Writer: Monty Nero
Artists: Mike Dowling, Martin Simmonds & Monty Nero
Letterer: Jimmy Betancourt
Publisher: Titan Comics
Price: $49.99
Release Date: July 1, 2025
Sex can be many things. At its best, it celebrates love. But people also barter sex in the hopes of securing love. For many, it is a form of pleasure or diversion. At its worst, people use sex to dominate others. Even in the healthiest relationships, sex can spark infections or transmit disease.
Still, diseases can clarify what we want in life. They can bring us closer to the people we care about. Some can even attack the pleasure centers in our brains, making us happier while killing us. What happens when a sexually transmitted disease (STD) gives us superpowers? How might it change the world? Let’s leap into Death Sentence: The Complete Collection and find out!
Story
Verity Fette seeks love in an endless cycle of relationships. But she's always too self-absorbed to make them work. When her counselor asks what she wants to do with the rest of her life, Verity doesn’t have a plan. She knows the G+ virus will kill her. It’s time to figure out what she wants in the months she has left.
When the Whatevers broke up, Daniel Waissel continued as a solo artist. But the cult phenom struggles without his former bandmates in Death Sentence: The Complete Collection. His record label hopes the G+ virus can enhance his musical abilities and repay their investment in him.
David Montgomery enjoys a life of wealth and fame. The crowds adore him. “Monty” has successfully transitioned from a standup comedian to a movie star. He enjoys money and fame while using the G+ virus to manipulate others.
In Death Sentence: The Complete Collection, the Department of National Security tracks people with exceptionally high G+ ratings. When Weasel's powers manifest, the authorities realize they should have brought him in earlier. He explores life in a secret facility where they house patients with exceptionally high G+ ratings. The government hopes to learn how G+ enhances people like Weasel and Verity. But they miss Monty. And his inflated ego, boosted by years of despising his audience, fills him with the need to control others.
In Monty Nero's story, the G+ virus enhances a person's life in unexpected ways. For most, it boosts their existing abilities. But the virus endows a few with superpowers. The government wonders about the superhumans' appetite for destruction. With G+ slowly infecting the world, lying dormant for months or years to avoid detection, another Black Death seems unavoidable.
Art
Mike Dowling employs a traditional comic style to reveal Verity’s inner turmoil and Weasel’s struggle for a breakthrough. While the Rock and Roll lifestyle involves groupies, Monty fills his evenings with orgies. Amid the explicit sex and violence, Verity receives a plush apartment on a beautiful island. Weasel's ability to phase through solid objects leads to manslaughter. And Monty becomes the Scanner that David Cronenberg warned us about.
Martin Simmonds gives a lush, painted look to the second series of stories in Death Sentence: The Complete Collection. After helping save the world, Verity Fette roams the streets as Artgirl. She foils crimes with holograms of surprising beauty. The crowds follow Weasel, who enjoys the street festivals. But when he seeks solace, he glows as he uses his Kitty Pryde-like abilities to burrow through the dark crust of our planet. As superheroes like Artgirl encourage anarchy in the UK, Mayor Tony Bronson rages in London's City Hall. Bronson's unrestrained hair frames his wild features as he insists that he calls the shots. And in the UK government's fractured state, Bronson can declare martial law.
Monty Nero takes over art duties in the final chapters of Death Sentence: The Complete Collection. Monty Nero’s traditional penciling and coloring portray the characters amid realistic settings. Nudity, always obscured under Simmonds' watch, occasionally returns. But by now, the focus of Death Sentence: The Complete Collection has shifted from how the virus is transmitted and the ways people couple sex with domination. Costumed superheroes appear as a woman with a green thumb becomes a hellraiser. And on a remote island, an undercover agent investigates what Britain's Department of National Security is doing with all the G+ data they have collected.
Jimmy Betancourt fills dialogue balloons and narrative boxes with uppercase and lowercase letters. Font size varies, while volume swells letters, and emotions deform balloons. Sound effects amplify this story about the delicate balance of society, while white letters in black boxes conclude each issue with a quote inviting contemplation. Essays on the characters and situations reveal observers' reactions to how superpowered people are changing the world order. Thanks to Titan Comics for providing a review copy.
Final Thoughts
Terrorism isn't always about politics or money. People manipulate loved ones out of fear. Superpowers only enhance people’s ability to hurt and terrorize others. In Death Sentence: The Complete Collection, Britain becomes ground zero for a devastating attack from an unlikely terrorist. The rising pandemic empowers the poor and disadvantaged. Heroes arise while politicians scramble for control as governments realize that another arms race has begun.
Rating 9/10
To look inside see my preview of Death Sentence: The Complete Collection.
