DC’s latest four-week crossover event, “The Lazarus Contract,” reaches its penultimate chapter. Check out our spoiler-free review below to see how it fares!
Written by Christopher Priest, Benjamin Percy, and Dan AbnettCover by Mike McKone and Alex Sinclair
Penciled by Larry Hama, Carlo Pagulayan, and Roberto J. Viacava
Inked by Jason Paz and Sean Parsons
Colored by Jeremy Cox
Lettered by Willie Schubert“THE LAZARUS CONTRACT” part three! Will Slade succeed in reuniting with his son even at the risk of cataclysmic disaster? Or will the Titans and the Teen Titans be fast enough to stop him from changing the world as we know it? Find out what happens when the World’s Deadliest Assassin becomes the Fastest Man Alive!
Christopher Priest has reached a point where he has such a steady momentum going with “Deathstroke” that it seems nothing can stop him. Before reading the issue, I wondered if maybe this crossover could interrupt his flow. Luckily, it’s only made the title stronger.
With many crossovers, the characters can feel forced together. That’s perhaps the greatest part of this issue: everything fits. Everything has a purpose. These characters aren’t just here together because they all originated from the same title back when they were created. In-story, Deathstroke actually needed to interact with the Titans teams for his own ends, and it’s an end which ties back to the characters’ connections to one another. The arc even has a few small ties into the overall Rebirth story, which are mentioned so readers at least feel content in knowing it will eventually be brought back up, but are then thankfully tabled, as they’re not immediately relevant to the “Deathstroke” story. This book knows how to cross over with a purpose.
At the same time, “Deathstroke” has lost none of its personal identity. Deathstroke still makes impossible deals and plays people against each other in the signature moments that readers have come to expect from this book. There are still the blacked-out panels containing chapter titles. There are still flashbacks. The family drama still factors into the plot, seamlessly tying into the Titans appearances. The Titans themselves ultimately play the same role as any other guest stars who have shown up in the title, which is to say their scenes add flavor and a layer of meaning to the interweaving anthology that is the issue. So not only did the book cross over with purpose relating to both the “Lazarus Contract” story and the overall “Deathstroke” title-wide story, it also remained wholly itself while doing so.
Pacing-wise, as mentioned earlier, the book still has its anthology-like structure. One page with these characters, a few pages with these characters, one page of flashback, one page flashing back to a different era, and so on. Through structuring the book this way, Priest is able to thematically weave together his many different plot threads and allow readers to jump with him and make connections that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to if the scenes were longer and more explicitly related. In this way, the Titans scenes make perfect sense as a small part of the larger puzzle.
As for the art, the six-person team does a surprisingly good job making everything work given how many hands are working on it. With Larry Hama on breakdowns, the pages have an overall consistency with straight-forward rectangular layouts. Within each panel, the framing always stays interesting, contrasting close-ups with long shots with panels looking up from the floor, down from the sky, and anything in between. Most importantly, the art all services the story. As a small example, when child Grant gets unexpectedly pulled out of a car and thrown on the ground by Slade, he is drawn from an odd angle above him in a way in which his small body takes up the entire panel. I really felt the sensation of suddenly falling, of being uncertain where in space I am but knowing something isn’t right, of processing a feeling subconsciously before having full conscious perception of what is happening. All of this was achieved in a relatively simple panel, and these sorts of small techniques are used throughout the issue so subtly that they’re often felt without being noticed.
Continued belowThe speed scenes deserve a special mention, too. Most of this issue features dramatic scenes which take place in ordinary places, and while all of these are well drawn, those speed scenes show the true talent and versatility of this art team. Rivaling the best Flash artists, the team represents speed by usually keeping the perspective either just ahead and looking back at the characters, or just behind and looking forward to the characters. There are speed lines all around them, there’s dynamic lightning streaking behind them, the colors in the background start blending together, and the characters’ anatomy gets slightly distorted as the speed increases. It all sounds so obvious when written out, but it’s rarely this well done in practice. As the small bursts of action in an otherwise drama-heavy issue, these scenes excel at their job.
In all, this issue of “Deathstroke” gave readers some of the biggest moments in the title’s history and worked the Titans guest-stars into the story flawlessly. I’m so glad Christopher Priest has been able to tell his story at his pace, and that he’s able to make so much out of a crossover that have been a throw-away cash-grab.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Even when crossing over with other series, “Deathstroke” remains a must-read title.
