GHOST WRITES

Tag: batman

  • Amalgam-Tober Day 16: Phobia

    Amalgam-Tober Day 16: Phobia

    Phobia is another obvious one, but that doesn’t make him any less fun. Mysterio and Scarecrow both teeter on being silly or incredibly menacing depending on the story, both characters who play with their enemies’ fear and cast visages to haunt them. 

    Quentin Crane is a washed up Horror movie director who has been relegated to making terrible B-Movies. Fed up with his life and career, Quentin decides it’s time for a change – not to himself, but to the horror movie industry. Using his love for special effects and a knack for chemistry (he’s been making smoke bombs ever since high school for his student films), Quentin makes a strange substance that, when inhaled, would create horrific hallucinations, instill a deathly sense of dread and send chills down the spine of everyone who as much as sniffed it. 

    One night, during the premiere of his latest schlocky slasher, Quentin pumps the substance through the cinema vents, hoping to create a new sort of horror experience. And horrific it is, perhaps the dosis was too high, perhaps the substance was faulty to begin with, but as the movie goes on the audience slowly loses their minds. Most of the moviegoers ended up not surviving the experience, clawing their eyes out of their heads or jumping from the balcony during the second act. 

    Quentin, now one of the biggest mass murderers of all time, goes on the run, and with half of the superhero community after him decides to don a killer outfit and become a real super villain: Phobia!

    Obviously a Mysterio amalgamation needs the fishbowl, don’t do Mysterio if you don’t do the fishbowl I say! But I changed the usual smoke pattern inside into something more sinister and gave it those cool respirators that Scarecrow usually has attached to his mask. The costume is straight forward; taking inspiration from that raggedy old look usually associated with Scarecrow and kind of melding that with the Mysterio cape and gauntlets. 

    Thanks for checking out today’s post!

  • Amalgam-Tober Day 15: Eclipse

    Amalgam-Tober Day 15: Eclipse

    As I stated on day 2, the idea for this project started when I got to drawing The Polka-Spot Man and more ideas came flooding in soon thereafter – yet the idea to draw the Polka-Spot Man came from a different place; Comicpop. The youtube channel run by Sal has discussed the amalgam Universe many times but his episode of the Elseworlds exchange where they created their own Amalgam Characters was so much fun that I started doing it too. All of these have been original ideas from me so far, but to honor that original episode that started it all I bring you: Eclipse – an Amalgam of Moon Knight and Jason Todd’s Red Hood. Now before I get into everything I do need to explain that while the idea stems from Sal, the rest of this is solely my own doing, including design and backstory.

    Naming these guys can either be the biggest pain in the ass or an absolute joy, and Eclipse turned out to be the latter. My brain literally just went: “Red Hood + Moon Knight= Red Moon? Red Moon = Lunar Eclipse, that’s too long so shorten it to Eclipse!”. It really is that simple. From there on the design followed, starting with the small logo on his chest. I inverted the usual crescent moon that Moon Knight usually sports and added an additional moon resembling the process of an eclipse.

    Moon Knight has had a lot of different costumes over the years and I toyed with the idea of making this a look inspired by the Mr.Knight suit or a more mystical suit that would tie into his origins but decided that keeping that tactical aspect from the Red Hood costume would be the best way to go. That’s why I chose to go with that more tactical black and white Moon Knight suit often attributed to Jake Lockley, but replacing the pants with something more military looking and obviously recoloring that cape. He needed a Red Hood… Duh! 

    All of this ties back to his origin: Back in the day, Jason Spector was a young criminal often on the run from the law, yet it’s when he steals a certain someone’s tires his story really begins. The skills he puts on display during his criminal acts impresses the Caped Crusader so much that he takes him under his wing. Getting the training he needs to become a superhero sidekick, Jason manages to overcome some of his troubled upbringing and reshape the skills he learned on the streets into something more heroic. But being a hero comes with a lot of downsides, and suffering traumatic event after traumatic event his volatile side kicks back up again, culminating in a violent confrontation with his father’s biggest enemy – one he does not survive. 

    It’s then that his father’s oldest enemy, The Moon Demon Khon-Al-Ghul, retrieves Jason’s body for his most nefarious plan yet. Submerging Jason in the healing Lunar waters of Arabia, Khon-Al-Ghul thinks he’s reviving Jason to turn him into a soldier for his own League of Assassins. But out from the bubbling crystal blue water comes a man forever changed, not just Jason anymore. The emotional trauma of his past mixed with the physical trauma of his violent death and subsequent resurrection has split Jason’s psyche into bits and pieces, creating three distinct personalities inside his system, all fighting for control. His youthful spirit remains within the Alter I dub “The Boy”, always steering Jason into more problems and mischief – from causing random property damage in the streets of Gotham to purposely killing low-life thugs to teach them a lesson, this Alter doesn’t understand the gravity of his actions and is not concerned with consequences. The Sidekick, Jason’s second Alter, is the exact opposite. He’s trained to be better and serves as Jason’s moral compass for good. The sidekick makes sure to cause no damage to the innocent, always makes sure that apprehended drug money ends up in places where it’s needed and desperately resists whenever murder is on Jason’s mind. Usually though: it’s the Eclipse that takes the wheel, an Alter completely engulfed with rage and revenge. He’s the one that came out of the water, he’s the one who’s set off on this journey for revenge and he’s the one who’s going to kill whoever stands in his way. 

    For a while I wanted to design all three of the Alters for this post, but I quickly realized that would be too much work for one day. That said, the final piece does feature Khon-Al-Ghul, a mix of Khonshu and Ra’s-Al-Ghul, making day 15 a double Amalgam day!

  • Amalgam-Tober Day 14: The Great Catch-Up

    Amalgam-Tober Day 14: The Great Catch-Up

    Today is slightly different, since network issues prohibited me from posting two days in the past week, I hereby put the articles for those days here. Including today’s post of course.

    Day 11: Spider-Man 2099

    Some of these have been, with the risk of sounding cocky, very clever. Putting together unlikely pair-ups and coming up with clever names. Some of these are downright obvious though, this being one of those. Putting Spider-Man 2099 and Batman Beyond together is a no-brainer. Quite truthfully it’s a shame they’ve never done it before. The similarities don’t just boil down to being future versions of the biggest character of their respective publisher, it’s also about aesthetics, about that Blade Runner infused world building and about that similar standoffishness that both characters share. Terry and Miguel are both cool guys, hotheaded and maybe don’t start off as morally righteous as their counterparts did, but their stories are about them morphing into something better. 

    The big difference between Miguel and Terry is their training, more specifically a lack of a trainer. Terry has Bruce by his side on every adventure, Terry knows about Batman and his past while Miguel barely acknowledges Peter’s existence. He’s not doing this to step into Peter’s footsteps and live up to his legacy, he doesn’t even really have a legacy to live up to. That’s where my new origin for this version comes in: I want a Batman who has to basically figure out a completely new way of being Batman, no training from an old Bruce, he can only take from the myth of the Batman.

    That’s how we start this out. Terry O’Hara, running from a group of crazed Mayhem crooks (who’ve dedicated their life to causing as much chaos as possible in honor of Mayhem, the leader of their old clown gang), tries to find a hiding spot among the old abandoned remnants of the Gotham Manor. But when he steps on a wrong wooden plank invested by Woodrot his entire body comes crashing down through the floor, tumbling all the way into a secret cave filled with old technology. That’s when he finds the last Batman suit made by his predecessor, waiting for him in a bright blue storage room. In an effort to protect himself from the goons still after him, Terry puts on the suit and becomes the Batman of 2099.

    Terry knows of Batman, but it’s been so long since he’s last donned the suit (I imagine Batman retiring in the early 2000s to stay truthful to that original time gap from the 2099 comics) that there just isn’t that much record of him left. Barely any videos or images left and definitely no living heirs to tell the tale. Terry is forced to base his fighting style and overall demeanor as Batman on that off old tales from stuffy books and on real bats instead. 

    This version of Batman would be meaner and scarier, he’d live in the shadows and combined with his stealth suit and claws, people would think he’s a genuine monster for his first years as The Bat. But that’s what he has to overcome to become the greatest hero the Amalgam Universe has ever seen.

    Day 12: The Bat Without Fear

    A few days ago, when I first showed off my design for the Knight Without Fear, I talked about how much I wanted to amalgamate Daredevil and Batman in some form. The two just fit so well together that making 31 of these and ignoring such a solid idea would just be a waste. I finally found my angle when I did my version of Old Man Matt and Old Man Bruce together as one but that was not my first attempt… this is.

    The Bat Without Fear is a combination of Batwoman and The Woman Without Fear, aka Elektra from Chip Zdarsky’s Daredevil run. The latter is one of my favorite recent additions to the Marvel Universe so I’m always contemplating putting her in projects like these and now I finally have a reason to do so. 

    Like Batman and Daredevil, Batwoman and this version of Elektra are two sides of the same coin. They are astoundingly similar in so many ways; from the simple fact that they’re both legacy characters to the fact that they’re both sporting a red and black color scheme with a big bush of hair sticking out of their masks, the more you think about the better these two fit. 

    The design ended up being pretty tough to nail but I feel I managed okay. Elements that I felt had to be incorporated were the Bat-Logo obviously as well as Elektra’s beautiful curls that seem to almost be alive if they’re drawn by Checchetto. The weaponry was also very fun to develop, with the Batsai being one of my favorite things I’ve thought of since starting this challenge. I’ve really been trying to differentiate each drawing and try new ways of getting my final look across and this one shows that off to a tee. Here I ditched the usual look of these posts with something more concept-Art like. Separating costume and head is a good shot for a design like this.

    Day 14: Soldier Of Tomorrow

    Drifting through the cosmos, surrounded by the rubble of a dead planet, Kara Zor-El breathes her last breaths. Her lungs filling with blood, her skin on fire and her ripped apart left arm aching as memories of her time on Krypton try to push away the pain and anguish, keeping her eyes from gazing at the dead floating relatives surrounding her. She closes her eyes knowing the inevitable is finally here… Brainiac.

    Making an Amalgam oftentimes means finding characters that share similar aesthetics or gimmicks or powers or whatever, but a really good Amalgam looks past all that and finds characters that would never fit together but are still intrinsically the same: Supergirl and Winter Soldier are such characters. Most people would assume a character like Red Hood would pair well with Winter Soldier, rightfully so: they are very similar. And Supergirl might fit well with powerhouse characters like Captain Marvel and such. But when you think about it, their origin is so similar. They are old – familiar faces, returning from the past with a heap of emotional baggage. But where Kara’s story usually ends in her escaping from the Kryptonian wreckage and landing on Earth, mine goes into a different direction.

    When Kara wakes up she doesn’t even remember her own name. She’s a husk of what’s been, overcome by Brainiac’s programming and turned into his personal attack dog. Her design is a mix of Winter Soldier’s tactical gear and samples of the super-aesthetic. The torn cape still has the mark of El scorched into the back while the one on her chest is replaced by Brainiac Particles (though still in that familiar Crest-Shape). The particles also help generate the necessary energy to sustain her cybernetically enhanced arm, One that has more blood on it then some small planets have culminated over their entire existence. She sports a domino mask to hide her red laser eyes and a face-guard to conceal her kryptonian heritage, especially now that Brainiac has sent her on her most dangerous mission. Go to Earth and kill the last remaining family she has…

    I really think these two fit well together and I hope I’ve convinced you of the same. Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow.

  • Amalgam-Tober Day 10: Mayhem: The Clown Prince of Carnage

    Amalgam-Tober Day 10: Mayhem: The Clown Prince of Carnage

    This one is a pretty self-explanatory entry… putting together Marvel’s most crazed serial killer with DC’s most crazed serial killer really isn’t as clever as some of these other entries have been but Joker and Carnage is just to good a match-up to ignore.

    The design for this one is deceptively simple looking while it really took a while to nail the final result. One of my biggest hurdles was the color scheme, I think I tried out a dozen shades of green and purple and white and red until I genuinely couldn’t tell the difference anymore – and then after endless tries I realized I also couldn’t settle on an order for the colors to be in. Was the face gonna be green or the mouth? What about the tendrils? Should they be red instead to accentuate his smile? I tried out another few dozen designs before settling on this one. I really love how this guy ended up looking. It’s immediately clear which characters got smashed together and nothing ends up illegible, which tends to happy with goopy characters like this.

    The problem with putting the Joker into a prompt that demands a written element like this challenge does is that there just isn’t a whole lot to take from. He’s a mystery man and I want to stay faithful to that element of the character but I also want to write about him and make sure these mash-ups are more than just fun designs. I kind of ended up going with the most obvious route:

    Being the leader of a clan of murderers terrorizing the Gotham streets, Mr. C (as this character is known without his symbiote) quickly finds himself facing off against the Caped Crusader. During one of their more violent match-ups the two enemies find themselves trapped in a secret underground laboratory run by Hugo Strange’s Life Foundation which has been used to morph the dangerous Venom toxin into something even more sinister. In a more tactless moment from the Caped Crusader, Mr. C is pushed into the containment chambers the foundation has been using – all of which are promptly broken. The separate pieces of Symbiote start to bond with Mr. C and thus Mayhem is born!

    It’s a big entry today given that we’ve hit double digits as we enter day 10! I’m very excited to show everyone what’s next. I’m far from finished and my best pieces are still yet to come!

  • Amalgam-Tober Day 7: Harley “The Clown” Wilson

    Amalgam-Tober Day 7: Harley “The Clown” Wilson

    It took me a weird amount of time to come up with this one, seeing as the idea seems so obvious now that I have. Both crazy, both lethal, a shared love for black and red color schemes with a knack for clownery and a complete dominance over 2016’s pop culture landscape (seriously how many Harley Quinn and Deadpool costumes were sold in 2016? One billion? Two?) – Deadpool and Harley are a perfect amalgamation. Both of them also never really had a fair shot during the original Amalgam Universe, yeah they do have amalgam versions of themselves, but neither had yet to be as immensely popular as they are now. 

    The design for this one was maybe the easiest time I’ve had with one of these while also coming out the cleanest. The two costumes already compliment each other so well it felt hard to mess up. I tried out some more action poses, especially trying to incorporate a big mallet into the final piece but it quickly became clear to me that I wanted this to be precise, clear and clean. 

    For a character biography I don’t have anything super clever. Harley Wilson, a young woman who wants to follow her fathers footsteps and join the army, is forced to become a government psychiatrist, treating soldiers and POWs alike when she doesn’t get accepted into the army for being “too weak”. Jealous and envious of her clients, she becomes enamored with two of the most brutal soldiers who’ve ever lived; Logan Wayne and Creed Quinn. She slowly loses herself in this obsession and, with inside knowledge of the government’s now-disbanded Weapon X program, obtains a vial of both their blood and injects it into herself – giving her great healing abilities. 

    Now, with her obsession of the two men at an all time high and her powers finally giving her the power to do anything she’s ever wanted. She tracks the two men down and tries to befriend them, knowing full well they’re now mortal enemies. This is where I want to mirror some of their main-line-continuity counterparts; Darkclaw is completely irked by her, in the same vein that Logan is irked by Wade – But The Hyena is smitten by the attention and kind of takes her under his wing like Joker does Harley. This also creates a fun dynamic where Hyena has this sidekick with him that – while sharing his obsession for Darkclaw – does not share his bloodlust, and will always avoid killing Darkclaw if Hyena gets too close (I also imagine that sort of ends in a similar way that the mainline Harley and Joker ends with her becoming more of her own character and splitting from Hyena).

    This is one of my favorites I’ve done just because it’s so perfectly simple. The design and the backstory just came out in one go and I really enjoy that. Thanks for reading and hope you come back for tomorrow’s entry.

  • Amalgam-Tober Day 6: The Knight Without Fear

    Amalgam-Tober Day 6: The Knight Without Fear

    I made a promise to myself when I started this project that I’d try to include as many “new” characters as possible in these amalgams. I wanted to focus on those that didn’t even exist yet when the original Amalgam Universe was born. What I didn’t realize was that I was going to include characters this new. But after reading the freshly released “One Cold Day In Hell” by Charles Soule and Steve Mcniven, the inspiration was hard to ignore. 

    I have been really struggling with Amalgamizing (is that a word? It is now!) Batman and Daredevil. The two just belong together, they just… fit. They are pieces of the same puzzle. You’ve probably seen the many posts comparing the two and how they should swap names since bats are blind and use echo location similar to Daredevil and Batman is just a guy jumping around rooftops so he should be a Daredevil yadda yadda yadda – and no matter how baseline that idea might be, it is kind of fun to explore. But it all just felt a little too obvious. I needed an angle, and after reading “One Cold Day In Hell”, I had my angle.

    “CDIH” – as I will now be referring to it as – is a Dark Knight Returns pastiche. The old hero returns for a final outing, inspiring the next generation alongside a young girl. There is obviously more to either story but it boils down to the same thing and both books do it very well. So, as an homage to an homage, I pushed together two of the most iconic pieces of Frank Miller imagery and Steve McNiven’s tweaked Daredevil design and created today’s AmalgamTober entry.

    I started off the design with a much more frail looking figure akin to Matt’s appearance in “CDIH” but quickly realized that I was just drawing Daredevil with a bat on his chest. Thus I switched to that more bulky and square Old Man Bruce design, it needed an extra element to drive home that this is Matt and Bruce together and not just a weird Daredevil design. An unintentional comparison that this color scheme and design evokes is that of the original Batman designs drawn up by Bob Kane, who shared a similar red suit and big belt. Now I’m not a big fan of Bob Kane, so don’t take this as an endorsement, but I did sort of lean into it as a fun nod.

    Finally I also added the blindfold around his eyes. I always enjoy a Daredevil design that forgoes the eyes on his helmet, it adds to the whole blind justice angle that makes the character interesting as well as making him just generally stand out among his many, MANY, peers. It adds a level of fluidity to the piece that I like, not to mention that I couldn’t get the angle of the eyes right and just kind of gave up!

    I hope you enjoy today’s piece and I hope you check out “Daredevil: Cold Day In Hell” – which I assume will be collected early next year in trade?

  • DC Studios’ Missing Piece – And How To Fix It!

    DC Studios’ Missing Piece – And How To Fix It!

    The DCU has started. With the release of “Superman”, James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new cinematic DC Universe has finally and properly gotten off the ground (quite literally, Superman flies around – get it?). And as the future of the studio becomes clearer with each passing day – as more of these projects get the greenlight – it’s also quite apparent that one side of the DC universe seems to be largely ignored. Where is the magic? For a slate of films titled “Gods and Monsters” there is shockingly little magic to be found in the upcoming roster, even though it’s a force that bonds the gods and monsters together in a major way. 

    Magic has been a long time fixture in DC comics, spawning fan favorite characters, teams and books. DC’s magical side exploded into popularity under the Vertigo publishing line, putting out some of the most creative, critically acclaimed and successful books the company has ever seen and is to this day one of the most fertile grounds for groundbreaking storytelling. Magic bleeds into almost every facet of the DC universe; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, hell even the Flash, they all deal with magic on a (semi) regular basis. But looking at the slate of projects currently worked on over at WB it seems that a magic focused project isn’t really at the forefront yet. Yes, Magical characters will show up in some of the projects announced to be in production so far, I’m sure of that – Updates on the project have been sparse since its announcement but James Mangold’s Swamp Thing surely deals with magic in some capacity, the Paradise Lost show (which will definitely morph into a Wonder Woman: Historia project by-the-way) has to feature heaps of magic if it wants to be faithful to its source material and Circe already showed magical prowess in Creature Commandos – yet none of those projects put the magicians in the lead. A weird phenomenon given how much excitement there is about these characters. 

    Many magical DC-characters could lend themselves well to a solo big-screen adventure or a big-budget-miniseries on HBO MAX; Constantine is a fan favorite, so is Zatanna, Dr. Fate is already a familiar face for audiences (that is, at least to all twelve people that saw Black Adam), Hell, you could even put them all together in a little team-up and you finally get yourself a nice Justice League Dark project. But while there are many cool and exciting possibilities we could talk about today, there is one DC book that would make for a perfect exploration to this side of DC’s mythos. The highly underrated 1990 miniseries “Books Of Magic”. 

    BOOKS OF MAGIC

    Books of Magic is a 4 issue miniseries created by Neil Gaiman, John Bolton, Charles Vess, Paul Johnson, and Scott Hampton, that introduces Tim Hunter to the DC universe, a young boy destined to become a great and powerful wizard, but whose future is still left uncertain as forces of both good and evil pine for his soul. When evil mystic forces want to corrupt Tim and turn him over to the dark side of magic, a group of mystical detectives, referred to as the Trenchcoat Brigade, come together to guide Tim on a journey that will decide not just his future, but also that of the entire DC universe. The brigade, consisting of Doctor Occult, Mister E, Phantom Stranger and fan favorite John Constantine, take Tim on a journey that has him interact with almost every notable mystic in the DC universe. All of the characters that I mentioned as potential tv-and-movie-leads cross paths with Tim, as well as a bunch of others including The Endless and Madame Xanadu. This, to me, lends itself perfectly to a prestige 5 or 6 episode miniseries for HBO MAX.

    This book is such a good choice for the start of this new universe for one reason; Tim. Tim is a perfect audience surrogate, he is learning all of these crazy new secrets about the world on his journey through the past, present and future, just like the audience is doing. We introduce this world through his eyes and we can organically explain and define what magic is in this universe without it feeling forced or boring. Things never get too big for Tim, so they don’t get too big for audiences either. This is even more fitting when you realize just how well established the DCU already is. There are all these things already going on, so many stories have already happened, and Tim learning about this whole new secret layer to all of that would be an identical position to the audience.

    But the reasons why don’t end there.

    Paired up with Tim is the aforementioned Trenchcoat Brigade, a collection of characters who lend themselves well to the story we want to tell here. One of them, John Constantine, is a fan favorite character that can pull in a large number of viewers, making this a good creative idea as well as a business strategy – and while the other three are admittedly much more niche, that has never been a problem for Gunn’s productions. If anything Gunn thrives using these characters, I’m sure a realized version of this idea would see these three characters slightly tweaked and morphed into perfect versions for this type of story at the hands of Gunn, Safran and whoever else they’d bring in to produce this story (Ideally that person would be me, they should bring in me, I will send you my phone number, James).

    The original book sees Tim pair up with a new member of the brigade every issue, creating four distinct adventures over the course of four issues that explore the past, present and future of the DC universe as well as several adjacent realms. While this four part structure works perfectly for the original comic book, adapting it to a HBO-like-format would require an extra episode or two, Fleshing out the world, characters and mostly Tim with more detail compared to the original mini-series – Luckily for you, I also know just how to do that. Bring in Zatanna.

    Those of you who happen to have read the original 4 issue run know that the second issue takes place in the present day – as Constantine takes Tim through the modern-day DC universe and has him interact with this large cast of familiar faces. Among that cast of characters is Zatanna, who second only to Constantine himself, is probably the most well known magic user DC has in their roster. In the book, right after meeting up with her, Constantine is suddenly called away to go do something else, leaving Tim behind in Zatanna’s home. The two characters then have their own little adventure which, while I think it works very well in the book, needs to be remodeled for an adaptation like this. This is the part of the book where the show needs to kind of diverge from its source material and make Zatanna and Tim’s journey an entire episode in-and-of-itself – compared to the last pages of a different story. This could be ideal for a few reasons: Zatanna is a big deal in the comics, she’s a lot of fun and people are very aware of her already – even if she’s never been featured in a live action film adaptation. Giving her this little moment in the spotlight would make fans very happy, plus it would give us a different angle to approach the whole Tim mentorship with. Zatanna isn’t like any of the other members of the trenchcoat brigade, she would bring a unique maturity and kindness to TIm’s journey that I feel could mean a lot for him and dictate which side of the coin the young boy ends up choosing. She, because of her heritage and who her father was, has also been thrust into the world without really having a say in it, which is a great point to explore between the two. Also, Most of those big players in DC’s magic world, those who we will want to see more of in the DCU going forward (Like Deadman, who’s already been teased by Gunn on Instagram) appear in that second issue, so giving that part of the book a little bit more time to breathe could benefit audiences greatly. This is what we want from an interconnected universe like this, getting to know this wide tapestry of characters bit by bit. Plus, and let’s be honest here, Constantine will be the main draw of the show, no matter how good every other aspect is, audiences will be drawn to him first, by splitting his story up into multiple parts and injecting Zatanna in between those, fans will get to see a lot more of this fan favorite character.

    There is material for an additional sixth episode as well to be found in the last issue of the book. While I would in no way shape or form suggest that the ending to the original miniseries isn’t great, it’s one of the most unique and engaging endings of the Vertigo era, it might lack a little bit of flashiness for a big budget TV show. I don’t want to spoil what happens in the fourth issue (read Books of Magic if you haven’t) so this next bit might sound a little vague, but you could extend the material from the fourth issue into two episodes. Tim and Mister E travel through the future by foot until they arrive at the end of everything, the death of the universe and the death of Destiny. This climactic issue is filled with wild visuals and manages to surprise the reading audience by revealing a major twist right near the finish line. Using this twist to split this last issue in half would give this part of the story – one overflowing with lore, visuals and action –  some much needed breathing room and help audiences stomach the insanity that is present in the final stretch of Tim’s journey.

    If you’re curious about the book and want to delve deeper into it, I highly recommend checking it out. Though I must also address that, while the book is great and a LOT of writers and artists have left their fingerprint on it, it is a Neil Gaiman book – and that could be an issue for some people. I know it was a weird moment to be writing this article (I’d completed work on it several weeks before the Gaiman allegations came out but was waiting on a good moment to share this when that article was released about him), I just hope the book can still get its moment in the sun for those who worked on it that aren’t literal monsters. So fuck Neil Gaiman!

    Do you have any future DCU projects you’d like to see? Put them in the comments because I’d love to hear it. And would you be interested to see more magic in the DCU? Make sure to follow Ghost-Writes for more articles about DC studios, DC comics and a whole lot more geeky topics!