Comic Book / DCeased

"What happens to the world's greatest super heroes when the world ends?"

DC Comics’s equivalent to Marvel Zombies.

DCeased began as a miniseries by Tom Taylor depicting a dark Elseworld version of the DC Universe, which soon spawned many spinoffs and two sequels.

The story takes many cues from the Zombie Apocalypse genre, focusing on a corrupted, technological version of the Anti-Life Equation that, instead of brainwashing the masses, turns them into ravenous, rage-filled undead that will stop at nothing to destroy any living persons, including superhumans. Now the heroes of the DC Universe must stop the threat before all is lost, but when superheroes are among the infected, can anything stop them?

The series consists of:

• DCeased #1-6 (2019): The main series.
• DCeased: A Good Day to Die #1 (2019): A one-shot tie-in, telling the story of another group of heroes attempting to fight against the Anti-Life infection.
• DCeased: Unkillables #1-3 (2020): A spinoff focusing on Jason Todd and Deathstroke leading a group of villains on their fight to survive.
• DCeased: Hope at World's End (2020): A Digital First series focusing on heroes like Stephanie Brown, Wally West, Martian Manhunter, Jimmy Olsen and more as the world ends.
• DCeased: Dead Planet (2020): A Sequel Series taking place five years after the main comic with the heroes returning from their "Earth 2" to investigate a mysterious signal from the infected world.
• DCeased: War of the Undead Gods (2022): The second sequel series, a Grand Finale that brings the story of this world to a close.

Dark Crisis: Big Bang would establish this universe as being Earth-55.

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This series contains examples of:

DCeased

• Absurdly Sharp Claws: The Anti-Life Equation appears to partially mutate the bodies of its victims so that their fingers become sharper and more claw-like, in order to more easily pass on infection to others.
• Achilles in His Tent: Justified; once the Anti-Life Equation infection starts spreading, Batman contacts The Flash and Kid Flash and convinces them to stay in isolation instead of trying to help with the crisis. Neither speedster is happy about it, but they agree that one of them becoming a carrier for the Equation would be disastrous. They're eventually able to get around the problem by putting on contact lenses that blurs their sight enough that they should be safe from witnessing the Equation on any screens. In Issue #5, these fears come to fruition, with Barry being infected by Martian Manhunter and going on to infect many around the globe, including Superman!
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Many have described the story as DC's take on Marvel Zombies.
• Always a Bigger Fish: The virus is constantly seeking to infect new and stronger supers, culminating in Anti-life Superman. This trope works in the heroes favor later, with the arrival of an even bigger fish. Ganthet and the Green Lantern Corps.
• Anachronism Stew: The starting point of the series depicts a universe that subtly blends continuity details from both the pre- and post-Flashpoint DCU.
• Antagonist in Mourning: Poison Ivy expresses sympathy for Batman II/Damian when he tells her Batman I/Bruce died.
• Anyone Can Die: Since it's a zombie apocalypse AU, anything goes and anyone can die.
  • The first issue kills off Darkseid (along with the entirety of Apokalips), Nightwing, and Red Robin.
  • The second issue features the infections and deaths of Green Lantern and Batman.
  • In the third issue, the infected Joker is shot and killed by Harley Quinn. The Birds of Prey, Aquaman, Tempest, Clayface, Perry White, and the senior Jonathan Kent are all shown to have become infected.
  • The plot of the fourth issue revolves around the Atom becoming infected, and in turn infecting Captain Atom.
  • A Good Day to Die: Captain Boomerang, Fire, and Ice have all become infected. Mister Miracle is killed by the infected horde, Big Barda and Blue Beetle become infected and kill Mister Terrific and Waverider, respectively, and Booster Gold is wiped from existence when his future ceases to exist.
  • Things go From Bad to Worse in the fifth issue with the deaths of Martian Manhunter, Lex Luthor, The Flash, and Superman.
  • The sixth issue ends with the deaths of Cyborg, Wonder Woman, the Amazons and everyone on Earth who couldn't get in the arks.
• Arc Words:
  My mother used to tell me there was no such thing as monsters. There was nothing hiding in the dark. Nothing was going to jump out of the shadows. I wish I could have told my child the same thing. But by the time I was grown, I'd seen too many monsters. I knew they were real. There was one thing I didn't know...
• Atrocious Alias: John Constantine mocks Mister Terrific's name, pointing out that it makes him sound extremely arrogant. However, after the latter's death, Constantine speaks highly of him and states that he genuinely earned the name.
• Badass Family:
  • The Kent family. With the radio-equivalent of a Voice with an Internet Connection Lois Lane as the mother (which also counts her as a Badass Pacifist in this story, as she does none of the fighting yet is still just as badass as her husband Clark and her son Jon), the god-like Superman/Clark Kent as the father, and the demigod-like Superboy/Jon Kent as the son.
  • Black Lightning and his two daughters, Thunder and Lightning, are among the surviving heroes fighting against the infected.
  • The Bat-Family serves as the surrogate family equivalent of this. Alfred, who treats the Bat-Family as his sons, with Damian Wayne as his surrogate grandson. Batman even when he's infected is still a badass, as he makes an effort to at least hold the infection at bay long enough to contact the remnants of the Justice League. The narraration implies that Nightwing when he was still human had an off-screen moment of badass, as he managed to help defeat Darkseid despite Nightwing being a Badass Normal as opposed to Darkseid's superhuman badass.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • John Constantine is on the receiving end of this twice: the first by Mister Terrific's team of heroes, and the second by Doctor Fate and Zatanna. He's not happy about the second time, since he points out that the two sorcerers only showed up after the other heroes fell.
  • In Issue #6, a seemingly doomed final battle to protect the final fleeing survivors of humanity receives this when the entire Green Lantern Corps shows up to battle Infected!Superman.
• Bittersweet Ending: Sol/Sector 2814 is completely lost when the infected Superman absorbs the entire Sun, dooming those left on Earth, but .002% of humanity (around 140 thousand) are saved with Guy Gardner and the other Green Lanterns leading them to "Earth 2" with hopes to rebuild their world.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Cyborg kills an infected Giganta. Considering how big she is, the resulting hole is big enough for him to walk through.
• Break the Badass: Superman is really put through the wringer in the story, having friends, colleagues, and his father get infected and turn on him throughout, and it all culminates in his own death and monstrous transformation at the end of the fifth issue.
• Brown Note: The virus can be transmitted visually via the internet; millions are infected instantly while engaging in mundane electronics usage, including Green Lantern, Nightwing, Red Robin, and Joker.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Mister Terrific's group approaches John Constantine for help, but he refuses and goes to hole himself up at the Oblivion Bar. He changes his mind later, playing a pivotal role in dealing with the interfering Waverider.
• Colony Ship: Once the heroes are able to regroup at the Fortress of Solitude, Cyborg and Lex Luthor start working on plans for arks to take the surviving inhabitants of Earth to another planet.
• Covers Always Lie: Some issues feature covers with characters who either don't actually appear in the specific issue or don't appear at all, or are shown as being infected but this does not happen in-story if at all. There are even covers showing heroes fighting the infected after previous issues already had that hero turned.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Batman remains protected from the Equation in the Batcave due to both the Bat Computer's firewall systems isolating the virus and a network of analog cameras placed around Gotham City that allow him to view the outside chaos without worrying about witnessing digital signals carrying the Equation. In addition, he has an electromagnetic pulse ready to go to disable any and all electronics inside Wayne Manor. Unfortunately, these safeguards don't protect Nightwing and Red Robin from becoming infected. However, he has the foresight to provide Damian with equipment to counter and defeat the members of the Justice League.
  • Wonder Woman reveals that she and Hippolyta had been experimenting in combining magic and kryptonite in case Superman ever went rogue - or in this case, zombified.
• Cruel Twist Ending: For one character in particular: after staying behind on Earth out of guilt for unintentionally bringing the virus there in the first place, Cyborg discovers that the cure for the infection has been inside of him the whole time. Sadly, he's killed by the infected Wonder Woman before he can communicate with the evacuation arks.
• Darkest Hour: Issue #5, appropriately titled "Hope Lost," ends with Superman succumbing to the infection.
• Deadpan Snarker: Green Arrow's response to Batman's discovery that the Anti-Life Equation is what triggers the infection.
  Green Arrow: I always suspected we'd have to destroy the Internet to save the world. I just didn't know it would be like this.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: John Constantine pulls this off twice: when Waverider prevents Mister Terrific's team from going back in time, Constantine arrives and knocks him out. Later, Constantine uses a spell to keep Waverider from disappearing into the time stream, giving an infected Blue Beetle the chance to kill him.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • The narration notes that Captain Atom was supposed to be impervious, so he was thought to be safe from the risk of infection. Unfortunately, he was in the same room as The Atom when the latter became infected; the Atom was easily able to enter the Captain's body at the microscopic level to infect the atoms in his still-flesh heart.
  • John Constantine almost literally invokes this: when arriving to confront an interfering Waverider, Constantine uses his magic to prevent the time traveler from seeing Constantine's own future. As a result, Constantine is able to knock out Waverider easily with some misdirection and a headbutt.
• Dramatic Irony: Constantine didn't want anything to do with Mister Terrific's team when they first approached him for help. After he comes back later, he ends up being the only one who survives.
• Driven to Suicide: Darkseid is corrupted by the Equation and kills himself by driving into the core of Apokolips and destroys his entire planet, along with himself.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In Issue #6, when the decision is made to evacuate what's left of humanity away from Sol, Guy Gardner jokes that this might look a little bad on the Corps, losing a sector and all. Dinah chews him out over it, but he justifies this by stating that he's scared right now and being his normal asshole self is the only way he can cope.
• Episode of the Dead: This Elseworld mini-series is considerated as one, and the second one in DC after Blackest Night event for The DCU.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • After helping Darkseid create the virus, Desaad of all people is horrified by the realization of what he's helped unleash on Apokolips. Unfortunately, his attempts to get rid of the virus by chucking Cyborg through a boom tube only serves to hasten the virus's spread on Earth, while doing nothing to impede a newly-infected Darkseid's suicide run on the core of Apokolips.
  • Lex Luthor declares a truce with Superman after the destruction of Metropolis, as he's genuinely heartbroken over the loss of their home city.
• Everyone Has Standards: Harley Quinn isn't a saint, but she sincerely tried to convince Poison Ivy to use her new Gotham Jungle as a refuge for human survivors of the crisis, and is very happy when she eventually agrees.
• Eye Scream: Green Arrow kills Aquaman with an arrow through the eye.
• Facial Horror: One of the defining characteristics of the infected. Once the Anti-Life Equation enters someone's mind, the victim will desperately claw at their own heads to try to get it out before fully succumbing. As such, all of the infected have their heads scarred with deep, bloody claw marks.
• Fighting Your Friend:
  • Black Canary and Green Arrow are nearly overwhelmed by an infected Green Lantern. Black Canary is ultimately forced to kill him with a Canary Cry to save both of their lives.
  • In A Good Day to Die, Big Barda, Mister Miracle, Booster Gold, and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) are forced to fight their old teammates Fire and Ice, both of whom have become infected.
  • The surviving heroes are eventually forced to fight an infected Martian Manhunter. Shortly afterwards, Superman is forced to put down Flash, who Manhunter infected during his attack on the Fortress of Solitude.
  • The infected Aquaman is ultimately killed by Green Arrow. Not long after, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, and Cyborg try to defeat the infected Superman.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • In A Good Day to Die, John Constantine realizes that Chas has been infected when he sees Chas's smartphone lying in the front seat of his cab, glowing with the red light of the infection. Chas attacks him seconds later.
  • When Harley goes to break up with Joker, he's hunched over a wall of monitors in his lair. At the end of Harley's speech, a close-up of his face reveals that he's been infected.
  • As Aquaman investigates a drifting freighter, a broken smartphone on the floor tips off what he's going to find happened to the crew.
• Foreshadowing: In A Good Day to Die, Waverider apparently sees Superman discovering the Flash in hiding as the key event that "locks" the future into place. Eventually, the Flash becoming infected and Superman becoming infected upon stopping him leads into the Darkest Hour.
• From Bad to Worse: The entire series, as the infection spreads and heroes die. Things get even worse in Issue #4 when Captain Atom becomes infected. His meltdown ends up devastating a massive chunk of the American east coast. Issue #5, appropriately titled "Hope Lost," ends with the infection of Superman.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Captain Atom is considered to be this to the United States government. As the Equation spreads, Amanda Waller sends him out to destroy as many of the infected as he can with his atomic powers. When he detonates after becoming infected, the destruction is incomprehensible: the unleashed energy destroys Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and even reaches Metropolis.
  • Mister Terrific considers his third and final plan to be this: using a time machine to alter history in order to save the world.
  • The crisis eventually gets so bad that Wonder Woman convinces Hippolyta and the other Amazons to allow survivors from Man's World to come to Themyscira. Lex Luthor later goes as far as to conclude that humanity has to leave Earth altogether to survive.
• Green Thumb: Poison Ivy, as usual. She eventually turns all of Gotham City into a forested haven from the infected.
• Half the Man He Used to Be:
  • An infected Big Barda tears Mister Terrific in half from the waist.
  • This is how an infected Martian Manhunter kills Lex Luthor. With Eye Beams.
• Heartbroken Badass: All over the place, due to the nature of the story. Alfred is deeply saddened by the deaths of Batman, Nightwing, and Red Robin, with Robin joining him not long after. Superman is also hit hard after seeing an infected Jonathan Kent.
• Heroic BSoD: The reveal that Cyborg had the cure all along causes him to carelessly release the Lasso and leave his back turned on the infected Wonder Woman, giving her an opening to tear off his head.
• Heroic Suicide: When he becomes infected, Superman tries to fly deep into space and kill himself with oxygen deprivation before he fully succumbs. He fails.
• Hidden Depths: When Lex Luthor boasts about being the smartest human on Earth, he does a double-take and asks if Batman is still alive before clarifying his statement, all but confirming that he ackowledged Batman as the smarter of the two of them.
• Hive Mind: Implied of the victims of the Anti-Life Equation. Confirmed in Issue #6, when Infected!Wonder Woman speaks via the Lasso of Truth and states that "We have a voice."
• Hold the Line:
  • Mister Miracle and Big Barda desperately try to keep the infected outside while the rest of their group attempts to use Booster Gold's time machine. Unfortunately, they're overwhelmed, and an infected Big Barda breaks into the building, lets the rest of the horde in, and personally kills Mister Terrific.
  • In Issue #6, the Amazons sacrifice themselves to hold off the infected Atlanteans long enough for the second ark to get away from Themyscira and into space.
  • Also in Issue #6, Jon heads into space to battle his zombified father and buy time for the ark to escape, fully expecting to die in the process. The fighting is intense, but it only lasts a minute after Superman manages to break Jon's arm. Luckily, that minute bought enough time for the Green Lantern Corp to arrive.
• Hope Spot:
  • An In-Universe one. When the Batwing arrives and aids the surviving League members in fighting an infected Giganta, Robin clearly hopes that it means Batman is still alive. Instead, Alfred comes out of the cockpit and sadly confirms the death.
  • In A Good Day to Die, Mister Terrific's final plan involves using Booster Gold's time machine to go back in time and prevent the entire Anti-Life infection from coming to be. After knocking out the interfering Waverider, it looks like the heroes are going to be able to successfully use the time machine... then Booster Gold is wiped from existence as his future ceases to be, which is immediately followed by the infected breaking in.
  • Issue #5: After slowing the spread of the infection considerably by destroying the internet and securing safe havens across the globe for the survivors, the remaining heroes' efforts are undone when Martian Manhunter infects Flash, who then proceeds to kill/infect thousands more within seconds. Superman manages to destroy him, but in the process becomes infected as well and turns while trying to flee Earth.
• Horrible Camping Trip: With extra 'horror'. When the plague strikes, Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) and Dinah Crane (Black Canary) are on a camping trip outside Metropolis. After lamenting that he hates camping, Green Lantern retires to his tent to use his phone, which causes him to see the Equation and allows it to infect him. This results in him attacking his companions, leading to his death at the hands (or rather, mouth) of Black Canary.
• I Choose to Stay:
  • Both Harley and Ivy choose not to board the arks leaving Earth. Ivy refuses to leave the Green, and Harley refuses to leave Ivy.
  • Cyborg also chooses to remain behind out of guilt for unintentionally bringing the virus to Earth.
• In-Universe Catharsis: Lampshaded by Harley Quinn when she kills an infected Joker with a shotgun blast to the stomach. After a moment of shock, she's nothing but jubilant that he's finally gone.
  Harley: Oh my god... that was the most cathartic thing ever!
• It Can Think: Played with.
  • The superhuman infected are outwardly as stupid as conventional zombies, but are nonetheless capable of using their powers and technologies effectively.
    • An infected Green Lantern is able to use his ring, for example, though not with any subtlety. And Aquaman can still control sea creatures, but only seems to use the most vicious types.
    • Even zombified Badass Normals can still use some of their skills. For example, the infected Nightwing and Red Robin can still use their agility to out-maneuver Batman, who is quite agile himself, and the zombified Birds of Prey can still use enough agility to swoop down from Gotham buildings like they used to do when they were alive.
  • They're also capable of coming up with some pretty elaborate strategies to attack pockets of resistance. The Atom is able to use his belt to find a way past Captain Atom's defenses, an infected Martian Manhunter crosses the planet while invisible to make a surgical strike against Lex Luthor and the Flash, and Aquaman bypasses Mera's hydrokinetic defense of Atlantis by filling the surrounding water with infected blood.
  • Furthermore, the Equation uses Captain Atom to blow up three cities using his radiation powers, and then later sends Flash to infect any survivors he finds using his super-speed.
  • After an infected Superman is surrounded by the Green Lantern Corps, he retreats into the Sun to drain it and kill the remaining humans on Earth.
  • Issue #6 reveals that the anti-living are intelligent enough to speak when an undead Wonder Woman is interrogated by Cyborg with the Lasso of Truth.
• Joker Immunity: Averted; the Trope Namer is killed by Harley after he becomes infected.
• Just in Time: Superman arrives just in time to destroy the smart phone and television in the Kent family apartment, saving Lois, Jon, and Damian from becoming infected. Sadly subverted when he's too late getting to Smallville to save his own father.
• Karmic Death:
  • Darkseid sought the Anti-Life Equation to subjugate the universe under his control. The corrupted variant he created using Cyborg and the Black Racer ends up subjugating him, which leads to his death and Apokolips's
  • Waverider coldly deletes Booster Gold from the timeline and condemns the past to its fate. To top it all off, he tells Constantine that it’s unlikely they will meet again. John decides to repay this by freezing Waverider and have him be killed by an infected Blue Beetle.
• Kill It with Fire: How Firestorm kills an infected Martian Manhunter.
• Know When to Fold Them: In Issue #6, the infected Superman realizes he can't fight the entire Green Lantern Corps and thus dives into the heart of the sun to absorb it in a last-ditch effort to spread as much death as possible. In turn, Ganthet realizes there's no way they can stop him and opts to get humanity to safety as Superman's actions would ultimately kill all life in Earth's solar system and put the virus to sleep.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Aquaman leads an attack on Themyscira riding on a giant Kraken.
• Kryptonite Factor: Issue #6 opens with Wonder Woman forging Kryptonite into a magic sword to kill an infected Superman.
• Legacy Character:
  • Black Canary inherits Hal Jordan's ring after being forced to kill him.
  • After his father's death, Damian Wayne becomes the new Batman.
  • Jonathan takes his father's mantle before being forced to stop him from attacking the arks.
  • Wallace West has updated his costume in the final issue and is implied to taken on the mantle of the new Flash.
  • Only Cassie Sandsmark (Wonder Girl) is left to carry the legacy of Diana and the Amazons.
• Like a Son to Me: It's clear that Alfred feels this way about the entire Bat Family. He explicitly calls Batman his son before killing him once he's taken over by the infection. Before leaving Wayne Manor, he refers to Batman, Nightwing, and Red Robin as "[his] boys."
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Played for Black Comedy: Green Arrow is annoyed to discover that Batman didn't bother coming up with a plan for taking him down like he did with the rest of the League members.
• Narrator All Along: Issue #5 reveals that the narrator of the series is Lois Lane.
• New Media Are Evil: The virus is widespread through the use of the internet and smartphones, with 600 million people being affected almost instantly. The surviving Justice League members take back the Daily Planet building since Lois Lane can use the analog broadcasting systems kept there to try and contact other survivors, and Issue #5 opens with them taking down the Internet and other digital communications entirely. Lois mentions that her parents are safe since her father, General Sam Lane, never trusted smart phones, and thus was able to avoid infection long enough to get himself and his wife to a secure bunker. Lampshaded by Green Arrow, who always felt that one day, destroying the internet would be key to saving the Earth.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The heroes added additional land mass to Themyscira to provide refuge for survivors. Unfortunately, doing so eventually allows the infected Atlanteans to detect it.
  • According to the narrator Superman's attempted Heroic Sacrifice after he became infected failed because he stopped to say good bye to his family. As a result of him succumbing to the infection the sun was destroyed.
• Our Zombies Are Different:
  • After studying the Equation and how it infects people, Batman concludes that the infected are not technically zombies. Green Arrow immediately points out that the distinction feels pedantic.
  • Usually, instead of feeding on the non-infected, they seek to spread "anti-life" as much as possible, either by killing or infecting anyone they can get their hands on. This is especially noticeable with Darkseid and Captain Atom; rather than trying to eat people, they both perform incredibly damaging suicide attacks to kill as many people as possible upon becoming infected.
  • Issue #4 reveals that the zombies are in fact undead.
  • In some cases the infected do in fact eat their prey, such as an infected Clayface trying to pull people into his mouth to eat them and some Gotham citizen trying to fight off the zombies with his shotgun, only to get over-whelmed and then eaten alive off-panel.
  • To make matters worse then they already were, any infected hero or villain retains their skills or power-sets.
  • Interestingly, as proven by Harley blowing out Joker’s guts with a shotgun, the infected don’t need headshots to be killed despite being undead.
• Parental Hypocrisy: Played for Laughs when Lois Lane decks Lex Luthor after he makes a cruel joke and realizes that Jon saw the whole thing.
  Lois: Um... violence is never the answer, Jon.
  Jon: It looked like a pretty good answer just then.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Harley Quinn gets a good one right before killing the Joker.
  Harley: Mistah J... you were never any good for me.
• Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye:
  • After he becomes infected, Superman gives his family a tearful goodbye before he flies into space to try and kill himself before the infection takes hold.
  • Hippolyta requests that Wonder Girl pass her tiara and last words to Diana as the Amazons sacrifice themselves to hold back the infected Atlanteans from the ark. Subverted when Diana becomes an infected.
  • Jon Kent hugs Damian before leaving the ark to face his infected father, a fight he doesn't expect to survive. Subverted when he survives thanks to the arrival of the Green Lantern Corps.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A Good Day to Die focuses on a group of heroes consisting of Mr. Terrific, Big Barda, Mister Miracle, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and John Constantine. All but Constantine end up killed or infected.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: Everyone on Earth is either dead or doomed, and the entirety of the surviving population couldn't be evacuated, but the survivors eventually resettle on a new planet and the virus enters a sleeping phase after Superman drains the sun.
• Ret-Gone: Booster Gold fades from existence as the Anti-Life crisis wipes his future away.
• Sapient All Along: Cyborg manages to compel the infected Wonder Woman to answers his questions via the Lasso of Truth, showing that the virus itself has an intelligence, albeit an incredibly omnicidal one.
• Self-Harm: The first thing an Zombie Infectee does once the infection takes hold is claw at their faces, the big, bloody gashes on their face an easy indicator for them.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Cyborg in the final issue decides to stay behind on Earth to seek answers from the now infected-Wonder Woman, partly due to his guilt from being the one to spread the virus in the first place. He ends up learning that he is also the source of the potential cure, but is quickly beheaded by Wonder Woman before he could act on it.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Although overall there is a "Ray of Hope" Ending as discussed above, the story ends this way for Cyborg. After Wonder Woman is infected, he uses the Lasso of Truth to speak to the Anti-Life Equation through her to find out whether there's a cure. Infected!Wonder Woman informs him that the virus is a binary construct, meaning that Cyborg himself contains the cure — and could have used it at any time had he known or tried, reversing every infection and making all the actual deaths throughout the series pointless. When Cyborg, horrified, tries to inform the fleeing Arks of this, Infected!Wonder Woman takes the opportunity to kill him.
• Shout-Out: Every issue of the series (including the additional one-shot A Good Day to Die) has a variant cover that pays homage to the poster for a well-known horror film:
  • Issue #1: It (2017)
  • Issue #2: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
  • Issue #3: The Nun
  • Issue #4: Final Destination
  • Issue #5: The Curse of La Llorona
  • Issue #6: Critters
  • A Good Day to Die #1: The Conjuring
  • Other variant covers do a similar thing to Marvel Zombies by featuring a "zombified" version of an iconic DC cover, including Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, The Killing Joke, The Death of Superman and The Flash #123.
  • The Flash discusses how a speedster like him becoming infected would be disastrous, since they'd spread the infection globally at super speed. This is precisely what happened when Quicksilver became infected in the world of the original Marvel Zombies series. It ends up happening here, too.
  • In Issue #1, Lois Lane recalls that that the outbreak "started with something like thunder-" the sound of Superman breaking Darkseid's jaw. This is a nod to the Arc Words used in the Marvel Zombies series to describe the outbreak- "It started with a flash in the sky, and a ripple through the clouds."
• Simultaneous Arcs: A Good Day to Die is a side-story that takes place during the main series. Near the end of the one-shot, Waverider uses his time powers to "see" that Superman has just found the Flash in Keystone City, an event that takes place early in Issue #4 of the main series.
• So Proud of You:
  • Batman starts to tell Damian this before he fully succumbs to the Anti-Life infection. When he joins up with the other heroes later, Alfred makes clear that this is what Bruce felt about Damian, and that the deceased hero wishes he had told him that more often.
  • After Superman becomes infected, he tells his son Jonathan how proud he is of him before trying to kill himself in space.
• Sole Survivor:
  • John Constantine is the only member of Mister Terrific's team of heroes to survive being killed or infected.
  • Mera seems to be the only Atlantean to avoid infection and boards an ark.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Marvel Zombies and Injustice: Gods Among Us and others.
  • Just like Marvel Zombies, it is an Expendable Alternate Universe story of superheroes dealing with a Zombie Apocalypse. But instead of being a Black Comedy where zombifications make people amoral cannibals but let them retain their intelligence like Marvel Zombies, it plays off more like a traditional zombie story, with mindless hordes of undead and things being played for drama, not laughs.
  • When compared to Injustice it has a tendency to give heroic roles to characters who are evil or dead in that story, like Superman or Damian Wayne, while quickly killing off those who were crucial in the Injustice storyline including Joker, Catwoman and even Batman himself.
  • The arks with the survivors arrive at a new planet they name "Earth 2". The Earth 2 comics had the deaths of the DC Trinity and the death of planet Earth against Apokolips, and survivors evacuated on ships to settle on a new Earth, but played more as heroic Space Opera adventure. Earth 2 shared the same writer of DCeased and Injustice.
  • The infected Superman enters the sun to destroy it and Earth with it, not to restore the sun and save Earth; plus, the Unstoppable-Force Immovable-Object quote.
  • It's also something of an antithesis to Final Crisis. Both stories involve Darkseid discovering the Anti-Life Equation and unleashing it on Earth through technology, infecting both ordinary humans and superhumans alike. But where Final Crisis was ultimately an optimistic story about hope triumphing over despair and ended with the possessed being cured and Earth restored, DCeased is a much bleaker work which ends with Earth's inevitable destruction and many beloved characters irreversibly dead or corrupted (although it's not without a "Ray of Hope" Ending either).
• Staking the Loved One: Once Batman becomes infected, he has Alfred stand by with his shotgun to put him down once he succumbs. Alfred is ultimately forced to do so.
• Star Killing: Rather than trying to fight the entire Green Lantern Corps, the infected Superman chooses to fly into the sun and starts to absorb its energy. Ganthet notes that this will cause the entire solar system to go cold.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: While most anti-living do strive to spread the infection, their true goal is to spread anti-life (i.e. death). Anti-living with the means to do so are shown to prioritize simply killing as many people as they possibly can, as quickly as they can, even if it means destroying themselves in the act. This is seen when Darkseid detonates Apokalyps' core, Captain Atom unleashes a Superpower Meltdown that obliterates several major cities, and Superman destroys the sun.
• Super-Power Meltdown: An infected Captain Atom starts to go critical above Washington, D.C. Superman and Wonder Woman desperately try to fly him up into space before he goes off, but they're too late; Washington, Baltimore, and Metropolis are all destroyed in the ensuing explosion.
• Take a Third Option: The Anti-Life Equation takes this approach in the final climax when Infected!Superman faces off against the entire Green Lantern Corps. The Equation is compelled to spread death and destruction, but is intelligent enough to realise that even Infected!Superman cannot defeat them all together — and so instead of fighting them, he instead flies into Earth's sun and begins to drain it, thus ensuring that it will destroy the solar system much sooner and eventually kill off everyone remaining there.
• Take That!: A very subtle one; Issue #6 specifically has "432 Park Ave, New York City" as the ground zero where Infected!Superman starts slaughtering New York. That address is literally on the same block where Marvel Comics had their offices in the 1970s.
• Take Up My Sword:
  • After Black Canary is forced to kill an infected Green Lantern to save herself and Green Arrow, his power ring chooses her to be its new wielder. Dinah isn't happy about this, but is urged by Superman to keep the ring to help with the impending crisis.
  • Batman gives Alfred a suitcase to deliver to Robin before he succumbs to the Equation. When Damian opens it, it's revealed to contain a Batman costume and various pieces of equipment, making it clear that Bruce wanted his son to take up his mantle.
  • In Issue #3, the aforementioned Gotham citizen who got eaten alive drops his shotgun, allowing Harley to pick it up and use it on zombified Joker and to fend off against the zombified Birds of Prey.
  • In issue #6 Wonder Woman gives the kryptonite sword to Dinah after she's mortally wounded by Superman.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Subverted in Issue #5 when the narrator suggests that Superman's Heroic Sacrifice might have succeeded if he hadn’t taken the time to say goodbye to his family.
• Talking to the Dead: Before he leaves the Bat Cave, Alfred sadly apologizes to the corpses of Batman, Nightwing, and Red Robin for not being able to save them.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Before they learn about the Equation spreading, Harley Quinn is on her way to break up with the Joker while accompanied by Poison Ivy. Ivy declines to enter the Joker's hideout with Harley, reassuring her that she's more than strong enough to cut ties with him once and for all. Despite being caught off-guard by an infected Joker, Harley ultimately succeeds in killing him.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Despite the carnage taking place around him, Superman still tries to adhere to this, reasoning that the Anti-Life infection could potentially be cured. When clearing the Daily Planet building of the the infected, he's only seen moving them out to the street before blocking the entrance. He only traps an infected Jonathan Kent in the basement instead of hurting him, and he stops Wonder Woman from delivering a fatal blow to an infected Giganta. He's eventually forced to kill an infected Flash to keep the infection from spreading further, but only after Cyborg promises him that the Flash is well and truly dead.
  • Batman's plan for neutralizing Superman involved using kryptonite to synthesize gas that would slow him down. Wonder Woman explicitly notes that it (along with all of Batman's methods) wasn't intended to be lethal.
• Threatening Shark: An infected Aquaman attacks Atlantis with a group of these, which helps to spread infected blood throughout the ocean.
• Time Police: When Mister Terrific's group of heroes try to use a time machine to go back in time and change history, they're prevented from doing so by the appearance of Waverider, who forbids making changes to the timeline.
• Too Dumb to Live: Cyborg turns his back on zombie Wonder Woman without neutralizing her or finishing her off, resulting in his death and the virus becoming unstoppable.
• Uncertain Doom: In the final issue Harley and Ivy decide not to board the Ark and remain on Earth. While Ivy had managed to create a stronghold with her green, the fact that the Infected Superman ends up absorbing and destroying the sun means they likely won't be surviving much longer.
• Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: Directly referenced in the narration when Superman flies to confront an infected Flash and meets the speedster head on, letting him smash to pieces against his invulnerable body. Unfortunately, the impact is strong enough to embed some of the Flash's fingers in Superman's stomach, infecting him.
  Narrator: That day, we found out what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object......they merge.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Darkseid successfully extracted the missing half of the Anti-Life Equation from Cyborg's internal Mother Box and combined it with his own, but using the Black Racer's essence in the process caused the Equation to become corrupt and change into The Plague that proceeds to threaten Earth. Darkseid himself promptly becomes the first to be infected, leading to him unintentionally destroying all of Apokalips.
• Useless Superpowers: While John Constantine manages to vaporize an infected Chas, Mister Terrific, Mister Miracle and Big Barda ask him if he has any mystical solutions in lieu of any scientific ones. Constantine makes a point that magic has a tendency to fail or backfire when you need it most, implying either he has no solutions or no solution would work if he tried it.
• The Worf Effect: The first to fall to the virus? None other than Darkseid himself.
• Wham Line: From Issue #6: "The cure is in you."
• Wolverine Publicity: Batman is featured prominently on the covers of the first three issues of the series, leaving the impression that he was going to be the main character of the event. He's actually one of the first heroes to fall.
• X-Ray Vision: Superman reveals that he's kept his eyes set on X-Ray Vision since learning how the Equation spreads. If he can't see what's on digital screens, the Equation can't infect him visually like it has so many others.
• Zerg Rush: Since the infected don't demonstrate a high intellect, this is their primary tactic. Considering how many there are, it's usually enough. This is how Aquaman is infected.
• Zombie Apocalypse: If the title was not enough of an indication, the infected have plenty of similarities to traditional and non-traditional zombies, and they overwhelm the world.

DCeased: The Unkillables

• Actually Pretty Funny: Jason is visibly annoyed when Gordon refers to him as "Robin" when introducing him to a bunch of kids, but Cassandra can't help but smirk.
• And Show It to You: A rare self-inflicted version. Lady Shiva rips out her own heart to keep herself from becoming infected.
• Anyone Can Die: Follows the main book's footsteps as Bane, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Vandal Savage, and Deadshot all die in Issue #2. Billy Batson is revealed to be one of the infected people imprisoned inside the locked room. Followed by the rest of the villains in the final issue, leaving Jason, Rose, Gordon, Cassandra and the kids as survivors.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People:
  • The surviving villains (Deathstroke, Ravager, Lady Shiva, Cheetah, The Creeper, Bane, Deadshot, and Solomon Grundy) went from having an uneasy truce with the heroes to willing to bond and teach kids how to survive and fight.
  • Most notably Deathstroke and Lady Shiva were able to finally make peace with their respective daughters before their dying moments.
• Bash Brothers: Creeper and Solomon Grundy get along the best of all the villains assembled. They even hold arms right before they go and face the Infected Wonder Woman despite knowing it's suicidal.
• Big Damn Heroes: Turns out Mary Marvel is one of the kids in the orphanage, and she was able to fight off Wonder Woman long enough to throw her off and lift the bus to Ivy's garden.
• Bittersweet Ending: Jason, Rose, Gordon, Cassandra, and most of the kids were able to make it to Ivy's garden. But all of the villains sacrificed their lives in order to make it to the garden. If it weren't for Mary Marvel's bravery, they would have all died in Wonder Woman's hands.
• The Bus Came Back: Despite being the only Mirror Master for 22 years, this is the first time Evan McCulloch has appeared in a comic since 2011.
• Call-Back: To the first series:
  • Jason Todd finds the bodies of Batman, Nightwing, and Red Robin left in the Batcave by Alfred.
  • He later finds the Joker's corpse where Harley Quinn killed him.
  • Todd, Cassandra Cain, and James Gordon find the corpses of Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), Catwoman, Huntress, and Batwoman where Poison Ivy left them.
  • The group picks up Lois Lane's radio broadcast calling survivors to the sanctuaries and arks.
  • The arks are shown leaving.
  • Zombie Wonder Woman.
  • Turns out all the magic users from the A Good Day to Die one-shot, including John Constantine who was the Sole Survivor of his group, regrouped to join Ivy's sanctuary.
• Chekhov's Gunman: It turns out the narrator of the story is one of the orphaned children taken in by group. Their identity is revealed to be Mary Marvel, who manages to fight off the Zombiefied Wonder Woman in the final issue.
• Chekhov's Skill: All the lessons from Cassandra and Lady Shiva became helpful when Mary Marvel used it to defend and throw Wonder Woman away, giving her enough time to lift the bus to safety.
• Child Soldiers: Discussed. Deathstroke is more than willing to train the kids to be this. While the others argue against this, he counters that this is the only way to raise their chances of living and not to be a burden.
• Deserted Island: Vandal Savage amasses a group of villains in an undiscovered island and invites Deathstroke and Rose to join them there. The undead Wonder Woman eventually finds the lair and destroys it.
• Due to the Dead:
  • When Jason finds Bruce, Tim, and Dick's bodies, he takes the time to bury them in the cave and give at least Bruce a fitting grave marker.
  • Statues dedicated to the fallen villains are shown in the last chapter.
• Family of Choice: Much to their own surprise, the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that the story focuses managed to develop a familial bond with one-another and the children they end up protecting.
• Foreshadowing: When Jason, Cassandra, and Gordon first arrive at the orphanage, the kids there explain that a superheroine appeared, barricaded the infected inside of a room where they couldn't escape, and brought the kids supplies before vanishing, and that they don't know what happened to her. It's eventually revealed that she never left; one of the kids, Mary, is actually Mary Marvel.
  • The above is also foreshadowed when Jason recognizes one of the imprisoned infected is Billy Batson.
  • Easy to miss amidst everything else, Mary is wearing the same red shirt like Billy's.
• Friend to All Children: The villains gradually develop bonds with the kids as they teach them how to survive. Deadshot and Cheetah are more obvious with this. Deadshot got killed while saving a kid from Mirror Master.
• From Bad to Worse: An undead Mirror Master was able to infiltrate the orphanage, kill Deadshot and turn Bane into an undead. Bane runs through the walls and was able to create a hole for the undead outside to enter, creating a hopeless situation to the survivors.
• Half the Man He Used to Be:
  • Vandal Savage gets torn apart by an undead Wonder Woman.
  • The undead Wonder Woman did this to The Creeper, Solomon Grundy, and Deathstroke. She particularly bashed herself into Deathstroke so he won't be able to regenerate.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Oh boy, Shiva risked her life to save Cassandra and got infected, making her tear out her heart. Cheetah, The Creeper, Solomon Grundy and Deathstroke did their best to slow down the undead Wonder Woman and the horde to let the others escape.
• Honorary True Companion: Jason is able to track down Cassandra and later Jim Gordon in the Batmobile due to the fact that the radar is synced to all of the Bat Family's pulses. While Jim considers this to be an invasion of privacy, Jason states that this was Bruce's way of saying he considers Jim one of the family.
• I Choose to Stay: Cassandra, Jason and Gordon receive Lois' warning about the impending evacuation on the Arks; while the former two consider the option, Gordon points out that the three of them might make it to Gotham, but they'd never make it with all the kids in tow.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Subverted and Played for Laughs; Deathstroke warns Jason about ever hurting Rose... but it's because Rose can see the future, and he warns that if she finds out Jason is going to hurt her, she'll kill him.
• The Immune: Turns out anyone with a Healing Factor will be able to survive the corruption and can return to normal after a while, as Deathstroke found out a day after his infection.
• In the Back: How Mirror Master and Bane met their end.
• It Can Think: Continues from the previous series.
  • Just like she did to Cyborg, anyone immune to the infection (Creeper, Grundy, Deathstroke) Zombie Wonder Woman just rips apart. Killing Vandal Savage and Cheetah instead of infecting them implies that Undead Diana still has some of her memories and killed them in hatred.
  • Undead Mirror Master uses hit-and-run attacks.
  • After becoming corrupted, instead of immediately attacking the others, Bane breaks open the barriers first to let the undead hordes enter.
• Last Disrespects: Jason Todd ties the Joker's dead body to the front of the Batmobile before he, Cassandra, and Gordon leave Gotham. Gordon points out how disturbing this action is, but Jason doesn't care.
• Legacy Character: We see that Cassandra Cain became Batgirl after Barbara Gordon, complete with her original all-black attire with full face cowl.
• Lower-Deck Episode: The story follows characters who weren't shown in the main books struggling to survive while discovering the fallout of the heroes' actions in the main books.
• Mama Bear: Cheetah especially becomes this for one girl named Matilda.
• Mercy Kill: When Harvey Bullock becomes infected, he begs Gordon to kill him before he fully turns. Cassandra promptly breaks his neck. Also done to the trapped infected in the orphanage.
• Metaphorgotten: Played for Laughs; Vandal Savage uses the survival of a thought-to-be-extinct species of tree lobster as a metaphor for himself and his group of survivors. The Creeper immediately starts treating "The Tree Lobsters" as a sort of team name, complete with t-shirts, pendants, baseball caps, and a theme song.
• Mistaken for Undead:
  • Played for Black Comedy when Rose Wilson thinks her father has turned and stabs him in the shoulder:
  Slade: Ow. @#$%!!!
  Rose: I don't think the undead say "ow." Or "@#$%."
  Slade: No. Could you take the sword out of me, please?
  • Played straight when the first child sees Grundy and understandably mistakes him for an infected undead.
• Narrator All Along: Issue 3 reveals that the narrator for the story was Mary Marvel, who hid herself in fear of letting the zombies take hold of the Power of Shazam after Billy Batson fell.
• Not Helping Your Case: Played for Black Comedy when Jason tells a group of children that he, Gordon, and Cassandra are the good guys; Gordon quietly tells him that he may want to remove the corpse of the psychotic clown from the hood of their car.
• Oh, Crap!: Vandal Savage just before getting cleaved in half by an Undead Wonder Woman
• Outliving One's Offspring: Commissioner Gordon is heartbroken when he confirms the infection and death of Barbara (killed by Poison Ivy in the main series). Deathstroke was able to get through Jim by referencing his kids' deaths too. Thanks to this, they risked their lives many times in order to save the kids in the last issue.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You:
  • Jason is not happy to discover that someone else killed the Joker, angrily stating that he should have been the one to do so.
  • Cheetah wants to be the one to kill the Undead Wonder Woman but is ordered to evacuate with the others. She tried again after they have to escape but she was easily killed by the latter.
• Portal Cut: Deadshot's legs were cut when the mirror he was dragged into was broken by Gordon.
• Quizzical Tilt: Deathstroke's reaction at seeing a man run away from his target site with a pair of clearly broken legs.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The main group presented here is an assortment of a former Police Commissioner, a hero, a couple of anti heroes, and some assassins and villains all having to take care of a large group of orphans. And yet they're able to function rather well as a unit.
• Required Secondary Power: Darkly averted in the final issue while Deathstroke and Creeper's healing factors makes them immune to the Anti-Life Equation. With that said, their healing factors does not make them immortal, meaning they just as susceptible to any limb or organ loss. They both meet their ends to rampaging Zombie Wonder Woman.
• Shipper on Deck: Deathstroke offhandedly encourages Rose and Jason to hook up, given that there's so little good left in the world. He even warns Jason not to hurt her in anyway just before he got taken out by Wonder Woman.
• Shout-Out: The variant posters released for Unkillables are shout outs to movie posters. For example, the cover for Red Hood is a pretty clear homage to the poster for the 1987 movie Full Metal Jacket.
• Sinister Surveillance: Downplayed; Gordon isn't happy to discover that Batman was monitoring his location at all times. Jason acknowledges that it was a violation of Gordon's trust and a Jerkass thing for Batman to do, but insists that Bruce did so because he saw Gordon as family.
• Take That!: The internet and social media are convenient tools used by Neo-Nazis, and so they're infected and slaughtered just the same as everyone else.
• Tempting Fate: Vandal Savage explains to Lady Shiva that Mirror Master is the key player and an asset in order to escape the virus. He's one of the first ones to go.
• Took a Level in Badass: Mary Marvel, thanks to Cassandra Cain and Lady Shiva's training, is able to beat an Undead Wonder Woman
• Willfully Weak: One of the reasons why Cheetah has been able to fight Wonder Woman for so long is because Diana always held herself back. When Cheetah goes to fight an Undead Wonder Woman with the help of Creeper and Solomon Grundy, they are quickly dispatched. Mary Marvel is able to fight her off, but she acknowledges that, without the training she received from Cassandra and Lady Shiva, even the powers of Shazam would have hardly mattered against Diana.

DCeased: Hope at World's End

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Talia's sword has no problem slicing cleanly through people, bone, guts, and all.
• All-Loving Hero: Superman and his son. Both try to help people, and while naïve in some aspects, many see them as a sign of hope and listen to them because of who they are and their accomplishments.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • When it appears Wonder Woman will fall to Black Adam, her friends come to aid her as she brought back-up for that moment.
  • When Detective Chimp, Ace, and the girl they're protecting look like zombie chow, Krypto drops in from the sky to Heat Vision away the horde and escort them to safety of Ivy's garden.
• Butt-Monkey: Kite Man. He becomes infected and tries to attack the Invisible Jet...only to kill himself by slamming into it like a bug on a windshield, with Damian, Jon and Cassie laughing about it. Even in death he's a joke.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: A random survivor in #10 refuses to get rid of his cellphone because he’s unable to believe the virus spreads through technology despite the literal mountain of evidence, his surroundings, and the opinions of experts to the point he’s willing to shoot someone trying to take it away from him. This calls to mind several violent people during COVID-19 Pandemic who attacked others for telling them to wear a mask and people who denied there was even a pandemic to begin with.
• Doomed by Canon: Stephanie joining up with Damian, Jon and Cassie and taking up the mantle of Robin is a bit undercut by the fact that this series is an Interquel and the reader already knows that she was not among the population that makes it off planet at the end of the original series. This comes to a head in Issue #12 where Stephanie does indeed die, though she does not get infected. This is ultimately lightly Subverted as well though because Talia makes a promise to Damian that she will take Stephanie and resurrect her using the Lazarus pit.
• Driven by Envy: Jimmy calls out Luthor and states that one of the reasons he hates Superman so much is because deep down a part of him is envious how someone who isn't human can be more human than him. While Luthor moves on from the topic, it's noted he doesn't deny the words either.
• Eyepatch of Power: At some point in time after the initial outbreak, Jimmy somehow lost his eye. Issue #11 reveals that he lost it when Jon threw himself in front of Black Adam's lightning bolt to protect Nantucket, ricocheting off his Kryptonian skin and into Jimmy's eye.
• Eye Scream: Jimmy loses his eye when Jon shields the rest of Nantucket from the lightning bolt meant to electrocute all of them, the leftover discharge bouncing off Jon's skin and into Jimmy's eye.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Hawkman is taken, and he hears the growls of the Anti-Life near him, he simply makes a stoic face showing no fear as he soon becomes one of them.
• From Bad to Worse: An Army of Anti-Life using their powers to enter the fortress, kill a few people in Jotunheim, bad. Worse, Black Adam sending the mountain fortress tumbling down towards his army only to be barely caught by Wonder Woman...with Black Adam ready to face her down.
• Go Out with a Smile: How Max Mercury goes out - Wally sends an infected Max into the Speed Force and the last thing he does is smile at him before he leaves..
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: "Heroic" is stretching it, but when Talia al Ghul joins the heroes to protect what's left of humanity, she's a little too eager to chop off the heads of anyone she deems a threat. While it would be horrifying in any other context, in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse it's Played for Laughs.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Raza decides to do this to buy time for the people to escape, shutting himself in with the Anti-Life Army. Wink then saves him, subverting the sacrifice part.
  • Martian Manhunter is slashed by Black Adam after one of the boats they were using to evacuate people catches on fire. He proceeds to throw himself into the ocean and phase into the ground so that he'd be killed before it takes over, though it failed, as shown in the first series.
• I Did What I Had to Do: When facing the crisis of the Infected, Black Adam kills them and even those uninfected near them as saving them would waste precious time. While honestly horrifying, his actions did stop the spread making his home a safe haven. Though Black Adam admits he shows some regret in having to kill his people.
• Interquel: The series is primarily set during the Time Skip from Issue #5 of the original series and helps to explain what happened to characters not spotlighted there.
• Irony: Superman laments and feels sorrow how many of Black Adam's people are dead because Black Adam refused to accept help. If only he knew that Black Adam was close to considering help, but because of his words and the infection it failed.
• It Can Think: While those under the control of the Anti-Life Equation usually act like stereotypical undead, some like Luthor realize there's more to it than just lunging and attacking, as some note that the Equation uses those with powers in unique ways that helps the Anti-Living corrupt more people.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Black Adam refuses to work with the surviving heroes pointing out they don't have the ruthlessness necessary to invoke I Did What I Had to Do like he did in the name of stopping the Anti-Living. While heavy-handed and condescending, his point that Superman could wipe out a lot of the Anti-living and make the world a lot safer in the process is completely valid. It’s also pointed out that many of Superman's allies are willing to use lethal force against the undead, making his refusal to do so stand out.
  • Talia makes a point that putting all the survivors in two places is idiotic when they know that the Anti-Living are attracted to the living. She makes the point that they should focus on eliminating the Anti-Living with Lex agreeing. The other heroes refuse with Superman stating that while he agrees he may be naive and foolish, he believes a cure for the people may come. Takes five years but he's right.
• Just the First Citizen: Black Adam has utter control over his home Kahndaq. Oddly, it's because of being a dictator he was able to shut down the spread of Anti-Life with but a flick of a switch. Cutting off the internet.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Perry White was about to praise Jimmy's photography just as he saw the Anti-Life Equation on his monitor, infecting him.
• Knew It All Along: Jimmy shows shock when he sees Lois and Superman kiss when Lois is suppose to be with Kent. The duo are struck silent... only for Jimmy to say he was joking, revealing he figured out a long time ago with the pictures.
  Jimmy Olsen: Also every bored photographer has drawn glasses on their photos.
• Manipulative Bastard: While it's downplayed and Played for Laughs it's revealed that in issue thirteen, to get Luthor to help save the people while also not killing the anti-living, Superman would manipulate Lex’s desire to one-up him with the help of Jimmy. The two then smiling at the end of the issue for a job well done with Lex Luthor being unaware that he just got played.
• Magic Is a Monster Magnet: It is discovered that Pied Piper’s flute actually attracts the Anti-Living rather than repels them.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The photos Jimmy was developing include Green Arrow and Black-Canary-turned-Green-Lantern, Jamie Reyes' Blue Beetle, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, Krypto the Superdog using his heat vision on some of the infected, Wonder Woman stealing one of Martian Manhunter's Oreos, and Robin (Stephanie Brown) dressing Damian in a comically oversized Batsuit while Jon gave him bunny ears in the background of the shot.
  • Issue 8 features a regular white horse named Comet. In the Silver Age comics, Supergirl had Comet the Super-Horse.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • After being absolutely merciless in order to prevent the infection from spreading to his land, the moment Black Adam chose to show empathy to his people lead to him being struck and turned by an infected.
  • Stephanie attempts to convince Black Manta once again the need for him to help everyone instead of being his "every man for himself" self. She realizes too late he's been infected and blasted by Manta, killing her.
• No-Sell:
  • Wink teleports Black Adam of all people into a mountain in hopes of topping and possibly killing him. He bursts out in no time.
  • Turns out animals are immune to the Anti-Life Equation. Detective Chimp theorizes that the gods were so arrogant that they figured animals were beneath them when they could have done the most damage through mosquitoes.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Recall Unkillables where Mary Marvel, the new Shazam, was utterly terrified about the damage she could cause if she were infected? Well, we get a view of that with Black Adam himself getting infected. Needless to say, that isn't good. Issue 4 continues this as Wink and Aerie are in a panic as Adam leads an army of undead towards them.
  • In Issue #10, this is everyone's reaction when Atom Smasher gets infected by Black Adam. On top of dealing with a Superman-level threat, they now have a giant zombie bearing down on them. As if things couldn't get any worse, Jon and Cassie try to stop the threat by dropping it into the bay, only to kick up a massive tidal wave that kills living and anti-living alike.
• Papa Wolf: In the climax of Issue #11, all hope seems lost as the infected Black Adam is in the midst of pummeling Jon when the boy screams for his dad. Cue Superman arriving faster than a speeding bullet and punching Adam out of sight with a supremely pissed expression on his face.
• Perspective Flip: What Black Adam does by turning himself normal, to see how his people feel after protecting but killing his citizens. Even pondering if he should let the heroes like Superman aid his home. Shame it also caused him to be vulnerable and soon infected at the last moment.
• Pet the Dog: For Damian's sake, Talia offers to take Steph to a Lazarus Pit.
• Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: Both Piper and Wink do this with their loved ones as both vanish away to use their powers to attract the hordes of the Anti-Living toward them to prevent Nightshade's Gate being used to attack the people.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Steph tries a Diving Save to protect Damian and Talia from the zombifiied Atom Smasher just as Jon and Cassie swoop in to save them. Talia lampshades the absurdity of this.
  Talia: You—? Did you just try to save us from a giant?
  Steph: Yeah, a little futile, I know.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Talia dismisses Steph as Damian's girlfriend. Damian scoffs at this, saying that she's his sidekick. Steph herself says to just go with "friend".
• Skewed Priorities:
  • As everyone around him became infected, Jimmy took the opportunity to catch a photo using his camera. Played with in that he quickly used this photo to realize that it was people's phones that were infecting everyone, causing him to throw one of the survivor's phones out the window of the Daily Planet when she tried to call her family.
  • A random survivor refuses to get rid of his cellphone because he does not believe that the infection actually goes through technology. This is in the face of plenty of evidence, first-hand accounts, and statements by both super and mundane experts. He’s even willing to shoot a fellow survivor for trying to take his phone away until Jon stops him.
• Take a Third Option: Lex's plan was essentially using Wink and Piper to lure the Anti-Living in Shade's Shadow Realm, attract the undead with Piper's flute with Wink teleporting him, then killing Nightshade thus trapping the Anti-Living and them in them while Wonder Woman snaps Black Adam's neck when she forces him human.
  • Wink teleports her, Piper, and a arriving Aerie out of the realm before they're trapped.
  • Superman changes Lex's plans for Black Adam, and simply does micro-surgery to eliminate Black Adam's vocal cords.
• Taking Up the Mantle:
  • Damian, after hesitation and advice from Superman, finally takes up Bruce's mantle as the new Batman. As stated by the story itself, a good thing too considering what's coming.
  • Stephanie Brown is revealed to be alive and well, hiding out in the Batcave in Issue #5. Seeing that Damian has taken up the mantle of Batman, Stephanie decides to take it upon herself to reclaim the role of Robin so that he'll have a partner who can watchout for him.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: As in the main series, Superman is not using lethal force against the Anti-Living presumably because of the chance a cure could be found. Black Adam calls him out on this by angrily pointing that Superman could put a massive dent in the number of Anti-Living and make the rest of the world a lot safer but he will never do it.
• Ungrateful Bastard: While a vast majority of humanity has banded together, every now and then there's a few jerks here and there. Jon himself saves Black Manta and nearly gets lasered by him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Superman. In Issue 2 he tries to talk Black Adam into letting outsiders into the relative safe haven of Kahndaq, when Black Adam refuses on the grounds that the heroes (Superman in particular) lack the willingness to use Necessary Evil tactics which he sees as needed in this crisis, Superman comments that he knows Black Adam is making this choice with the wisdom of a god but appeals to him to think on the issue with the heart of a man. The narrator notes that Superman's words got to Adam, prompting him to turn into his normal form and walk among the normal people to see what they think of the situation. It's only because he was in his normal form that an infected child managed to scratch him and create a supremely dangerous Anti-living threat.
• Wham Line: The first issue ends on one from Jimmy:
  Jimmy Olsen: But I want everyone to remember the heroes who fought for the living, after tomorrow. Tomorrow could be their last day. Tomorrow the greatest heroes left on Earth try to halt the Anti-Life army.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Issue 3 explains what happened to speedsters like Wally West, Bart Allen, Max Mercury, and Jessie Quick. After saving the survivors in Keystone City by using the Cosmic Treadmill to bring them to another world, the strain became so great that the speedsters ended up trapped on the alternate world with the busted Cosmic Treadmill. Max, who got infected rescuing an injured Bart, becomes one with the Speed Force before he could turn.
  • Issue 8 reveals why Ace the Bat-Hound was missing in the final pages of Unkillables. He went off to rescue a girl who had been left behind in the rush to Ivy’s Garden with the help of Bobo the Detective Chimp, Krypto the Superdog, and a regular horse named Comet.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In issue 4, Superman convinces Damian to take up the Mantle of the Bat this way, helping him work through his major fear that, by donning the costume, it means Bruce truly is gone.

DCeased: Dead Planet

• All Your Powers Combined: Constantine's final gambit: he steals Madame Xanadu's crystal ball, Ragman's cloak (which absorbs Deadman), the Spear of Destiny, and the wizard Shazam's staff, which he uses to also take Doctor Fate's power. All so he has a chance to go up against Trigon.
• And I Must Scream:
  • It's revealed that anybody infected by the Anti-Life equation goes to neither heaven nor hell. Their souls are trapped in their bodies unless someone kills them. The denizens of Hell are so angered by this that they decide to send Trigon to destroy the planet.
  • Not only did Cyborg survive the events at the end of the first series, but his still sentient head was left sending distress signals for the 5-year gap that took place through the two apart.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: The inhabitants of the Australian bunker are primarily composed of several wealthy villains like The Penguin, Maxwell Lord, and Simon Stagg. They allowed the families of their henchman into the bunker on the condition that they all serve them. It also doesn't help they have loads of AMAZO androids ready to take over the world.
• An Arm and a Leg: An Amazo android rips off both of Hawkgirl's wings.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In issue #5 when John Constantine got punched in the face for remarking that they won't kill anyone who is not already dead after Jason Todd was killed by an Anti-Living Captain Marvel Jr., he was confronted by The Spectre saying that he deserved it. However, Constantine told him to make an insight on why he's doing all of this, he promptly left Constantine to his own devices.
  "Why don't you use all that power and channel it into a bit of insight? What do you think I'm motivated by?"
• Asshole Victim: Constantine drains the souls of Penguin and the other villains in the Australian bunker to further power himself ahead of facing Trigon, assuring Jon Kent that the very nature of Ragman's power means that he only took the souls of those who deserved it.
• Beard of Sorrow: Mister Miracle has grown an unkempt beard in the subsequent years since his wife Big Barda was infected by the Anti-Life.
• Bystander Syndrome: Metron doesn't give a damn about Earth and the Anti-Life Equation ravaging it. Knowing this, the new Justice League ambushed him to temporarily take his chair. Only after Mary Marvel uses her wisdom to tell him of the possibility the Equation would leave Earth and destroy all knowledge does Metron agree to let them use his chair for a bit.
• Call-Back: Back in the very first issue of the original DCeased, Batman revealed that he had placed a tracking program in Cyborg's body without his knowledge. At the start of Dead Planet, Cyborg (now just a decapitated head) discovers the program while looking through his systems and uses it to send a distress signal to the new Justice League.
• Cessation of Existence: Constantine, as a result of his Heroic Sacrifice to stop Trigon. Given that was almost certainly going to Hell on dying, he's pretty fine with it, seeing it as one last fuck you to all The Legions of Hell who were waiting to get their eternal revenge on the other side.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The new Justice League make short work of the alien invaders moving in on Earth-2. Jon makes a point that they could have really flattened them, but they wanted peace, not to kill the aliens.
  • The Shazam-empowered Cassandra Cain makes short work of the Anti-Life-infected Captain Marvel Jr.
• Deader than Dead: Constantine performs a Heroic Sacrifice to defeat Trigon. It doesn't work, and Constantine dies and becomes a ghost, similar to Deadman, able to possess other beings' bodies. He then possesses Trigon and stabs both Trigon and his ghost form with the Lance of Longinus. This kills Trigon and also kills Constantine's ghostly form, not even leaving a soul behind. Constantine views this as a win, since this also pisses off the demons who wanted to torture his soul in Hell.
• Despair Event Horizon: Ever since Barda's infection, Mister Miracle has lived alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere in a deep depression. It takes John Constantine promising him that there's a cure for the Anti-Life infection while holding the Lasso of Truth to get him out of it.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Constantine, powered by all the greatest magics on Earth, knocks Trigon on his ass. And while Trigon manages to kill him, this just allows Constantine's spirit to possess Trigon and kill him with the Spear of Destiny.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Arsenal appears leading a group of survivors, but is quickly killed by the infected Fire just before the Shadowpact arrive to help.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Constantine spends his free time drinking, usually with only a box full of Chas's ashes for company.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When Trigon sees the Anti-Living, he spits in their direction before wiping them away. Not even a demonic being likes them.
• Evil Is Petty: Because the Unliving are in an incomplete state of living and dead, their souls remain trapped in their bodies while the bodies are still active. Because of this, Trigon decides to scorch the Earth and wipe everyone out because Hell doesn't benefit from that particular Apocalypse.
• Exact Words: When Damian asks him whether his plan will get anyone killed, Constantine replies that it won't hurt anyone who's not already dead. The plan ultimately involves absorbing the spirit of Deadman, who is of course a ghost and thus already dead.
• From Bad to Worse:
  • The opening issue ends this way; what started as a simple rescue mission to retrieve Cyborg and get out quickly spirals the minute the infected Wonder Woman shows up. She destroys the escape ship, infects Green Arrow, and Jon ends up taking a kryptonite sword through the shoulder from an enraged Black Canary when he tries protecting Wonder Woman after learning that there's still possibly a cure.
  • The second issue has Swamp Thing ask the members of the Shadowpact to help him investigate a manifestation of the Green in Australia, but there they find an infected Plastic Man, who quickly kills Ragman and Blue Devil and nearly kills Zatanna.
  • The third issue reveals that Hell is so angered about the Anti-Life Equation holding on to so many souls that they're planning on sending Trigon the Terrible up to destroy the Earth and kill everything on it. On top of that, the cabal of villains hiding in the Australian bunker plan to use an army of Amazo androids to wipe out the infected and take control of the planet.
  • The fourth issue shows that the infected Darkseid survived the destruction of Apokolips and is now free, with New Genesis being his first target.
  • Issue six shows that a cure has finally been made, and the heroes ready to spread their cure. Cue the AMAZO Army and Trigon who then come, making it a race against time to now save what's left of the Anti-Living.
• Go Out with a Smile: In issue five, Jason Todd sadly dies with his family saddened. However before he died he tells Rose he's glad he met her in his second chance and goes out smiling.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Having spent his entire life avoiding making personal sacrifices, John Constantine finally takes one for the team by possessesing Trigon and runs them through with the Lance of Destiny. This saves the Earth from Trigon's purge, but it also destroys Constantine's soul in the process. Considering the only alternative was to die and go to Hell (having accumulated a lot of vendettas from the demons there), he doesn't mind.
• Hope Spot: Thanks to the efforts of Cyborg and other intelligent people, a cure has been made. Making everyone think at last the people of Earth could be saved... Then the AMAZO Army attacks, followed by Trigon. The heroes then realize it's a race against time to save those who are left.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Constatine has done a lot of morally bad things. Stabbing a Goddess, imprisoning Deadman, and taking Nabu's helmet, which even he himself finds low of him. But, he states to Zatana this will be neccesary, and will take the consequences after he does what he has to.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed for Damian. Despite having some moments of coldness, overall he's more emotional than his father, so much so that even Gordon comments about it.
  Gordon: Your father wasn't a hugger.
  Damian: Oh believe me, I remember. But I'm not as emotionally stunted.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: Jon Kent, Damian Wayne and Mary Marvel have all matured a lot in the past five years, having inherited their respective mantels in full.
• Kill It with Fire: Zatanna gets rid of a monstrous Anti-Life Plastic Man by burning him to death with the hellfire surrounding the Australian bunker. John Constantine remarks that burnt flesh smells bad, burning plastic smells worse, and burning Plastic Man is something he never wants to smell again.
• Kill the God: In issue five, Constatine with the aid of Damian, Jason, Ravager, Cassandra, and Swamp Thing to take a staff that can kill a God. It's used to kill Trigon.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: When Constantine brings up the time that Swamp Thing possessed him so that he and his ex could have a baby, Swamp Thing quickly cuts in to tell him that they don't speak of it.
• Likes Older Women: Damian Wayne and Cassandra Sandsmark, the latter who is a few years older than him.
• Man Hug: Much to Gordon's surprise, Damian has no problem embracing him out of happiness towards his survival.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Almost all of the heroes silently react this way when being told that there's a cure for the infection, since it was possible to save all of the infected that they've killed over the years.
• Neutral No Longer: The Phantom Stranger ultimately abandons his millennia-long neutrality to aid in fighting Trigon.
• Noodle Incident: According to Phantom Stranger, Constantine once drunkenly flirted with him in front of Ganthet and Zeus, then passed out under the Rock of Eternity.
• Not Quite Dead:
  • The first issue reveals that Cyborg, thought to be dead after Wonder Woman ripped his head off, is still alive.
  • Issue #3 reveals that Mister Miracle managed to escape the Anti-Life horde and has been living in seclusion all this time.
  • Issue #4 shows that the undead Darkseid has survived in the remains of Apokolips' core since he blew up the planet. Also the Black Racer is alive too.
• Not So Invincible After All: After an unstoppable rampage for five years, anti-living Wonder Woman is unceremoniously killed in Issue #1, but not before almost destroying the rescue mission just as it was starting.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Constantine is killed, but his ghost manages to finish the fight.
• Off with His Head!: Swamp Thing literally pops Maxwell Lord's head off by crushing his body with vines.
• Oh, Crap!: Highfather has this when he feels his undead brother Darkseid return and ready to spread death. Needless to say, many will have this moment when seeing them back.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played for Laughs; when Swamp Thing comes to Constantine for help, he gets fed up with John's attitude and yells at him to "shut the @#$% up." All of the magic users are stunned to hear him actually swear.
  Zatanna: That's new.
  John Constantine: Yeah. Kinda proud a' that.
• Orifice Invasion: The undead Plastic Man does this to both Blue Devil and Zatanna by forcing his way into their mouths. Blue Devil is killed by having his eyes and brain forcibly pushed through his head. Zatanna had her lungs filled with Plastic Man's body to prevent her from speaking her spells, but was saved by Devil before he died.
• Parental Abandonment: Issue #4 reveals Scott has a son... who he left on New Genesis for five years without contact because he felt unworthy of being with him after his failure to save his wife. After a talk with the Highfather, he might join his son's life, but after his final attempt in saving Barda.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Gordon comments on how odd it is to see Batman sewing. Damian insists that Batman should be self-sufficient, so learning to sew makes sense.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Swamp Thing is drawn to a strange new manifestation of the Green and recruits the Shadowpact to help him investigate. When he finds out that the Penguin, Professor Ivo, Simon Stagg, and Maxwell Lord have the Floronic Man imprisoned and are using him to create plants and fruit, he becomes enraged and attacks them.
  • In Issue #5, Constantine makes it clear to the Spectre that this is his motivation for his plan.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In Issue #7, the guards in the Australian bunker refuse Penguin's orders to activate the kryptonite defenses when Jon and Damian breach the complex, on the grounds that they're not going to try to harm Superman.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The heroes provide Metron with use of Madame Xanadu's crystal ball in exchange for use of his chair. He takes one look into the future and immediately flees, presumably because he saw that the undead Darkseid was about to pop up.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In Issue #7, Trigon is going on a whole diatribe to Constantine about what's awaiting him in Hell. Constantine simply tells him to shut up and then decks him.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Damien has naturally inherited this habit as Batman, pulling it on Constantine in Issue #4.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: While DCeased was always more upbeat and positive than other zombie stories, Dead Planet is the only one that ends on an unambiguous victory for the good guys. The heroes manage to cure everyone who was infected, even including Jonathan Kent sr., the AMAZO army is defeated, and so is Trigon. Earth is ready for resettlement. While a lot of heroes paid for it with their lives, this is definitely a happy ending.
• Survivor Guilt: The first issue opens by discussing Constantine's as he drinks in a bar and remembers the friends and heroes he's seen die.
• Superior Successor: Batman theorized Jon would be stronger than his father Kal. His theory is proven right when Jon knocks out Orion with one punch.
• Tentacled Terror: The giant, infected Plastic Man.
• That's No Moon: When members of the Shadowpact go to Australia with Swamp Thing to investigate the second garden he's discovered, they find a bunker surrounded by hellfire, a moat made of blood, and thousands of infected trying to get in. The blood moat turns out to be an infected, giant-sized Plastic Man.
• Time Skip: The series takes place five years after the events of the first miniseries.
• Took a Level in Badass: Cassandra Cain gains the power of Shazam in Issue #5.
• Uncertain Doom: Hawkgirl, Big Barda, and Mister Miracle are struck down during the battle against the Amazo androids, with Hawkgirl and Barda then last shown bleeding on the ground.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The series ends with Issue #7, leaving two major plot threads dangling: namely, the anti-living Darkseid reemerging, and anti-living Superman still within the sun and draining it.
• Zombie Apocalypse Hero: Darkseid's death results in the Anti-Life Equation turning people into ravenous undead monsters. Several heroes are infected as well including Wonder Woman, Superman, Captain Atom and Aquaman. The remaining uninfected heroes which include Damian Wayne, Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain and John Constantine.

DCeased: War of the Undead Gods

• An Arm and a Leg: Anti-Life Superman lost his right arm to Diana during their fight at the climax of the original DCeased. After he is cured, he was given a metal arm in its place.
• Behemoth Battle: The Spectre vs an Anti-Living Mxyzptlk.
• Bittersweet Ending: The miniseries concludes with Erebos defeated and the surviving infected cured, but those killed outright remain dead and Damian Wayne had to sacrifice himself for this victory to be possible.
• Comfort the Dying: After all concerned parties are assured that Damian's act of sacrifice is the only option, Spectre!Alfred and Jon Kent/Superman travel to wait with Damian before his final death, as Alfred's powers will allow him to get himself and Jon to safety before the Life Equation "detonates".
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Despite having another Superman, two holders of the power of Shazam, an Amazon, a Green Lantern member and Cyborg, the Anti-Life Superman is just strong enough to give them trouble in trying to cure him. A Justified Trope, as Anti-Life Superman had spent the last five years inside of the Sun, amplifying his power to extreme levels.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The arrival of the Brainiac drones is met with the arrival of both Jon and Clark, both of whom smash them easily, leaving Guy to grumble at not having any to smash himself.
• Enemy Mine: By the penultimate issue, Darkseid is cured of being infected by the Anti-Life Equation and sides with the heroes against Erebos.
• Everyone Has Standards: After Guy Gardner punches Darkseid in a fit of rage and receives a punch himself, he freely acknowledges that what he just did was particularly stupid.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Brainiac goes to the heroes for help against the Anti-Living, as the death of all life would end the existence of the knowledge he collects.
• From Bad to Worse: As is typical for this series, things just keep getting worse with each issue.
  • Issue 1: Not only is it confirmed that New Genesis fell to the Anti-Living, but Supergirl soon joins their ranks.
  • Issue 2: The Anti-Living wipe out the Yellow Lanterns, taking control of Warworld and Darkseid taking Sinestro's power ring after killing him.
  • Issue 3: Ares reveals Anti-Life Darkseid accidentally awakened Erebos, a being far worse than the Anti-Living.
  • Issue 4: The Guardians of the Universe have decided the best thing to do is just murder the Anti-Living... oh, and Mr. Mxyzptlk shows up, too.
  • Issue 5: Mxyzptlk is corrupted by the Anti-Life Equation.
  • Issue 6: The New Gods invade Earth-2, but Alfred becomes the new host of the Spectre.
• Full-Frontal Assault: When the heroes go into space to give Superman the cure to the Anti-Life Equation, he fights them naked due to his costume being burned away from his time in the center of the sun.
• Grand Finale: The final chapter of the DCeased story.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Damian Wayne ends up giving his life to defeat Erebos.
• I'm Standing Right Here: When Guy insults Brainiac, Superman points out that the latter's standing nearby. Guy makes it clear that he doesn't care.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Damian is able to hack Cyborg's databanks using the access set up by his father so that he can erase Cyborg's memory of the plan for Damian to sacrifice himself until it's too late for Cyborg to stop it.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Ares decides to do a little trolling and turns the Guardians and the Lanterns against the other heroes. Damian realizes this and tells him to stand down with Mr. Mxyzptlk joining in to tell him to do so.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Alfred is absolutely devastated when told of the anti-living being cured, meaning that he didn't have to shoot Bruce, Dick, and Tim. He refuses to accept Damien's reassurances that he couldn't have known at the time and that he did what he had to do, instead viewing it as murdering his sons.
• Mythology Gag: When Ganthet encases Superman in a green bubble, Superman punches out of it and decks him in the nose, causing Guy to respond "One punch." The panel is even framed exactly the same as Gardner's memetic moment.
• Not What It Looks Like: Kyle and Soranik arrive in response to Korugar's distress signal just in time to witness the Yellow Lanterns trying to bombard the Anti-Living from orbit, which to them looks like Sinestro's attacking his own planet.
• Off with His Head!: How Sinestro is killed by Darkseid. Also how Alfred!Spectre kills Highfather.
• Papa Wolf: Still grieving over the loss of Bruce, Dick and Tim, when Highfather tries to kill Damian, Alfred's rage is more than enough to summon and bond with the Spectre.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Spectre invokes this as Ganthet feels the Central Power Battery being destroyed, both Jim Corrigan and the Spirit of Vengeance deciding enough's enough.
• Taking You with Me: Mxyzptlk is ran through by the Spectre's sword, but before he dies, he's able to rip Jim Corrigan out of the Spirit of Vengeance.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The story answers a very interesting question — where was Supergirl this entire time? Turns out her parents sent her to New Genesis, and she arrived some time after the corrupted Anti-Life Equation ravaged the inhabitants.

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