Warning: contains spoilers for DCeased: War of the Undead Gods #8!The universe has long been under threat by Darkseid in his search for the Anti-Life Equation, but Darkseid just came face to face with the physical form of what he’s been searching for – and the result is terrifying.
Readers get to see the true form of the Anti-Life Equation in DCeased: War of the Undead Gods #8 by Tom Taylor, Trevor Hairsine, Lucas Meyer, Andy Lanning, and Rain Beredo. After Darkseid accidentally corrupted the Anti-Life equation, he drew the attention of a primordial god, one that had long ignored the DC Universe. Darkseid had unintentionally gotten the attention of Erebos, the Greek God of Darkness. Erebos brought a dark crisis by driving everyone who was infected with the Anti-Life Virus into a violent frenzy, and the remaining heroes eventually decide to take the fight to Erebos directly, where readers finally get to see the Anti-Life Equation in its true physical form. What was long thought to just be a mathematical equation was actually part of the literal personification of darkness.
Darkseid Takes on the Anti-Life Equation
The Anti-Life Equation is a transcendental mathematical formula that allows anyone who knows it to dominate all free will. It has been Darkseid’s goal for about as long as Darkseid has existed in comics. If Darkseid is able to find the equation, there will be no more resistance, and Darkseid will be able to rule over all life in the universe with no issues. This is what led Darkseid to try and force the Anti-Life Equation out of Cyborg in the DCeased universe, but to try and force the Equation out, he fused it with an aspect of death. This fusion of nullification of free will and death itself allowed Erebos, the God of Darkness, to seep into the universe. This threat was so large Darkseid even joined the Justice League to fight against it.
Erebos Is The Darkness At The End Of Everything
When the heroes finally manage to confront Erebos, it’s a terrifying sight. Erebos is absolutely massive in stature and power. According to Ares, Erebos had destroyed many universes before Darkseid accidentally drew his attention to the universe of DCeased. This battle took the absolute heaviest hitters DCeased’s universe had to offer, including two Supermen, the Spectre, Ares, Black Racer, and Darkseid himself. After decades of looking for the Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid finally found the source of it, and he found it not to use it, but to destroy it. While Erebos was eventually destroyed due to the heroes’ combined efforts, it was still one of the most terrifying enemies ever faced in comics. Erebos was the literal personification of not just Darkness, but of total lack of free will as well. The “zombies” under Erebos control, as pointed out by Batman, were not driven by hunger, but simply by the desire to snuff out all life. Erebos is also a multiversal presence – a being whose influence seeps into every reality.
Anti-Life is one of the great creations of the DC Universe, positing the erasure of freedom as the ultimate evil. Now, that ultimate evil has been revealed as a horrifying, squid-like deity beyond time and space – one who, when it comes down to it, Darkseid would rather kill than serve.
DCeased: War of the Undead Gods #8 is now on sale from DC Comics!
