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The Dead Lucky

The Dead Lucky, Vol. 1: The Good Die Young

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San Francisco is changing. Tech consortium MORROW is buying up land, their peacekeeper robots looming on every corner—and wherever Morrow isn't, the local gangs are.

Bibiana Lopez-Yang is changing too. The incident in Afghanistan that killed her platoon left her able to control electricity—and haunted by the ghosts of those she lost. With some unlikely friends, Bibi might just have a chance to save her city. But against an enemy this powerful, it won't be enough to be good. She'll have to be lucky.

MELISSA FLORES (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) and FRENCH CARLOMAGNO (RADIANT BLACK) bring you the latest superhero story from the MASSIVE-VERSE!

THE DEAD LUCKY is a Massive-Verse series.

Collects THE DEAD LUCKY #1-6

163 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 25, 2023

6 people are currently reading
174 people want to read

About the author

Melissa Flores

130 books7 followers

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5 stars
28 (11%)
4 stars
83 (34%)
3 stars
91 (37%)
2 stars
35 (14%)
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3 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
Profile Image for Daisysbookmusings.
209 reviews13 followers
April 1, 2023
3.5*s

Never have I read a debut graphic novel that has so many fantastic elements from the get-go.

A story of fighting for your home and loved ones while battling your inner ghosts and trauma. Dead lucky feels not quite dystopian but more similar to a Black Mirror episode where corporations use technology to 'help and enable' our lives to be better with disastrous consequences. I enjoyed how evenly everything was explored from our protagonist's trauma and PTSD to Morrow's plan for San Fran and the rest of the USA.

If anyone is a fan of sci-fi you HAVE to read this. The colours are fantastic, the characters are all well-explored and you're instantly thrown into action.
Profile Image for RatGrrrl.
996 reviews25 followers
December 10, 2023
I really don't know how I feel about this one.

There's a lot of good, bad, and, just, huh? to this comic.

There's a lot to love about a Queer neurodivergent Chinese-Mexican American femme with electric ghost powers, cool suit and mechs, clearly influenced by the Power Rangers, which at least one of the creators previously worked on. I mean, unless you're someone who appropriates 'woke' as a pejorative. There are even recipes for things from Bibi's parents' Chinese-Mexican-American BBQ fusion restaurant in the back! An awesome touch.

A veteran dealing with PTSD that isn't oohra! and is treated respectfully by the story is great, though how the PTSD is shown, not shown, and how therapy is discussed is less great. Bibi's symptoms mostly comprise of seeing lightning ghosts of her dead squad mates and talking out loud to herself/ the ghosts/ the reader? It's used as an effective narrative device, as is a variety of thought, speech, and text bubbles in various places, at times like enjambment. However, it does seem to be played a little too much as a novelty, joke, meta-textual reference to fourth-wall breaking characters like Deadpool. Representation matters and, while this isn't perfect, it could be a whole lot worse, which, sadly, is what neurodivergent people have had to put up with. For reference, I have C-PTSD myself.

The art is pretty great and has some of its own style with a lot of influences. I'll be honest, I've read so many comics now that I kinda find it hard to judge comic art beyond the exceptional and bog standard. This is closer to the latter, but with enough of its own character.

The script is also pretty great as far as dialogue and characterisation goes. I don't feel a particular emotional connection to any of the characters, San Francisco, or the cookie cutter evil megacorp, but I was ready to be very angry and may have sworn loudly at a fake out a few pages before the end, so that's something.

Where the story falls down, however, is that the terms, players, and stakes are very unclear. This isn't in a grey, who are the 'good folx', really? kind of way. It's more, so why is the megacorp doing this in the first place? How do they relate to the local government? What is going on in the rest of the State, country, world? Are the gang/ domestic terrorists good, bad, or grey? Where do the mercs and weapons dealers fit in? Where do Bibi's powers come from? What actually happened during her last tour? Why do some become her electric ghosts and others not? Is she still doing therapy? What actually is the message here?

That's a lot of questions. Some are referenced, hinted at, inferred, brushed up against, snd/ or completely ignored more than others, but I just don't know what this really is doing or really wants to do. It seems like it's trying to be a bit more rebellious, radical, and transgressive, but without actually taking any significant swings beyond representation (which, again, matters, but isn't enough for a cohesive story). I think in some ways, while the script and so much more I enjoyed Infinitely more than Spider-Punk: Banned in D.C, which I largely found unreadable, there's a lot here that is just aesthetics covering up superhero business as usual, which is a shame.

Ultimately, I don't know if I care enough to wait and see if I get some or these answers. I don't know if I will read volume 2 when it's out. There are just some many comics out there that are actually being transgressive and radical in their storytelling and what they are putting across. We love to see cool characters, creators, and diversity in and on comics, which is something I absolutely support. I just don't know if this is the character or story for me.
Profile Image for Matthew Ward.
1,046 reviews25 followers
May 25, 2023
I wasn’t at all really enjoying this one. I never felt like I cared for the characters or that they had any real depth to them. I finished this because it’s part of the Massive-Verse, but it was a little challenging to get through.
Profile Image for Chris.
1,085 reviews26 followers
January 23, 2025
If the art wasn't as [mostly] good as it was, this would have been a DNF. The writing was nonsensical and choppy. It felt like there was a series before this one that developed things, but this is v1 so I don't think so.
The art particularly shined in the colors. Some of the posing and stuff was kind of cheesy and normally I like chunky simplified robots but not in the case of the fighting bots in this one.
I was going to move into v2 when I started because usually that's needed to really get into it but I'm not even going to bother in this case.
102 reviews1 follower
May 30, 2024
Another entry in the massiverse loving this and rogue son
Profile Image for Jaden.
17 reviews9 followers
October 14, 2025
Didnt really like it I liked the other massive verse stuff but this was pretty weak to me.
Profile Image for Subham.
3,071 reviews102 followers
May 6, 2023
This was actually a pretty fun read!

We get to see the character of Bibi and her powers and a little bit about her origin, not exactly full origin but we know she was in the military and when her squad died there, she sort of inherited their dead soul and they walk with her in this life as her platoon, and its kinda of an interesting concept and power system.

The setting is SF, and like we see how the city is under control by an organization named "Marrow" who uses armored cops and mechs to keep the population in check and its like one of those typical dystopian stories where its ruled by such things and so that presents an interesting challenge for the hero and also their opposites, the Salvation gang, people who have united to fight against these things and that presents a great dichotomy to it!

Its a fun read seeing these two fight and how Bibi is caught up in it and it does offer social commentaries on police controlled states and fascism and personal struggles of soldiers who wanna come home including PTSD and all which are handled so well here and if you read the backmatter you know how its so personal for the writer, so it was good to see!

Overall another great title from Massive-verse which continues to be interesting!
Profile Image for Shannon Appelcline.
Author 30 books169 followers
November 17, 2024
One of the newest Massive-verse comics just isn't that interesting, sadly. I mean, fighting against the corporate overlords, that's a pretty great plot. But the writing doesn't seem to know when to go long and when to go short, and so it just feels all over the place as a result. Beyond that, I don't really care about any of the characters, especially when most of them are dead people that get no attention.

Beyond that, it frames its story around the Alt-Right fantasy that San Francisco is a hellscape. As someone who's spent many hours biking and walking San Francisco: no, that's yet another Trumpesque lie. Yes, there are some areas (particularly upper Market, the Civic Center, and the Tenderloin) that have notable homeless and drug problems, and thus crime problems. But the actual dangerous cities in the US: Memphis, St. Louis, Detroit, Birmingham, Little Rock, New Orleans, Cleveland, Kansas City, Myrtle Bay, Denver.

(But that only really bugged me because I could spend time thinking about Melissa Flores' conservative/lie framing because I was mostly bored by the story.)

Two and a half stars.
Profile Image for Chris Lemmerman.
Author 7 books123 followers
March 20, 2023
With San Francisco under assault by the Morrow Corporation, Bibi, a recently-returned army vet, takes matters into her own hands using the ghosts of her fallen companions to power robots around the city.

As Massiveverse books go, I think this one's my least favourite. It's not bad by any stretch, but it feels a little haphazard, going from plot point to plot point without really linking them together. Some issues go full on into Bibi's mental health issues, while others just shove all that aside to focus on some side characters, or for the action to take centre stage. It's not very balanced, and it makes for a flawed final product. I still enjoyed it, but it definitely felt like a chore at times.

The art's pretty nice though. Again, not my favourite of the Massiveverse offerings, but French Carlomagno's style fits neatly into the world while giving Dead Lucky its own flair.

Dead Lucky's got all the ingredients to be very good, but it struggles to get the mixture just right. Hopefully the next volume manages it a little better so it can live up to its potential.
Profile Image for Sebastian M..
57 reviews
March 23, 2023
The latest addition to the Massive-Verse roster is...okay.

I found this one a bit underwhelming, especially because the premise is interesting. The story here is very plot-driven, leaving little room for character development (a shame because the protagonist's powers should make for a lot of interesting character moments).
The antagonists, Morrow, fall into the fairly standard big-tech/police state group that want to maintain control of the city through technological innovation (think Roxxon from Miles Morales PS4 or The Magistrate from Tynion's Batman); not the most compelling.
The Dead Lucky's design, color scheme, and powers are all pretty cool, though the mechs and robots are pretty bland.
Hopefully future stories can improve on some of these shortcomings. Still looking forward to this character's eventual crossover with other heroes in the M-V!
170 reviews1 follower
August 28, 2024
Another Massive-Verse book, another solid introduction to a really cool character. I love that these stories take place in the same universe but the space that they occupy in the world is always distinct. Bibi is a great character. A soldier experiencing PTSD may not be unique, but its the way she connect to other characters despite her suffering that's built out well. Her individual world is well made, where even her view of her own powers manifesting is intertwined with her condition in cool yet unsettling ways. Bibi's PTSD lends itself to creativity fantastically, with both the writer and artists going down some neat avenues to portray it. The ending didn't end on the highest note, but I am certainly still looking forward to her connecting with other heroes in the future.
623 reviews
May 10, 2025
2.5 stars overall
This is the most disappointing of the massive-verse books that I've read so far; it doesn't appear that the main character, Bibi's powers are linked to any kind of Radiant; the manifestations are completely different and her 'talking to her ghostly compatriots' took me beyond half way through the book to get used to.
Unfortunately, especially at moments of high action, the art by French Carlomagno can be quite difficult to follow and just messy (I suppose that it could be an artistic choice considering some of the themes about war addressed in the book).
I definitely didn't buy that the boss of Morrow corporation would come to meet Bibi on the site of the last battle in the book.
I'm intrigued as to what will transpire in volume 2, but only just...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Gunnar Long.
81 reviews15 followers
April 2, 2023
The problem I have with this book is that it feels very plot driven. Which is fine, but I really like character work. And besides Bibi I didn’t really care for any of the side characters, which there are a lot.

I think the world is interesting, the art fantastic, the themes solid I just couldn’t get fully invested because these side characters left no impact on me. They just kept popping up and each time I was more and more confused who they were, why they mattered and why I should care.

Hopefully Volume 2 cleans those aspects up because I really want to love this series the same way I loved Radiant Black and Rogue Sun but it just isn’t getting there for me.
590 reviews10 followers
April 23, 2023
The visual design for the main character is worth a star on its own, and I love the bisexual representation, but the rest of the book hasn’t measured up by the end of this volume. A sci-fi superhero story about a veteran haunted by trauma who employs a vague scope of electricity powers to fight a tech corporation who wants to take over San Francisco, the book has potential but doesn’t feel ready yet. Issue four was hard to follow visually, issue six had too many time jumps in different directions, and I can’t tell how this is supposed to connect to Radiant Black, a book that launched with a much more solid sense of what it was and how it wanted to tell its story.
Profile Image for Mazdyn.
113 reviews
September 15, 2024
There were parts I enjoyed about this comic and parts I didn't. I loved Bibi's character and her overall development, and the exploration of her PTSD is well done. However, the lack of explanation of the state of the world and the character's motives and the way you're just thrown to the wolves in regards to all of that leaves a lot to be desired and just leaves you rather confused. Some plot points feel really undercooked and a bit random as well.
I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. Instead, I'm sitting at a lukewarm "I liked it okay." I feel like I could love it if they'd just explained better.
Profile Image for Jake Parker.
70 reviews
July 9, 2023
I appreciated the concept behind this new hero in the Massiveverse series of heroes but… the explanation of the main character’s powers were a mess and the last two chapters were pretty chaotic. I felt myself taking steps back and wondering just what exactly was happening and… I don’t have the motivation to go back and reread it and interpret it. The resolution was also not at all rewarding and out of left field for sure.

So in summation: a new superhero with interesting powers and action scenes that weren’t at all easy to follow makes The Dead Lucky a comic book. And that’s it.
Profile Image for London Heady.
217 reviews
July 21, 2023
Frustrating because this starts out brilliantly, hits the ground running with a force that I haven't witnessed in a lot of comics, and then completely misses it's ending. It sets up an intriguing continuation in the future but the last two issues in this just aren't very good. The antagonist force is so generic and almost absent that it's hard to feel the danger the characters are supposedly in.

Has some really strong characterization and great art, but that ending really ruined a lot of the momentum the book has going previously.
Profile Image for Adie.
41 reviews
January 7, 2024
It was okay. The art and the usage of color was phenomenal, but the pacing was off and the time skips could be annoyingly abrupt. It felt like everything was happening a bit too fast. Ig it worked well w the protag’s state of mind but i would’ve preferred it to slow down a bit. I wish bibi’s powers and their origin had been touched on more, as well as the relationship between her trauma and powers. Honestly, if the pacing issues were fixed, and there was a bit more exposition, I prob would’ve loved this but nope
Profile Image for Megan.
610 reviews17 followers
July 13, 2024
Actually 3.5 stars.

This is a little outside of my normal wheelhouse a dystopian sci-fi with a lot of political vibes where you aren't sure who you can or can't trust, and a rogue MC who may not be making decisions for the right reasons. Mixed with a bunch of stuff I do like: futuristic sci-fi, an inexplicable magic component, ghosts, San Francisco and super cool fusion food. I read the whole book in one setting and have already borrowed the next one from the library, so I'm still interested and engaged. I'll let you know how volume 2 goes.
Profile Image for Wyatt.
68 reviews
January 12, 2025
It's got bite in it but it's spread too thin. We don't end up with many things I care about despite those things being interesting. I have to believe it simply didn't have the opportunity to take things slow, which would've made everything work out much better than it does. I'm happy to see that the series continues and it has the opportunity to make improvements. The ending gives me hope for a grounded mini restart.

I'll let myself rant real quick. We do NOT need the characters acknowledging Bibi everytime she breaks the fourth wall. It's driving me UP a wall.
Profile Image for Bryce Perry.
149 reviews1 follower
May 20, 2025
I enjoyed the characters and I enjoyed the story so why only 2 stars? Because every time I flipped the page it felt like there was a scene missing. I get sudden transitions between characters, locations, times, but this was like two characters having a conversation at the end of page 3 and then on page 4 they're having the same conversation but it's twenty minutes later. What was said in that missing time? Lord knows, but it just kept happening and really detracted from the character development scenes.
Profile Image for Bekka.
1,207 reviews35 followers
September 21, 2023
This took me a while to get into, as it's part of a larger universe that I haven't read yet, but it was still a great time. I loved the conversations around corporations taking over, how people fight for their rights, etc. And BiBi's powers were awesome, I loved getting to know her and her troop, better!
TW for death, grief, survivor's guilt, corporate greed, violence, mentions of terrorism, arrests, false arrest, police brutality, corruption in the police force.
Profile Image for aaron.
1,208 reviews15 followers
November 19, 2023
I found myself really enjoying this one. The first volume of the Dead Lucky is a solid fare with some incredible artwork. Bibi is an interesting character with a cool set of powers and a backstory I've not really heard in comics. She loses her unit in the war in Afghanistan and ends up with electricity powers and also the ghosts of her unit in her head. They are actually able to inhabit mechs and it makes for some cool moments. I look forward to more as I think it can get stronger as well!
Profile Image for Gonçalo Bernardes.
Author 2 books4 followers
April 21, 2024
The Dead Lucky, my next step in the Massive verse!! I enjoyed this one!! It continues Massive verse tradition with top notch art, the story was not as engaging as Rogue Sun, maybe around the level of Radiant Black, but I did love Bibi’s character!!✨ she was bold, she felt like a real ex-soldier, and was very interesting exploring her PTSD and trauma, loved it. Overall enjoyed it and intrigued to see how she will crossover in Supermassive!
Profile Image for Santiago Girón.
156 reviews7 followers
June 4, 2025
Strong ending.
I could have given it 4 stars instead but i gotta admit it was a bit messy at times
However very strong story and characters. From the very start the premise, the plot and the MC were all very fun and interesting, not to mention original.
Best part is the costume design (she's got a gun!!!!)

Shift is really starting to feel like the Massive-Verse's Agent Coulson: just a guy who shows up in every title.
Profile Image for Jenna.
3,809 reviews49 followers
October 5, 2024
A high two stars. Intriguing concept but too quickly implemented to care much for the characters, despite the local and near future setting. The romance seemed very haphazard but I wish I could've shipped the characters.
Profile Image for Kamen Rider Ben.
443 reviews6 followers
June 7, 2025
Definitivamente la serie más débil del Massive Verse que he leído hasta ahora, aún así un 3.5 sigue siendo por encima de la calidad media del comic en general, realmente me encanta la premisa, la protagonista y al final de este volumen me llena de esoeranza para lo que puede venir después
Profile Image for Zach.
361 reviews
July 16, 2023
Meh. The story is hard to track at times and the action is choppy as well. The coloring and the world is interesting but this just needed more time to be polished.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews

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