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All New 14-Chapter Digital Series ‘DCeased: Hope at World’s End’ Just Launched This Morning!

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DC’s horror-heavy comic book event series DCeased proved so popular that the world has already been expanded upon with a spinoff and an upcoming sequel series, and DC came out of the gate hot this morning with the surprise-reveal of brand new digital series DCeased: Hope at World’s End!

DCeased, 2019’s blockbuster series, makes its DC Digital First debut with new original stories set before the fall of Earth! Fan-favorite Injustice: Gods Among Us writer Tom Taylor’s epic DCeased story line continues on May 19 with DCeased: Hope at World’s End with art by Dustin Nguyen, Renato Guedes, Carmine Di Giandomenico and Marco Failla!

Set in the span of DCeased #5’s time jumpDCeased: Hope at World’s End will expand the story of the Anti-Life War, featuring Superman and Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Stephanie Brown, Wally West, Jimmy Olsen, and more.

“There was a point in DCeased where we had to make the decision to skip weeks of losses and triumphs and heroism or our first miniseries wouldn’t exactly be a miniseries,” said Taylor. “But we knew we had a larger story to tell, so we seeded plots we could expand on and deliberately left huge characters off the table for the future. That future is here.”

This new DC Digital First series, in addition to DCeased and DCeased: Unkillables, will pave the way to the launch of DCeased’s sequel, DCeased: Dead Planet, in June 2020.

In DCeased: Hope at World’s End, the Anti-Life Equation has infected over a billion people on Earth. Heroes and villains have fallen. In the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Metropolis, Superman and Wonder Woman spearhead an effort to stem the tide of infection, preserve and protect survivors, and plan for what’s next. In the Earth’s darkest hour heroes will bring hope! The war for Earth has only just begun!

“With Hope at World’s End, we finally get to tell the tale of what Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Black Adam, Wink, the Aerie, Martian Manhunter, Black Manta, Steph Brown, Robin, Superboy and more did to save as much of humanity as they could,” continued Taylor. “And Super Sons fans won’t want to miss the apocalyptic adventures of Damian and Jon as they stand up to the worst crisis the Earth has ever seen, and take their first steps on the road to becoming the next World’s Finest.”

DCeased: Hope at World’s End will publish digitally twice a month through its fourteen-chapter run beginning Tuesday, May 19, 2020.

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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