NEWS!!
Before I get right into this column, I thought I’d dish some news out of the retailer summit in Baltimore that has yet to be reported.
Wizard announced at the summit that the next Millennium Edition they will produce will focus on… Michael Turner! That book is expected in the first half of 2005.
IDW also announced that it would be faithfully adapting Clive Barker’s all-ages Thief of Always in a 3 issue mini-series. They also announced that the next CSI DVD boxed set, next Underworld DVD, and the Metal Gear Solid 3 game would all include a comic shoppe locator in its packaging (to the applause of the crowd).
Wizards of the Coast announced that it would be releasing a collection of essays in a book titled 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons and Dragons. The forward is written by action movie star Vin Diesel and one of the essayists is Wil Wheaton of Star Trek Next Generation infamy.
DC also mentioned that the first arcs of the current Ex Machina and Swamp Thing series will recieve the trade paperback treatment in 2005. A second Gotham Central trade is expected in Previews soon. DC also expects a third League of Extraordinary Gentlemen mini-series sometime in 2005. Fans will also see resin Kingdom Come, Batman Begins and Constantine products in the new year. Bob Wayne of DC also called the upcoming new Legion of Super-Heroes series the “best treatment of the Legion of the Super-heroes since the time of Paul Levitz.”
Now, onto your regularly-scheduled column…
DEMONIC BLOODLINE
With news that comics creators John Byrne (plotter and penciller) and Will Pfefifer (scripter) are launching a new ongoing series with Jack “The King” Kirby’s Demon mythology as its inspirational starting point, I felt compelled to learn more about the source material. While I’ll be giving the new Blood of the Demon series a try, I knew next to nothing about the legend of the Demon beyond his alter egos of Etrigan (the “name” of the Demon) and his human self Jason Blood. I knew there was some rhyming here and there, some Arthurian myth, but that was all. After immersing myself in this world I quickly realized the complexity of it, which was particularly surprising for a character that’s essentially only 32 years old.
Disco Demon
While the 1970’s are (in)famous for being the decade of my birth, it was in 1972 that Jack Kirby launched The Demon #1.
In this opening story readers got a glimpse of the past and (then) present of Etrigan – a demon modeled after a, um, demon from ye olde Prince Valiant newspaper comic strip.
In the past, during the time of King Arthur and the Roundtable, the wizard Merlin summoned a Demon from the bowels of hell as a last ditch effort against an onslaught on Camelot by King Arthur’s half-sister the witch Morgaine Le Fey in her quest to secure the Eternity Book. Who was the summoned Demon? Yes, you guessed it, Etrigan. However, the Demon’s presence wasn’t enough to vanquish Le Fey and Camelot fell.
As a byproduct Merlin was left with a blood-thirsty Demon that he couldn’t control, but he also still possessed the magical Eternity Book. To ensure that his conjured Demon wouldn’t run amok on Earth, Merlin gave Etrigan a torn part of the book and tied his destiny to Earth literally…. and transformed him to a man. Welcome Jason Blood, occultist and demonologist who ages very, very slowly.
Flash forward to the “present” – 1972. The dual identity was unbeknownst to Blood until he visits a sorcerer named Warly curious about a strange parchment inscribed with the words Yarva Etrigan Daemonicus.
Blood travels to Merlin’s tomb, unaware that Warly is in fact in the employ of Morgaine Le Fey, a seeming immortal in the throws of death and who needs the Book of Eternity to recapture her youth. In the tomb, Blood learns his true nature when he reads a stone inscription: “Change! Change, O’ Form of Man! Release the Might from Fleshy Mire! Boil the Blood in Hear of Fire! Gone! Gone! The Form of Man! Rise, the Demon Etrigan!”
Le Fey transforms the Demon back into Blood and steals a powerful spell from Merlin’s tomb. Blood also learns that the tomb in Castle Branek is another form of the Eternity Book. However, none of this is helpful in capturing Le Fey who remains elusive although readers get to see that not only can the rhyme or Le Fey’s magic transform the Demon into Blood and vice versa, but Blood’s occultist pupil and United Nations delegate Randu Singh, uses ESP to force the transformation too!
The Demon seems more susceptible to magic than Superman!
Jack Kirby’s Demon series lasted only 16 issues and ended in 1974.
However, Etrigan would pop up in a few other DC books in the 1970s, most notably in Batman’s Detective Comics #482-485 where the Eternity Book was the source of much angst and eventually is… thrown in the trash and found by a janitor. The end. (Seriously. I can’t make this stuff up.)
Kirby’s Demon was a force for good and loyal servant to Merlin, but that would change over time by lesser writers.
Beans. Beans. The Magical Fruit…
While the incantation in the Demon series would force the transformation of man to Demon, the character was not perpetually rhyming until his appearance in Superman’s DC Comics Presents #66 in 1984 (10 years after the Kirby series ended).
Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego, attends the unveiling of a two thousand year old druid statue at Riverside Museum with Jason Blood also in attendance. Mayhem unsues as the pale moonlight bathes the statue and it comes alive in the form of… Blackbriar Thorn! Our heroes learn that he is an “earthy” druidic high-priest who transformed himself to escape his enemies. Thorn tangles with Etrigan and Superman, but is defeated by the Demon. Etrigan uproots the Thorn and consigns him to the patch of land he’s on. After Thorn consumes the patch’s energy… he disappears…
The most lasting impact of this forgettable story was the new constant rhyming by Etrigan.
Within six months of the DC Comics Presents issue, Alan Moore in the pages of Saga of the Swamp Thing #25-27 and Annual #2 adds more layers to the Demon mythology by explaining how Etrigan became a Rhymer, which he explains is a higher class of demon in hell. Etrigan was “promoted” and subsequently speaks in iambic pentameter.
Too Many Cooks
While the Demon has not had a successful ongoing series, he has remained a frequent guest star in many books across the DC Universe. Each creator has brought something different to the myth, for better or for worse.
Matt Wagner penned a Demon mini-series in 1987 that actually showed his lack of understanding of Kirby’s Etrigan. In that series the magical bond between Blood and Demon was broken revealing two individual entities. This turned Kirby’s mythos on its head as the Demon was envisioned by him, the King I mean, to be transformed into / possessed by a man – meaning he’s the same person, just in disguise!
Jim Starlin tried to “fix” this in his excellent 1988 Cosmic Odyssey space soap opera by showing a weakened Etrigan and Blood the longer they stayed apart. In this mini-series, Darkseid and Highfather, two other Kirby creations, re-merged them returning the dual character to full strength to help defeat an ancient evil. However, they were still now two entities inhabitating the same form, not the same person as Kirby envisioned – the damage to the mythos was done.
In 1990, scribe Alan Grant helped launch a new ongoing Demon series that lasted 57 issues with him at the helm of the bulk of series and Garth Ennis closing it out in 1993. It really was, sadly, a forgettable run, that carried the Blood and Demon as separate entities angle. Although, Ennis’ popular Hitman character debuted in the Demon Annual #2 and reached cult status in his own series.
The recent Demon: Driven Out mini-series was even worse. Jason Blood was temporarily replaced as Etrigan’s opposite number with a female host on the run from the Japanese mob.
The Dust Settles
After all these different creators “added” or “tampered” with the Demon myth (you take your pick) we are left with a tweaked or further fleshed out backstory.
Etrigan is the first born son of Belial and Rann va Daath. The second son was the human Merlin who was charged by his demonic father to control Etrigan. After the battle with Morgaine Le Fey in 560 AD and Camelot’s fall, a vanquished and exhausted Merlin binds Etrigan to a knight name Iason (Jason) instead of letting him run amok.
Iason is driven crazy by the new demonic presence within him and slaughters his family and commits other atrocities. He is dubbed “Jason of the Blood” by his fellow villagers.
Jason of the Blood, or just Jason Blood now, regains some semblance of sanity later and realizes that a byproduct of his hosting of Etrigan is immortality. An imprisoned Etrigan taunts Jason through the years… literal “mind games” if you like.
However, the Demon can escape for a little while and be returned when the following phrase is uttered by either one or uttered by someone within earshot: Change, change the form of man. Free the prince forever damned. Free the might from fleshy mire. Boil the blood in the heart of fire. Gone, gone the form of man, and rise the demon Etrigan.”
Although, the simple ending phrase of “Gone, gone the form of man, and rise the demon Etrigan” seems also to be enough to effect a transformation.
Unlike Kirby’s “good” Demon, this “improved” version of the character by a host of creators, was actually a vile and evil character at its core. Pity.
Byrne gets Demonized
Creator John Byrne is no stranger to the Demon. In 1996, during his tenure on the Wonder Woman series, #106-108 (in particular) John went about reconciling the two very different versions of the Demon that had traversed the DC – essentially explaining how Kirby’s Demon became evil and bringing the character back to its “good” Kirby roots in a fashion.
It is revealed that through some trickery, Le Fey, in the past, was able to fool Jason Blood into drinking a potion that turned the good Etrigan into an agent of evil. She further manipulated Etrigan into believing that he was a high-ranking Demon, hence the iambic pentameter speech, and that was in fact Merlin’s half-brother. The evil spell, that shrouded the Demon’s “true” history from himself was broken, but eventually reasserted in the same arc. So, for all intents and purposes, Etrigan believes that he’s evil, but we, the readers, know that he’s actually pure of heart and not really a rhyming demon.
That pretty much brings us full circle and its likely that Byrne’s Wonder Woman issues involving the Demon will be the springboard for the new Blood of the Demon series. Its actually compiled as part of the Wonder Woman: Lifelines trade paperback. You probably won’t need it as a Demon primer for the new series as Byrne likes to make his new endeavors friendly to new readers, but its a nice read going into the new title.
Miscellaneous Memories
For the first time ever, here is the sample review I submitted to the DOL that won me a job with this fine stable of writers at 411-now-the-Nexus in early 2003.
Supergirl #79 Review
Many Happy Returns for a Supergirl of Two Worlds adventure — Typically Peter David
Gorgeous Ed Benes art and “typical” Peter David storytelling make Supergirl 79, part five of their six issue series swan song “Many Happy Returns”, a fun read for long-time fans. While Peter David has been often criticized for his inaccessible writing style, I was surprised that in four page-one panels, readers are quickly apprised of what has led us to a a very different Supergirl (a Silver Age Kara Zor-el) zipping across the sky instead of the Superman-the Animated-Series homage Supergirl (Linda Danvers) that’s the usual series lead. However, that’s where my surprise ended.
I will admit that Peter David writes for fans like me who have read comic books for a few * ahem* years. From issue 79’s cover, an homage of 1985’s Crisis of Infinite Earths 6 “Death of Supergirl” cover, to a story weaved to feel very retro, almost a fusion of the old pre-Crisis “imaginary tales” where heroes wed and those “Flash of Two Worlds” type tales where heroes from different worlds with the same nom de guerre would meet and battle side by side to save their two worlds. You see, that’s exactly the potential problem with issue 79. Its not a new story and it really needs the reader to appreciate comic book history to fully enjoy it.
While Peter David tries to get the reader caught up on why we’re all here on page one, you slowly get lost from page two to twenty-two. I really wanted to passionately like this issue, but I kept on thinking that “this is what’s wrong with comics today” as I read it. It was fun, making me remember the stories I loved as a boy and still do, but this is the type of tale that gives reasons for fans to want DC to follow in Marvel’s footsteps and “Ultimize” some of its books. Its feels like its bogged down with 50 years of Supergirl continuity (interesting for a book that’s only at issue #79).
Its telling that the bulk of my comments so far have dealt little with the content of Supergirl 79, but rather the need to explain back story before the issue itself can be decently tackled.
Supergirl 79 starts of with a non-confrontation confrontation (yes, you read that right) between a cyborg and Supergirl Kara Zor-el in 2003 and leads into a Silver Age tale of Supergirl Linda Danvers and her “first” meeting with a certain Man of Steel. From there we jump frenetically between today and the Silver Age. We witness Linda’s mom going into labour in 2003, and see what life would have been like for Linda Danvers had she grown up in the Silver Age to the surprise, I’m sure, of some comic book purists out there, but I really don’t want to spoil any surprises.
With appearances by the “Destroyer of Supergirls” Xenon, the “major” villain supposed to be driving events, the Hal Jordan Spectre (whose origin requires much explanation for the uninitiated), and the Silver Age super-pets (had to mention them), Supergirl 79, although fun for long-time fans, is an inaccessible tale meant to thank Peter David’s loyal readers for being with him for 79 issues of inside-jokes and heaps of continuity references. It also sets up the events for issue 80’s potential wrap of all lingering plot threads — a tale of that will likely be a “Supergirl of Two Worlds” tale with both Linda and Kara joining forces to save their “worlds”.
With all the fanfare around retro properties like G.I. Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, Voltron, Battle of the Planets and others, perhaps new readers will enjoy Supergirl #79. I know us older fans will.
By the way, I know I said it before, but the Ed Benes art is just beautiful.
Your Column-Within-A-Column
Hi folks. We had a little column-within-a-column section intended for NMM. We even ran a contest to name it. We have two problems though. First, it seems every other Nexus column has a reader question piece. Second, we’re not getting much feedback (anymore) on our reader questions. (We are getting feedback on the topics of our NMM columns though.)
So, we’re going to give you, the reader, a chance to save this section of NMM. Perhaps instead of Chris and I posing questions to you, readers can send us questions to pose in this part of the column to other readers? How can we salvage this section of NMM? Should we?
Send your responses (or not) to jebabos@yahoo.ca
Cheers. Till next time.
