Because in a town like Gotham, there are a lot of good uses for a corpse.note
Task Force Z is a 12-issue limited series published by DC Comics, written by Matthew Rosenberg and drawn by Eddy Barrows. Spinning out of DC Infinite Frontier, it follows the exploits of the Red Hood leading a government task force staffed with bad people and designed to do the sorts of things that superheroes would never dream of dirtying their hands with...
But where that squad saw villains working their way to freedom, Task Force Z follows villains who are already dead working for a new chance at life. With the exception of their field commander, Jason Todd, the team is made up primarily of villains who have passed on, half revived and turned into shambling shadows of their former selves. That's right - Task Force Z is staffed with Zombie Supervillains.
Backed by Project Halperin and its mysterious benefactor, Red Hood struggles to steer Task Force Z to protect the living. He also has to make sure that his team doesn't get hungry. Because if they do, he'll have to start protecting himself...
Task Force Z began publication in October of 2021.
Tropes applying to this series include:
- And I Must Scream: During the process of being revived after the loss of much of his body, Bane is left without lungs or vocal cords until they are fully regrown. He's fully conscious throughout the regrowth process and, as per Doctor Shelley, is screaming throughout the whole thing despite not making any noise.
- Artificial Zombie: The squad members are revived and kept under control by doses of Lazarus Resin. Enough of it will return them to life fully, but the small doses that they're given keep them in a state of constant decay. Without their pills, they can very easily become mindless and predatory.
- Atrocious Alias: It's actually Amanda Waller who comes up with the "Task Force Z" moniker. Two-Face isn't a fan.
- Body Horror: The undead cast finds themselves in various, very detailed states of decay when they're not being ripped apart and regrowing limbs. Bane's resurrection in Issue #5, in particular, leaves him particularly monstrous-looking.
- The Bus Came Back: The new Task Force that appears at the end of Issue #4 features Madame Crow, who hadn't appeared in almost 5 years, and Copperhead, who also hadn't been seen in some time. The rest of the Victim Syndicate briefly reappears on Issue 7.
- Issue #5 has the return of Geri Powers, who hadn't shown up since 2016.
- Issue #6 features the return of Mitchell Shelley/Resurrection Man, who hadn't appeared in almost a decade.
- Call-Forward: In issue #9, while sneaking around the Powers labs, Bloom runs into Derek Powers, who is only a boy here and has no inkling of the blight future ahead of him.
- Came Back Wrong: Enforced by use of the Lazarus Resin. The members of Task Force Z could be brought back to their full capabilities (both mentally and physically) at any time. But they're much easier to control at a fraction of their strength and by merit of keeping them dependent on pills. When Astrid is torn apart in battle, she is given enough resin to regrow her legs and is temporarily revived enough to look mostly like she did when she was alive.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Once Deadshot joins the team, he and Red Hood make frequent use of this trope.
- Continuity Nod: At the end of issue #6, under Bane's picture in Waller's office it's written "Who is this?", referencing that Bane was revealed to be the one behind A-Day in The Joker (2021), meaning that the Bane that's been with the team the whole time isn't the original.
- Creepy Twins: With their ghastly pallor and affinity for bringing the dead back to life, Amelia and Delia Shelley are adult versions of this. Their other sister Celia appears later, making it a cast of Creepy Triplets.
- Dying as Yourself: When they're alone together, and Bane is given enough Lazarus Resin to be cognizant, Jason makes sure that he has all of his memories back so that he can make sure Bane knows why he turns on him and throws him off a building. It's out of revenge for Bane's murder of Alfred back in "City of Bane".
- Later, it's Subverted when it's revealed "Bane" is actually the corpse of Gotham, who was revived and implanted with Fake Memories of being Bane by Mr. Bloom. Once he learns this, Jason does not take the fact that he essentially kicked an innocent man off of a skyscraper very well.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Well, more like Even Ambiguous Evil Has Standards but even Amanda Waller, a woman who regularly sends Boxed Crooks on suicide missions, thinks that using undead supervillains is "morally reprehensible". However, her moral reprehension does not stop her from claiming Task Force Z for herself.
- Evil Versus Evil: In a similar vein to a more well-known Task Force, this squad pits undead supervillains against other supervillains. Except that instead of fighting to get years taken off of a life sentence, the members of Task Force Z are earning a second chance at life. Even the Token Good Teammate field leader is an Anti-Hero with few compunctions about killing.
- Fake Memories: Mr. Bloom is revealed to be using these extensively in his plan, having dug up the corpse of Hank Clover Jr./Gotham and implanted him with Bane's memories in order to serve on the team, and attempting the same with a random corpse that he dresses up as Red Hood, planning to transfer a mix of Jason's memories and brainwashing into the zombie to serve as an infiltrator within the hero community. Unfortunately for Bloom, the zombie gets tricked into blowing itself (and the Powers Industries building everyone is currently in) up by Jason before this can happen.
- Faking the Dead: Jason manages this by the end of the series, ditching Gotham (the city, not the now-zombified superhero) after a corpse Bloom had dressed up in the Red Hood costume that he was going to use to attempt to plant a mole in the superhero community is found at the collapse of the Powers Industries building, being reported as dead, with seemingly only Stephanie Brown and Two-Face currently aware of his survival.
- Friendly Zombie: At least, as friendly as they ever were in real life. Red Hood doesn't have to worry about his teammates turning on him, as long as he makes sure that they take their meds. Otherwise, they can turn into...
- Flesh-Eating Zombie: When deprived of their Lazarus Resin, the members of Task Force Z fall into this. Keeping them appropriately dosed is important because when in this state, they don't care whether they're eating friend or foe.
- For Science!: This seems to be Amelia and Delia Shelley's prime motivation. When given a team full of dead super-villains who have racked up a staggering body count between them, they instead work on a way to turn them into a team of semi-disposable zombies for the government.Jason: "Don't you think that the world might be a better place if you, ya know... didn't?"Dr. Shelley: "I'm a scientist. Better isn't really something we deal with."
- Harmless Freezing: Jason is frozen from the waist down in Issue #2 by Mr. Freeze, but experiences no negative side-effects.
- Heel–Face Turn: Two-Face is attempting one by running a government task force. Ostensibly it's to get back to his roots helping people, albeit with "questionable" methods. Absolutely nobody believes that it's sincere.
- Hero Antagonist: Batman and the Batfamily all end up opposing Jason and him working with Task Force Z. The notable exception to this (aside from Duke Thomas, who is mentioned but does not appear in the flesh) is Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, who is the one member to never directly oppose Jason, though she does try to warn him away from his current path.
- Hive Mind: Mr. Bloom is able to pull off an odd version of this, implanting special Brainwashing into the revived members of Task Force Z that allows him to activate a copy of his own personality in them to take them over, managing to subvert Copperhead, KGBeast, and Madame Crow this way.
- Horror Hunger: Naturally, for a zombie story. Deadshot is very worried that he'll start experiencing this once he's brought back to life.
- I Die Free: In the final issue, the zombified Gotham decides to do this once Jason talks him down and he takes out Mr. Bloom, flying off with Gotham Girl to live the rest of the time the Lazarus Resin gives him on his own terms, instead of being left dependent on the resin to live, choosing to live his last days the way he wants to.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: Delia and Amelia look identical with the exception of their haircuts.
- Insistent Terminology: Mr. Bloom would like to remind everyone that he is not dead. Despite appearances.
- It's Been Done: Not only is this task force very similar to another DC property in-universe, but Amanda Waller also wastes no time in likening the titular task force to Jurassic Park.Two-Face: "I haven't seen it."
- Mad Scientist: Amelia and Delia Shelley definitely give off this vibe.
- Mr. Bloom delves into this even more than the Shelleys, having helped pioneer the Lazarus Resin's creation, and, as soon as he is given the chance, proceeding to run multiple horrifying experiments on Man-Bat, including dissecting his brain and hooking up machinery to it, partially turning him back to his human form before repeatedly switching off which form Man-Bat is in, and much more. Notably, Man-Bat is his own lab assistant during all of this. Additionally, Bloom is guilty of implanting Fake Memories in corpses of being other people in life to brainwash them and turning the other members of Task Force Z into undead Manchurian Agents with copies of his own mind.
- Mercy Kill: Sort of. At the end of Issue 12, when Two-Face revives the remaining corpses with Lazarus Resin for a yet-unknown purpose, he intentionally does not inject Man-Bat, telling the corpse to "rest", in compliance with Man-Bat's vocalized desire to be allowed to die throughout the series.
- Mr. Fanservice: Issue 7 has Jason waking up after having a nightmare, only to realize he had no clothes on. This doesn't stop him from getting up, and we are treated to a very good view of his ass.
- Not So Above It All: The normally unflappable Amanda Waller doesn't freak out at the sight of the Arkham Knight's dead body, she just makes a passing comment about the smell. But once Astrid is shown to be alive as a part of Two-Face's presentation, she flips out like she's watching a horror movie.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: The scientists and their benefactor try not to use the term "zombie" to describe their squad. Jason, however, sees no issue with it.
- Oh, Crap!: While Jason has no problem facing Dick and Tim together, when he sees Cass, he has this reaction.
- Older Than They Look: The Sundowner entity within Hanna Hobart has halted her aging, and despite appearing to be Jason's age, she's probably old enough to be his grandmother.
- The Old Convict: Despite not appearing to be old, Hanna Hobart had been in Arkham for many years, and when the place got destroyed during A-Day, she was recruited by Task Force-Z.
- Our Zombies Are Different: In-universe. More traditional zombies have been confirmed to exist in DC Comics, but these characters are specifically brought back to life and maintained via microdoses of Lazarus Resin. With enough of the stuff, they'll return to life for real. Without it, they'll quickly decay into cannibalistic corpses. Depending on how much dosage they have, they also retain some level of higher functions and personality.
- Perky Goth: Amelia and Delia Shelley both have unnaturally pale skin and white hair, dress in lab coats with bicep-high black rubber gloves, and have a fascination with the undead while also being remarkably chipper about the whole thing.
- Phlebotinum Dependence: Any characters who are brought back to life via the Lazarus Resin aren't brought fully back to life. Without more resin, they will quickly decay into shambling, cannibalistic corpses, and then end up dying all over again.
- Powered Armor: Mr. Bloom ends up using Jim Gordon's mechanized GCPD Batsuit from the Superheavy arc (ironically enough, the very arc Bloom was introduced in and served as the Arc Villain for) to engage with Jason and Harvey's Task Force Z by the end. The suit ends up turning him into such a juggernaut that it takes Gotham, someone with powers akin to a Kryptonian at their most potent levels, to fly him away to his Uncertain Doom in order to take him out, with a prior explosion and the collapse of an entire building right on top of him barely slowing Bloom down.
- Granted, however, Mr. Bloom does recover near-immediately from a gunshot to the face and is a Humanoid Abomination par excellence, so how much of the Super-Toughness displayed is from the suit and how much is from Mr. Bloom himself is really up in the air.
- Power Limiter: To keep someone like Mr. Bloom under control, who may or may not feel "death" quite like his squadmates, he is given a power inhibitor to make up for a seeming lack of dependence on Lazarus Resin.
- The Reveal: Issue 10 reveals the fake Bane that's been running around with Task Force Z is a modified and reanimated Henry "Hank" Clover Jr./Gotham.
- Same-Sex Triplets: Amelia, Celia, and Delia Shelley are all identical triplets.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: On Issue 7, after Mr. Freeze is told there's only enough Lazarus Resin to fully revive a person, he simply takes it for himself and leaves the rest of the Task Force out to dry.
- Shower Scene: Readers are treated to seeing Jason Todd in the Decontamination Shower after coming into contact with Man Bat's bodily fluids. However, the gnarly scarring that he's accumulated all across his back provides some Fan Disservice.
- Shout-Out:
- The lead scientist in charge of reviving and reanimating the undead corpses is named Doctor Shelley.
- Project Halperin is an organization dealing with people being turned into Zombies.
- Mr. Bloom is derogatorily referred to as "the skeleton from that singing Christmas movie."
- Sliding Scale of Undead Regeneration: The Lazarus Resin offers the entire scale, depending on the dosage.
- Spanner in the Works: Mr. Bloom was deeply involved with the creation of the Lazarus Resin, and is none too happy about getting absolutely nothing out of the deal. He spends the first arc of the story scheming against his handlers in order to get free, and ends up being the Final Boss of the mini.
- String Theory: Jason has one dedicated to uncovering the mysteries behind Task Force Z.
- Taking the Bullet: Deadshot sacrifices himself to prevent Jason from getting executed by KGBeast. When Waller calls out Knyazev, he argues that he was giving Lawton a Mercy Kill.
- The Mole: What Jason is acting as during his stint as Field Leader of Task Force Z. Batman attempts to pull him out multiple times, but he refuses.
- Theme Twin Naming: All Doctors Shelley are named as following, Amelia, Delia and Celia.
- This Is Going to Suck: Jason's reaction at the end of issue 7, since he knows he's gonna have to steal the last sample of Lazarus Resin from the Batcave.
- Troll: Jason plays this role to the hilt during his fight with Tim, Dick, and Cass, constantly taunting and trash-talking them. Justified due to this being an integral part of Jason's plan, distracting the Batfamily after he manages to sneak the stolen sample of Lazarus Resin to a disguised Sundowner early on in the fight, continuing to taunt them to Draw Aggro and ensure they focus on him, giving Hanna time to get away with the serum. Granted, even once he's found out and Hanna is long gone, Jason continues to intentionally rile Dick up as much as possible before he makes his escape, even asking Cass to use her body reading abilities to confirm how mad Dick is, just because he can.
- Two Girls to a Team: Astrid Arkham and Hanna Hobart are the two females in the first incarnation of Task Force-Z.
- Uncertain Doom: Mr. Bloom's final moments in the mini are him being grabbed by an angry Gotham before Gotham zooms away into the sky, coming back down and saying "not to worry" about Bloom. We're never told whether this means Gotham killed Bloom or not, or what Gotham even did to him.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: The mysterious benefactor of Task Force Z, "Crispin" does not show his face to the team and only communicates via intercom or from behind a screen without ever showing his face. Or rather, he doesn't show either of them, because "Crispin" is actually Two-Face.
