighting, but he uses his experience here in a decidedly non-cinematic way. This is a dizzying, disorienting story—one I am not entirely sure Jones himself has completely worked out—in which our recently-deceased protagonist, Brandon, flits between multiple timelines and alternate universes, often in the blink of an eye (or panel to panel). But even when Brandon is standing still trying to make sense of what is happening to him (and more confusing still, why), Watkiss never lets up on the hall-of-mirrors effects. There is no stable position from which to make sense of this story, and Watkiss makes sure we never get a chance to rest comfortably as armchair passengers on the journey.

This restlessness may be the biggest long-term problem for the series. After four issues, we have perhaps less sense as to what is going on than we did after the first issue. Even the fundamental premise remains fairly hazy. Is Brandon really dead? (Appears so.) Did his brother and fellow pilot really crash him and an airline full of passengers on purpose? (Maybe.) And if so, why is his dead brother seemingly trying now to help save Sarah, his wife (and Brandon’s ex-love), from the Men in Black who are now coming for her? (Um….) We get some explanations along the way, often in bursts of “revelations” from Brandon, with little explanation as to how he suddenly came to his new insights. But these are the weakest and most forced moments of the book. Much of the book is spent chasing after Brandon and Sarah, avoiding those who are seeking Sarah’s life (and Brandon’s afterlife). And when things go tragically wrong (as they do, time and time again), Brandon gets a “do-over”—back in the cockpit with Scott, getting new cryptic advice, and starting the game all over again. It all might be too much, too dizzying, for readers to be willing to put up with.

So now I am rooting for Deadman for a different reason. I am hoping it does not give up on its best impulses—its surreal drive and non-narrative browsing of the databases of alternative realities. I am hoping that Jones does not feel compelled to give us smoking guns, connect-the-dots conspiracies, or a view of the man behind the curtain. True, I am curious about the strange and dangerous gift that has passed from father to sons (and now to the unborn child Sarah is carrying)—a gift so potent that whole universes are conspiring to destroy it. But I would rather not know the details and secrets if it means sacrificing the visual and epistemological hall of mirrors that makes the comic (at least potentially, in one alternative universe yet to be written) truly innovative and unique.

The local clunkers (Brandon finding himself in the original Deadman’s costume) and the occasional writerly panic-attacks not withstanding, I am along for the ride—at least for the first year. More than enough is narratively daring and visually arresting in this book to make me want to see where we are going. My only hope is that the creators and editors let the original Deadman rest in peace in his DC Universe, resist the attempts to explain more than needs explaining, tap in to the radical energies the first issue has unleashed, and avoid the temptations to take recourse in the trappings of the Hollywood conspiracy plot (as issue #4 seemed to threaten). We don’t need to know who the bad guys are. We don’t need to know how the dead Brandon moves between alternate timelines. For this comic to reach its potential, Jones and Watkiss must be willing to let traditional comic plotting go and try and make something genuinely new out of the narrative corpse that they have brought to life here.