The Last God is the strangest title I’ve come across yet in DC’s Black Label. It’s certainly not a famous (by comics standards) pre-existing series (unless this is one of those obscure “ran for ten issues in the 1970s” titles) unlike the rest of Black Label, which is mostly Batman-centric. Although maybe DC is trying to compete with Marvel’s godawful new range of Conan the Barbarian books with their own garbage fantasy series - in which case, it’s probably not selling as well but in terms of quality, they’ve matched Marvel!
If you asked me to imagine the most generic fantasy story, it would be what’s contained within The Last God. Lord of the Rings-type kingdom, full of humans, elves, mages, etc. fighting monsters. That’s all that’s going on here.
It’s written in a despicably highfalutin tone that only underlines its vacuity and flimsy, unoriginal and derivative content:
“First fell Olvargolad, capital of the empire of man, then the villages of the Aelvan nations, the pinnacle of the Guild Eldritch, once thought impregnable, and the frozen strongholds of the mighty Rivermen, who laid low the dragons of old.”
and
“See Veikko Al Mun, who men name the Ferryman King: holy assassin and first among the Aelva. See Jorunn, greatest of the Dwarrows, whose mighty arm felled the terrible wraith of the Karkarok.”
And it goes on in that vein interminably.
Dumb names - check. Stereotypical character types slightly misspelled - check. Flowery prose - check. Dull story (all they’re doing is killing monsters) - check. Reusing every trope in the genre - check.
As disappointing as most of Black Label has been for me, I’m confident that I’ve found the absolute worst title the imprint will ever publish - and that’s The Last God, Book 1 of The Failspyre Crapicles.
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