From the
DCU Review:
Deadman is questioning the purpose of his existence. What is the meaning of life after death when you're stuck among the living? What's this kooky Rama Kushna's ultimate goal for Deadman? He wants answers and he's quite serious about getting them to the point where he threatens to terminate the life of his latest "charge," a war veteran who lost his legs in combat. Deadman's plan to lure Rama Kushna into showing herself works, but while sympathetic to Deadman's plight, she doesn't really help. It's time to take more drastic measures: seek out the "Librarian" mentioned in the previous issue who is really "a lesser fallen angel charged with keeping tabs on every person alive, and some of us who're dead." She resides in a very special library full of everyone's life stories from the dawn of man to the end of days. Pretty cool concept.
Deadman's "club-hopping" sequence is fantastic fun, as he bounces from one body to the next, stirring up more and more trouble. Considering that the main story is driven by serious, existential questions, the humor and hijinks of the club are an entertaining reprieve, especially the scene where Deadman lands on a floor where everyone can see his ghostly form as he performs some impromptu stand-up comedy.
From a story logic perspective, however, the entire club sequence doesn't really work, and here's where I get conflicted. I love that scene. It's the type of wacky fun I want to see in a comic book. It still adheres to story logic in the sense that Deadman is using his power to bounce around to take out his opponents. That's classic Deadman, especially when he leaps into a body, says something wrong, and pays the price.
I kept wondering, however, why he was going through all this work. He's a ghost. He can walk through walls. In fact he does on several occasions. Deadman doesn't need a host body to get around, just to interact. If he wanted to get to the Librarian's library, he didn't really need any physical bodies to do that, and he's smart enough to know that.
Sure, there are those who can sense his spiritual presence. Some can even see him, but it's not like any of them can really hurt a ghost. If they had the power to stop him as a ghost, I don't think jumping around physical bodies is going to help much.
Ultimately, the club sequence seems like it was added in just for some good times and giggles, and while it was significantly effective in that goal, it doesn't really work logically. If you look past that though, it's a really fun scene with great pacing that makes up for a sluggish opening. Rama rambles on about time and gravity and cryptic junk and doesn't say anything to move things forward, so it's really just five wasted pages. Even Deadman says at the end of their encounter, "I understand her no more than when I started."
Jenkins really nails Deadman's personality from the smooth cockiness with the girl at the bar (while in the body of the veteran) to his brash 'act now, think later' mentality to his ability to maneuver around a situation (like the improv comedy bit). Bernard Chang's art is perfect for the book, too, although there is that weird angle when Deadman first encounters the Librarian in the Frankenstein-looking body. It looks like he's fondling himself and that's just weird.
Overall, a decent read. An improvement from the first issue, but still needs a few kinks worked out.