Deadman: Exorcism: Book Two (January 1993)

I hope these glow-in-the-dark covers from the '90s didn't use radium.

Last issue, we learned that Deadman would have committed suicide if he wasn't already dead because the love of his unlife moved on without him. I don't mean she got a new job on the West Coast; she went to Hell. Or Heaven. Whatever. I didn't read Mike and Kelley's first Deadman series (or, if I have, I've completely forgotten it). Instead of killing himself, he simply went crazy and decided to torture some Bostonian named Hugh because, according to Boston Brand, Hugh deserved it. If you think that means Hugh is a paedo or serial killer or right-wing piece of shit, you'd be wrong. He's just a guy who works in the circus but doesn't like the circus. Or "worked in", anyway, because he's dead now. Deadman has possessed his broken necked body to try to save Madame Waxahachie and Hugh's therapist, Joanne. Nobody would need saving if Deadman had just gone crazy among the fungus out in the cemetery behind the old church in a respectable fashion. But instead, he just had to torture a guy because the guy didn't love the circus the way Deadman had loved the circus. If that's not enough reason to sort of hate Deadman by the middle of this story, he was also making Hugh bash gays in Boston while he possessed him. So, you know, do we even care what happens at this point? Deadman can get fucked for all I care. Besides, The Phantom Stranger had appeared at the end of the last issue to save Madame Waxahachie! Who fucking needs Deadman?

"Why do I suck so bad?!"

I'm not sure what lured The Phantom Stranger to this place. Isn't The Phantom Stranger the hand of God's vengeance? Who here has pissed off God? The spirits of Reverend Shattuck, Chief Nebagamon, and Centurion Lucian have been stranded here for hundreds of years without God caring about them. And according to Christians, God supports Deadman's gay bashing. Maybe the members of the band Abscess are so fucking metal that they're an affront to God. I'd love it if The Stranger were all, "Just let me kill these young punks and y'all can go about your business drowning that therapist and hitting this lady with your stick." It's not like The Phantom Stranger is a hero. He works in mysterious ways!

The Phantom Stranger doesn't realize how powerful these spirits are in this place, the place of their hallowed church, their revered burial grounds, and their, um, ancient Roman steps and columns? His ass is kicked into the ethereal plane by Chief Nebagamon who follows after to kick it some more. This leaves Reverend Shattuck to get back to the business of beating women. But Lucian doesn't approve, possibly because he's in the body of a woman and possibly because he's just a good dude, you know? They have a little scuffle that results in the kind of results you'd expect if a 17th century Puritan battled a Roman Centurion.

Nobody seems to care too much that Lucian just killed the lead guitarist of Abscess.

Shattuck's Anton-Arcane looking spirit goes flying off to find a new body for Lucian to stab to death with his gladius. He encounters Deadman and they fight over the corpse Deadman has hermit crabbed himself into. It's not like there's a lot of choices for evil spirits to possess out in the woods. Although we have seen Deadman possess a falcon (which died after Deadman left it), so isn't that at least a temporary option? I'd love it if Shattuck came raging back in with his vengeful God rhetoric in the body of a raccoon.

Deadman wins the body battle and makes his way to beneath the church to either help Madame Waxahachie fight the spirits or possibly to chide Madame Waxahachie for releasing them. At about the same time, Chief Nebagamon and The Phantom Stranger return from wherever the fuck spirits go when they get thrown through the saloon window version of reality. And once we see The Phantom Stranger and Deadman in the same place, it seems like maybe Deadman was The Stranger's target all along. So — get this — maybe Christians have been wrong about God hating homosexuals all along! It would make sense since Christians also believe God hates masturbators but the proof they give for that logic is the story of Onan and that fucking story isn't about masturbation at all! It's not even about the rhythm method being terrible (which it could be, at least!). It's about respecting your father's wishes and breaking contracts! God is angry at Onan not because he pulled out while fucking his dead brother's wife but because he negotiated a verbal contract with his father that he would be able to fuck his dead brother's wife if he gave his father grandchildren. But Onan was all, "Fuck you, old man! I'm going to spunk my spunk and eat it too! Or, you know, whatever!"

Okay, Stranger, hurry up and kill this asshole please.

The Phantom Stranger points out that all of this is Deadman's doing because he's gone insane. So the ghosts aren't real. But The Phantom Stranger goes on to say they're real enough so they're going to have to battle them anyway? What he's trying to say is reality is fluid and if it seems like something is about to kill you, you should probably fight it now and worry about whether or not its the figment of your (or somebody else's) imagination later. His plan is for Lucian and Madame Waxahachie to accompany him to Hell or the Negaverse to battle Chief Nebagamon. He leaves Joanne the Therapist behind to psychoanalyze Deadman (who is currently in Hugh's dead body so these will definitely be billable hours).

This is what Madame Waxahachie has to battle with the help of The Stranger and Lucian.


This is Joanne's battle. I'd rather fight the demons from Hell.

Deadman's reaction to therapy is a bit like Tony Soprano's. He calls his therapist a cow and then tries to enter her. I know that's a gross exaggeration of the way Tony treated his therapist. He probably would have never tried to rape her even if he did treat her as horribly as he could. Also, he might have tried to eventually rape her if she hadn't been raped by some rando shit-heel first. Pretty sure he just didn't want to rape somebody somebody else had already raped. He was not a good guy. At all. I hope he did get shot in the face as soon as the series ended.

After Deadman possesses Joanne, the Reverend Shattuck returns to continue his battle with Boston. Now they're fighting over Joanne because Joanne's body can keep its head upright and its pants aren't filled with a massive death shit.

Back on Hell's doorstep, The Phantom Stranger tries to stall Chief Nebagamon's advancing army of 217,652 warriors by charming some of the local demonic residents to his side. He also turns into a the worst kind of Twitter user.

"I have mortally wounded you with my knowledge of philosophical pistols, you illiterate plebe. Let's see you try to make a stupid joke that I did not understand around these parts again!"

At this point in the Year of Our Lord, 2025, what's the point in even distinguishing Twitter users by which are the worst? They're all fucking terrible. Get off that app, dummies!

As Deadman and Shattuck battle, Joanne stands by yelling things like "He's a manifestation of your hatred!" and "You're only battling with yourself!" and "Free will is a metaphor which allows us to ignore the mortal possibility that we will never be or do the things we dream of being and doing!" But none of that helps so she grabs a hatchet off the wall and wades in to battle Boston's projections turned real. She chops Shattuck in the skull and he turns on her. As he hauls her off into the darkness, her calls for help cause Deadman to slip into another delusion: Joanne is Rama Kushna. He picks up the hatchet and goes Benihana on Shattuck's apparently corporeal ass. After that guy's taken care of, Joanne and Deadman return to regular therapy.

If she can't medicate him, stick him back out among the mushrooms! I bet that was all that was keeping him from going off the deep end!

Everything was fine with Deadman as he lie in the church graveyard ribcage deep in fungus. It wasn't until he started going on his weekend jaunts to Boston to torture a guy who just wanted to earn a paycheck that things really got fucked up. If he is schizophrenic, talk therapy ain't gonna cure him! He needs to get his brain chemicals rebalanced! Um, hmm. He's a ghost. He doesn't have brain chemicals. Maybe talk therapy will work. This issue is called "Exorcism" for a reason.

During talk therapy, Joanne mentions that Boston was using Hugh to bash gays and Deadman, just like Hugh, responds, "I would never do that." Joanne decides to hypnotize Boston Brand to find out why he subconsciously hates gay people so much and possibly why he loves yelling the N-word (other than that he needs to do those things to make sure this comic book gets its mature rating. I wish Mike and Kelley had just gone with making the female member of Abscess run around naked for thirty pages).

Joanne discovers, during hypnosis, that Deadman, um, jokingly raped his brother while they were wrestling?

It's not explicitly stated, just a mention of "I hurt my brother" but then why is this Boston's formative memory that led to his bashing gays?

I'm not a sensitive and compassionate enough writer to discuss why this is a load of truly fucked up characterization on Mike Baron's part. So instead, I'll just bite my tongue and point out that implanted memories by therapists during hypnosis are a thing (remember the Satanic Panic and all the daycare kids remembering fucked up tales of ritual abuse that anybody could tell couldn't be true?). There's a reason the word therapist can be spaced out to "the rapist".

So either Boston Brand has been bashing gays because he's a repressed homosexual. Or he's been bashing gays because his brother once got a hard-on while Boston was wrestling with him and Boston's toxic masculinity basically forced him to beat the shit out of his brother and many, many other gay men later in life. Double or, his therapist just led him to this conclusion while under hypnosis and everybody can just forget that this two-issue series ever existed!

After Boston's revelation, everything goes to shit again. But this time, Deadman takes responsibility. He makes sure everybody else gets out of the church and then he blows himself up, destroying all of his evil imaginary friends.

Rama Kushna appears to Boston to make his undead body whole again but tells him she can't help with his mental state so maybe he should continue going to therapy. Lucian also survives because I guess Lucian was the only real ghost? Rama Kushna figures Boston Brand's too unwell to count on for much longer so she approaches Lucian to become his understudy. Then she sends him off to Madame Waxahachie so he can learn everything he missed in the last 1800 years or so. He does not appear in the body of Abscess's lady member. She survived so I guess she's gone on to appear naked in some other comic book. I don't mean to imply she didn't appear naked here; I'm just being optimistic that one day, I'll see her boobs.

Deadman: Exorcism: Book 2 Rating: D+. Fucking hell, man! What was Mike Baron thinking?! If he's going to go all-in on this Boston Brand needs a mental exorcism thing with a weekly therapy session, at least be clear and up front as to what happened! Did editorial make him take out the explicit stuff? Because if you're going to have Deadman acting on his subconscious hatred for gay men, at least explain exactly why he feels that way. Or else I'm going to simply assume that the character of Boston Brand is a homophobic jerk who got caught and now wants to blame his violent activities on lost memories and a horrible upbringing. Bah. How the hell did I ever keep reading Deadman comic books after this? At least The Phantom Stranger didn't go off on Jews! That would have been terrible too but at least that I wouldn't be surprised by!

Deadman: Exorcism: Book One (December 1992)

Deadman gonna look spectacularly horrific throughout this series. Thanks, Kelley Jones!

That wasn't sarcastic! I prefer when Deadman looks hideous. He should be a memento mori in a circus performer's spandex rather than just some normal clown in white face paint that nobody can see or hear. Also I don't care how anatomically correct Jones makes him because have you heard how many fucking people rave about the artists that went on to form Image? Let me enjoy my horrific body dysmorphia while y'all enjoy your "The Artist Just Never Really Took the Time to Learn Anatomy And Sometimes They Forget to Draw All the Legs But Don't They Look Sort of Hot if You Squint Just Right" body dysmorphia. I think there are people that were maybe five or more years younger than me at that time whose hormones were raging so hard fell in love with this style because their out-of-control young horndoggedness caused them to believe they were looking at great art whenever a woman with a nearly naked ass at the base of a too long torso, sitting on top of too long legs, turned her upper body at too large an angle so that her enormous tits were also showing, her clothing not even drawn because the artist couldn't draw clothes because they didn't care about drawing clothes which forced the colorist to do most of the work of dressing the naked character the artist had drawn by just adding different colors to different parts of the naked woman.

I'm generalizing because some of them could draw clothing. The outfits with too many pockets and pouches had to have come from somewhere!

This issue begins with a brief one-page summary of Deadman's history for new readers unfamiliar with him. The narrator sums up Deadman's career until now as "wasting time". By the end of that first page, we're already getting to the good stuff.

Fuck yeah, man! I feel you, dead dude!

Later, he met a hot ghost named Ann whom he helped save from her warlock husband. This took place in Baron and Jones' Deadman: Love After Death. The cover of Book One of that series was basically softcore pornography. So it's understandable that the flashback to Ann in this comic book is super fucking sexy.

Ghosts can have sex?! I hope I own Deadman: Love After Death because it's been some time since I developed a new kink. Necrophilia can't be that bad if it looks this hot, right?

Deadman: Love After Death was published at a time in my life when I easily could have missed it. It was my first year of college and my immediate thoughts were not often, "Oh! I wonder what's new at Pegasus Comics across the Willamette River this week?!" I would like to say my thoughts were, "How do I breathe underneath all of this college pussy?!", but they weren't that. Or, um, were they?! You know what? Obviously that was what was going on. It's basically all I could afford to eat at the time. That and Hormel Chile.

Deadman's "Story So Far" ends with him forgetting his Karmic mission, lying down in a graveyard, and going fucking nuts. And thus begins the story of "Exorcism" as two young lovers drive into the haunted woods of Vermont horny for a quick fuck in a cute Bed and Breakfast. But what they find is a "No Trespassing" sign and what looks like an abandoned monastery.

So judgmental! What if I walked into YOUR place of worship and was all, "Eww, that guy nailed to the wall is fucking creepy!"?

I'm not a Satanist but if I were into some kind of organized religion, it's be Satanism. I'm an atheist in the pure sense of atheism. I'm agnostic about a lot of things in our universe. I don't believe we can ever know what happened before "The Big Bang" or even know for certain that "The Big Bang" is more than a fairly well-evidenced hypothesis. But if you're going to say God is a being that has existed forever and looks like us and uses powers that make no sense in the reality we live in, a reality with rules we have learned to predict across time, every new rule closing another door on the answer "Well, it must be God", then I'm going to say, "Um, bullshit." Which makes me an atheist. People love to call themselves agnostic because they feel being open-minded about any old bullshit is smarter than actually not believing pure fantasy. But most of them are actually atheists if you pin them down on the actual thing that atheism defines. "Sure, I don't know why we're here but I guess I don't believe in the God of the Book." Atheist!

But, man, I really want to be cool enough to be a Satanist. I bet baby's blood tastes so good!

Kathy and Carl make themselves at home in the abandoned church while Deadman makes himself at home inside Kathy.

Is "I was possessed by an asshole ghost" a reliable legal defense? I've got some plans that would really help if I could blame it on Negative-Casper.

Carl flees from the abandoned church to go report his wife to the police, leaving her topless in the dark and the rain. All because she told him that she fucked guys before him and then whipped him with her bra? What are the police going to charge her with? Being too totally awesome?

I'm not sure what Carl says to the police but the chief decides to go help Carl get his wife's bra back on. On the way back to the church, the Chief tells Carl a little of the church's history.

Oh sure. Roman ruins in Vermont. The history of the DC Universe must be fucking crazy.

Carl and the Police Chief find Kathy back to normal except she doesn't remember what happened. All she knows is that she went off to take a piss and then Carl was abandoning her. They might be able to make up tonight but this relationship is fucking over. Carl's going to keep thinking about the things Kathy said but doesn't remember. Kathy's going to keep thinking about how Carl, out of nowhere, just left her in a dark, scary church. This is pure relationship cancer. Good work, Boston Brand! I hope this helped balance out the world's Karma!

I know Deadman isn't bothering with all that Rama Kushna garbage anymore and he just did this for the LOLs. I'm just a dick who doesn't let reality get in the way of being a dick.

The scene shifts to Boston because Mike Baron doesn't care if I'm confused from here on out as to whether a character is speaking about the person or the place. The therapist of a guy named Hugh decides to flush her entire career down the toilet in an attempt to cure him of these strange blackouts he's been having. First, she offers to tail him so she can observe what happens the next time he has a blackout. While that's a strange offer and definitely not something she should be doing as a professional therapist, her next offer proves she should burn her diploma. She decides to send Hugh to a medium, a psychic. "You are so fucked up, Hugh, and I'm so willing to believe that you're a good guy, I'm willing to believe you've been possessed by a malevolent being. Certainly your nightly blackouts and your bloody hands and torn clothing have nothing to do with the local gay bashings happening nightly. This is Boston in 1989, after all. That shit's endemic." Hugh, of course, points out that he would never bash a gay. But then Hugh also doesn't have any actual clue what he's been doing lately. Even his wife doesn't believe him. But his therapist? She believes in Hugh!

The medium is Madame Waxahachie, a massive woman in an even massiver hat and fairly massive oral fixation.

Hopefully Mike Baron doesn't fumble this moment because I'm on the verge of having a new favorite DC character here.

Madame Waxahachie hypnotizes Hugh hoping that in a hypnotic state, he'll remember his blackouts. Or, being a psychic, she just wants to attune his mind to that time so she can project herself into his memories and confront whatever was in control of his body during those blackouts. She discovers Hugh has been possessed by Deadman cosplaying a 17th Century fire and brimstone preacher. I guess Boston heard too many of the local legends from that police chief while Boston rolled around in the cemetery going stark raving cuckoo.

Sounds like Deadman's possessed by The Spectre.

I guess ghosts can possess ghosts. I won't speculate on how that works because ghosts aren't real and anything Mike Baron wants to tell me about ghosts in the DC Universe, I'm just going to buy into wholeheartedly. Ghosts can manifest enough physical matter to give hand jobs? Cool! Ghosts can possess small dogs, making them walk upright, express extreme bravado, and yell, "Prepare to splat!"? Awesome! Ghosts are actually fungal spores that have absorbed so many human brain waves that they think they were once living humans? I'm in!

Seeing that Deadman has been possessing Hugh and Reverend Shattuck has been possessing Deadman, it seems Hugh has absolutely been gay bashing on the weekends. Hugh had better seriously hope that "I was possessed by an asshole ghost" works as a reliable legal defense in the DC Universe. I'm fairly certain it wouldn't work here although it's just the sort of bullshit some homophobic creep would try to use to get away with acting on their terrible beliefs. People with terrible beliefs rarely express those beliefs proudly except to other people they know share those beliefs. That's how you can tell if you're an awful person. If you believe in something that you avoid expressing around everybody equally, you are almost certainly a piece of shit.

I mean that in the context of the Year of our Lord 2025! Obviously there were many, many years where we were all forced to hide our beliefs and real selves because the awful people were allowed, often legally, to inflict whatever violence they wanted on people expressing those beliefs. It's why assholes don't understand self-censoring. They never had to do it and never realized how many people were doing it around them because those people knew the asshole would fucking go nuts if they were confronted by compassion and actual justice. It's why they think criticism is censorship now. They've been free to express terrible beliefs with the backing of a fucking shit society for so long that now when people (who have stopped self-censoring because we have no more frontiers to run to and we have to stand our ground against these assholes) call them an asshole to their face, they think they're being censored. No, dick-for-brains, you've always been an asshole. It's just time you knew that we've all been thinking it all this time.

Madame Waxahachie's plan to help Hugh: road trip to Vermont! But they get lost fairly quickly and need to ask directions from some super cool kids.

Do they sell that lady's camping outfit at REI?

Dammit! I forgot this comic book was written in 1992 and I just found out Mike Baron was 43 years old when he wrote it so obviously the cool heavy metal band are actually a bunch of dicks. The girl with the pink hair calls Madame Waxahachie "Aunt Jemima" and now I'm super sad that I lusted after her for one panel. I also just noticed that the buff member of Abscess plays the, um, pistol? Is that in lieu of a drumkit?

Turns out the kid playing guitar is actually pretty cool and maybe the girl asking Madame Waxahachie where the pancake's were was just a remnant of something a not-actually terrible person in 1989 felt was funny because they lived in a society that truly believed racism was "just a joke". We can still accept that she's a dick though while reserving judgment on the pistol player and hugging and kissing the guitar kid for being friendly and helpful. The band is just like society! Some people are chill and some people are dopes and some people think firing a gun is music.

Joanne the Therapist, Hugh the Possessee, and Madame Waxahachie arrive at the church. Deadman/Shattuck believes they were sent by The Old Ones, whomever they are, because he doesn't think Madame Waxahachie has the power for tracking him down herself. Madame Waxahachie gives Hugh a "mojo" to keep him safe but he immediately loses it to a bird possessed by Deadman. Once the mojo no longer protects Hugh, Deadman possesses him and heads over to piss off Abscess.

Where did Shattuck learn to flip people off?

It's possible Deadman isn't possessed but just going insane and believing he's Shattuck, occasionally, because of the environment he's chosen to go crazy in. He might be possessing Hugh not to gay bash but to gay basher bash. And why would he scare away Kathy and Carl earlier? He could be trying to scare people away because he doesn't want them setting the other spirits free, the ones hidden beneath the pulpit's lectern.

Whoops!

The spirits freed by Madame Waxahachie are a Puritan religious figure, a Native American warrior, and a Roman Centurion. Deadman introduces them as Reverend Shattuck, Chief Nebagamon, and Lucian Camponis. Deadman suggests that Hugh deserved whatever Deadman was doing to him so it's possible Hugh was gay bashing and Deadman was punishing him somehow. It sort of doesn't matter though because after Deadman forced Hugh to moon Abscess, Deadman than climbed up a tree with Hugh's body and left him there. Hugh, not being a circus performer, slipped and fell, breaking his neck on the forest floor. Abscess saw the whole thing but, once again in the "That doesn't matter" department, Abscess are all possessed by the three recently released spirits. Their plans now that they're free? To, um, take back the church and remain there, I guess?

As for all my attempts to defend Deadman against being the person responsible for Hugh bashing gays, I should apologize. Because Mike Baron decided Boston Brand is a hateful homophobe, apparently. I was working under the assumption that he was one of DC's heroes and that he'd be better than most people and he wouldn't harbor any bigoted hate in his heart. Boy, was I fucking wrong.

You know, Mike Barron, just because he's named Boston it doesn't mean he has to be a Boston stereotype.

Well, at least I can still root for Madame Waxahachie! Also, I haven't totally given up on Boston Brand. He sounds like he's spewing the beliefs of Shattuck. According to the Police Chief's local legends, Shattuck was burned as a warlock. So he probably set up some kind of magical traps to capture ghosts, driving them insane and infusing them with his brand of hatred.

If you were hoping Mike Baron wasn't done with his characters slinging slurs, let me assure you that the ghost of Reverend Shattuck possessing the friendly guitar player drops a doozy on the next page. Although why you might be hoping that, I don't know. Are you okay? Is everything alright at home? Do you have anything in your life that brings you joy that doesn't also make other people suffer? Maybe try reading a book?

Deadman flees when ghost-possessed Abscess arrive on the scene. They take the therapist and Madame Waxahachie prisoner and drag them down to the Roman ruins beneath the church.

I guess some of the first marble quarries in Vermont were started by Romans?

Out of the three ghosts, only Lucian projects no hostility. He explains that he and his people arrived in Vermont due to chasing pirates across the ocean. Once stuck in America, they had nothing better to do than recreate Rome, I guess.

Once beneath the church, the ghosts outfit their new bodies in garments from their past. After that, they precede to call the two women witches and take them to an underground lake to drown them. Lucius doesn't seem totally up for this but the other two are all, "All women must die! I mean, all witches must die! That's what we meant!"

Above ground, Deadman possesses the corpse of Hugh and stumbles back to the church to save the day. But does he really need to save the day when DC has much cooler, more powerful, and far less homophobic supernatural characters? I think not.

Now that I think about it for more than three seconds, The Phantom Stranger might not actually be a less homophobic character. But he is cooler and more powerful!

Deadman: Exorcism: Book One Rating: B-. I'm not entirely sure what's going on in this thing. It started off so well with Deadman being all, "I DON'T WANT TO LIVE!" But then the story decided to center on the location that Deadman has decided to spend eternity pitying himself? But, to make sure more happens than the occasional horny couple wandering in, Boston decides to go on field trips to, well, Boston to assault gay people? What the fuck? I wish it didn't feel this way, because I like Mature Titles that deserve that title because they're just telling open, honest stories not aimed to younger people, but it feels like Mike Baron was told this would be a Mature Title so he felt he needed to throw in a few slurs, some tits, and the ass of a man who dies a few pages later. Anyway, I love the art!