Matthew Rosenberg revived the classic All-Out War series to build up and tear down a family of unlikely soldiers. While it began with a search for Batman, both heroes and villains redeemed themselves in battle for the greater good. Although the story finds strength in the bonds made under traumatic stress, it struggles to keep a coherent direction through most of the story. Fortunately, the art always delivers on its pulp epic themes, despite sometimes feeling like stiff cut outs. Overall, it is a gloomy six issue story, but it has the action and appeal of something like Smoking Aces. However, I wish things led to a more meaningful direction. As a standalone, it disservices its own cast to set up further stories while ignoring its own. I hope when DC Vs. Vampires does reach a conclusion, it feels more earned. Read Full Review

The finale of All-Out War sets the stage for the upcoming conclusion of DC Vs. Vampires, while quickly concluding its own collection of remaining threads. Read Full Review

Wow.

Just wow. By far the best issue in the whole event. Rosenberg blew Tynion out of the water. I never thought I would write it.

It's explosive, way more cohesive and the art finally pays off instead of being irritating like in first issue. Since Matthew doesn't have to explain some nonsensical parts Tynion wrote hismelf i to the corner with this tie in can focus on FUN. And it does. In a good, bloody fashion

The conclusion to what has to be the best comic from 2022 with Deathstroke. I must admit that this issue was the weakest of all but not bad by any means. Another fun read as you can expect from this series, i guess my problem is the somewhat predictable ending. Anyway, if you fallowed the series so far you're going to read this regardless.

The backup was excellent as always, but the main story uneven.

This is more of a score for the series as a whole. A bit uneven, got better as it advanced but isn't as good as the main series. Not sure if some of the character choices were the right ones (I liked Mary Marvel a lot, also Midnighter worked very well but I don't think they did much with Azrael, Bane or Booster Gold). That final twist was good.

The backups were all excellent, though. Batgirl, Nightwing, Poison Ivy... All great, hope to see more of those teams if they want to continue this series.

HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD:

Man this was depressing. As always Mary is the MVP of this story and I wonder if she'll appear int he main series after that ending (?).

I really, really liked that final twist with Deadman. I was really wondering about Deathstroke's characterization in some moments and now I really wonder how many of them could have been Deadman, specially because we know that he's been in the background following the team all along and Constatine makes clear there was manipulation involved. The ambiguity also makes for a better story than just telling outright.

Midnighter is always awesome and I loved that gag with him at the end.

I'm conflicted about the use of Superman in this, though. On the one hand, I actually like his writing, it probably feels the most humane of the antagonists and it's a fun commentary on the character having to be always be the hero and the "Evil Superman" trope in general. That final scene where he reminisces about his childhood hits hard. It's moving and tragic. He also doesn't overstay his welcome.

On the other hand, I feel killing him in a side story, surrounded by characters he doesn't really have a personal relationship with, was not a good choice. Like, Supergirl is one of the main characters of the main series and most other (important) vampires get to be killed by their loved ones. Unlike Billy's demise, which could only be in done in this story, I think you could have gotten a similar tragic ending (minus the commentary) with another character and linked Supes to a story he fit better in. Part of me also wanted him to be a Crazy Awesome fun antagonist like some of the other vampirized heroes instead of being Old Yeller in the mega-bleak spin-off, though I guess those tired with Evil Superman trope may be against it.

I don't even know if he's really dead. He certainly didn't turn to dust (the comic made sure we lingered on him, so it wasn't something off-panel or anything)...

That being said, I think it's a pretty well done story overall, even if I would have prefered some other story choices. Can't wait for the finale of the main series next week.

EDIT: Also, Vampire Poison Ivy is scary as hell, hope we see more of her (and many of the characters in the side stories in general). more

I feel the artwork held this series back a bit. The ilustrations were *great* and the quiet moments thus work very well, but the panel-to-panel communication isn't as great and the black-and-white-and-red made action and chaotic scenes difficult to read.

Compare that to the artwork in the backups, which, despite being also bichromatic, worked much better.

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Morne - Dec 24, 2022 (edited)

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I somehow enjoyed this ending more than the main series.