Following on the heels of their skull-crushing first volume, James Maddox and Gavin Smith are back for another story that follows Yan, Red Death and the ensemble cast of Dead Legends.
After upending the traditions of the Dead Legends organization and becoming the prime target of the tournament master, Yan’s crew of exiled fighters have fled from one temporary home to the next, each time narrowly escaping the deadliest of Damon’s assassins. Increasing the seriousness of their situation is Yan’s newly born daughter, Yoshi. Keeping Yoshi safe and happy has become the group’s first imperative, but that goal is tanked as Yan’s latest hideout falls to attack and her friends are either scattered or imprisoned.
This action-packed opening kicks off the second volume of Dead Legends, and the hits keep compiling from that point forward. Dead Legends 2 takes our characters off the mountainous fighting grounds and into the monasteries, the cities and the outskirts beyond, expanding the world and introducing us to a slew of new threats.
While the first volume of Dead Legends focused on a widow out for revenge, Dead Legends 2 focuses on the cat-and-mouse game played against Yan by her pursuers, and the revolutionary upheavals that threaten the leadership of the organization that has infiltrated some of the highest positions in modern society.
The last time we saw tournament champion Damon, he was a drunken master in the ring and an aimless leader everywhere else. But now that he is driven to destroy Yan, Damon has taken a greater interest in his leadership role. This newfound instinct is an unfortunate development for Sarah, who had been running Dead Legends from the shadows while Damon bumbled drunkenly past his responsibilities. Now that Damon is diverting all of the organization’s resources in his crusade to find Yan, many of Sarah’s covert operations are starting to fail, causing instability to the world at large and testing her patience in the process.
While Damon is obsessing about Yan, the killers hunting Yan are all fighting to capture and deliver Yan to their boss. The standout star among these assassins is an acolyte of the late Blind Tiger called Tigress. She has been making herself known by hatching schemes that expose Yan’s crew at every turn, and while these successes have been raising her stock among her colleagues, her direct leader, Skinned Snake, is becoming worried about losing his rank to her.
As the assassins are closing in on Yan, Jee Sin and Stalk find themselves captured and locked in a Dead Legends dungeon. And while their bodies are imprisoned, their rhetoric that recollects the golden days of the tournament starts to appeal to the guards that watch over them. Slowly, a disconnect and a longing for better leadership starts to set in, and a movement of revolution is born.
Visual artist(s): Gavin Smith
