The Immortal Men #6 - DC Comics

THE IMMORTAL MEN No. 6, November 2018

Supposedly planned “to go to at least twelve issues and have a mega-crossover” James Tynion IV’s narrative for this sixth (and final) instalment of “The Immortal Men” sadly must have come as a bitter disappointment to its remaining 15,341 followers in September 2018, with its numerous unanswered plot threads and somewhat rushed production values. In fact, even the comic’s ending, which finishes with a panel of Batman asking the rest of his fellow Justice Leaguers what they’re going to do about the book’s titular characters now the super-group know they’re real, arguably interrupts the action mid-way through as Caden Park leads his team-mates in a desperate jump off of Kyra Arg’s now visible flying fortress whilst hotly pursued by the Hunt and doubtless a number of heavily-fanged Bloodless…

Disappointingly however, such open-endedness absolutely plagues this twenty-page periodical’s storyline, with the Diamond Gem Award-winner even starting an entirely new, unresolved scenario at the very beginning of this publication involving the Infinite Woman calling an unprecedentedly early gathering of the “Great Council of the Bear Clan” and panicking the likes of the Forever Child into meeting “at the Old Rock in one month’s time.” Such odd penmanship from an author who apparently knew well in advance of this cancelled comic’s fate proves particularly frustrating when other sequences, such as Roderick Clay’s interrogation by Director Amanda Waller, clearly run out of space just as things get interesting; “Yeah. Okay. I’ll tell you. But you have to promise to find the boy.”

Perhaps debatably therefore this book’s sole salvation can only be found in its dynamic depiction of the Immortal Men’s desperate attempt to destroy the Siege’s cloaking tower. This pulse-pounding display of pugilism genuinely provides some ‘thrill-a-minute’ shenanigans as the deceased Communion forms a truly intriguing, almost symbiotic, partnership with the Blood-Mask’s latest wearer, and helps the American student to enthusiastically pummel a fair portion of the Kill’s surrounding dog-like creatures to pieces. Add Reload’s personal duel with his former comrade-in-arms, Walter, as well Timber’s formidable show of super-human strength into the mix, and for a while at least, many bibliophiles who perused this magazine will debatably have forgiven artist Tyler Kirkham his scratchy, potentially rushed pencilling.

Storytellers: Tyler Kirkham & James Tynion IV, and Colorist: Arif Prianto & David Baron