Diverting from the character-centric approach that's driven this story pretty heavily thus far, writer Paul Jenkins instead uses DC Universe Presents #4 as a vehicle to propose philosophical questions. The issue is though-provoking, no doubt, but it ultimately does little to keep the story of Deadman in focus and instead loses itself a bit amongst larger "meaning of the universe" questions. That said, I very much enjoyed the banter between Deadman and the Son of Morning as they engage in an existential round of 20 questions that will wind up making you feel incredibly small and worthless in your existence. Sure, it's not exactly uplifting, but at the very least it shows off Jenkins' intelligence as a writer and allows him to stretch different muscles in the New 52 than he gets to over on Batman: The Dark Knight.
This issue struggles a bit in the art department. Though a good chunk of issue #4 features Deadman and the Son of Morning moving through a fun house mirror-style reality and thus giving Bernard Chang a chance to go more abstract than usual and to great results, the more straight-forward segments of this installment suffer from less refined line work than we're used to seeing from the artist. A combined problem of some surprisingly uneven inks and intrusive color work, DCU Presents #4 is a bit less refined than I expected it to be. Still, Chang turns in some interesting visuals within the relatively tight confines that he's given in Jenkins' script.
Though this issue diverges pretty significantly from the character work that Jenkins had done on Deadman, it still sets him up for a shining moment in issue #5's concluding chapter. Hopefully the many different elements of this story come are able to become cohesive in the final installment.
Joey is IGN's Comics Editor and a comic book creator himself. Follow Joey on Twitter, or find him on MyIGN. You may or may not discover a profound number of cat pictures.
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