The Immortal Men #2 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 2, July 2018

Despite giving its readers with some modicum of tantalisingly slow exposition concerning “the last of the Immortal Men”, James Tynion IV’s script for this second instalment to his “The End Of Forever” story-arc simply doesn’t stop providing its audience with sense-shattering action-packed shenanigans until its final panel, and even then the twenty-page periodical frustratingly stops mid-way through a captivatingly concentrated chase sequence. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more intense comic book reading experience than this “New Age of Heroes” publication, as the “emerging meta-human named Caden Park” runs for his very life from slavering demonic dog-creatures, a truly terrifying cold-blooded murderer who seemingly delights in the sadistic nature of killing innocents with a blade, and a missile strike which “breaks every immortal treaty, going back six thousand years.”

Fortunately though, none of this pulse-pounding pace actually ever gets overly-tiring, even if its intensity could arguably leave its readers as physically out of breath as the plot’s “point-of-view protagonist”. The New York City-born writer appears to know precisely when to weave some of his more sedentary scenes into the publication’s furious mix, and actually uses them, such as those based within the invisible Realm of Conquest, to help clarify what the various cast member’s rationalisation is for their animated antics; “My brother is playing some unknown game. It is imperative that we beat him at it before it’s too late.”

Perhaps this book’s most surprising and enjoyable highlight however, is the emergence of Roderick Clay as an innovatively determined protector of the Park family. Having left A.R.G.U.S. to take a more “cushy private-sector gig” and “never have to deal with super-powered freaks and monsters again”, the pistol-toting private investigator not only ‘rescues’ his employer’s son from the ‘clutches’ of the Immortal Man by crashing his car into the mysterious being’s anachronistic taxi cab, but also then goes on to make a last stand against a quartet of The Kill’s ferociously-fanged Bloodless.

Just as impressive is the transfer of pencilling responsibilities between this title’s co-creator, “DC Publisher and master artist” Jim Lee and Ryan Benjamin. The “digital production” illustrator somehow manages to provide Issue Two of “The Immortal Men” with a unifyingly strong imitation of the Korean American’s widely-regarded style, and resultantly the transition from the title’s previous cliff-hanger where Caden was supposedly facing a gory death in the jaws of the Infinite Woman’s savage pets, smoothly flows into this comic’s subsequent opening, which portrays the terrified young man plunging headlong through a spookily deserted underground tube line.

Storytellers: Ryan Benjamin & James Tynion IV, and Inker: Richard Friend