Riding On the Great Metaphysical Coaster
The Good: This is an absolutely astounding cover. It's intriguing and engaging, spotlights the headlining character without being lazy about it; but really it's abstract and surreal in all the right ways.
As usual, Deadman's narration is really interesting. He always has just the right thing to say at every moment.
The artwork is a perfect kind of cartoony. It's so vibrant it almost feels animated.
The Son of Morning is so deliciously charismatic. He's the perfect kind of 'Luficer' character. Not 'evil' per se, he just disagrees with how things are run by the 'almighty' God. He's a devil pretending to be a carny, so of course I instantly imagine him with a coherent cockneyed accent. It's too bad we'll likely never see him again, he only works as a one time character. But DAMN does he work.
The panel layouts start out good, but break into phenomenal territory when they sych up with the flow of the roller coaster. Bernard Chang has been doing consistently great work on this arc. But then things get even more surreal, but we can still feel the general flow of the roller coaster, and we're not sure what's real, what's possibly an illusion, what might be in Deadman's head, or what might be the Son of Morning breaking the laws of reality.
The titular game of 20 Questions is intensely powerful and meta. It makes you think really hard, then turns around and almost makes fun of you for it. The Son of Morning gives such hilariously abstract answers, but they just make you think more.
The Bad: There's no action, but honestly that doesn't matter.
In Conclusion: 5/5
This issue is just so amazingly meta. The flow is perfect as Deadman goes from carnival to roller coaster to abstractness and back to the start. Bernard Chang does some mind blowing quality with his work, suiting the story like a catsuit. It's hard to say too much without just relying on the 'amazingly metaphysical.' So I won't. That's what this issue is.