Demon: From the Darkness TPB review:

Collects: Demon (1987 series) #1-4 and Demon (1990 series) #22.

  *Major Spoilers*

 Ah, Etrigan the Demon. Here’s a character of whom I’ve been meaning to review more material, especially considering my review of Demon Knights #1 back in 2011, where I went on an overblown and overlong rant about the history of the character. It feels weird to devote so many words to a character I obviously feel very strongly about, and then not bring him up since. I mean, if I can give Satan’s Six (Kirby’s somewhat justifiably lesser-known entry in the 70’s Satanism craze) a big overview on this site, I should review more Etrigan comics. I intended to review the four issue Matt Wagner series from 1987, problem is; while looking though my storage, I found that I had all issues except the third, so I kept putting it off. Surprise, surprise though, DC actually reprinted the whole series recently, along with a bonus story!

  So with no more excuses, it’s time to get out the chalk, black robes, candles, jagged daggers, bound young virgins and call up some fiends from the netherworld to help me review this sucker.

 This limited series takes place shortly after Alan Moore and other writers established that Etrigan was a purely evil creature (something that Kirby could never make up his mind about in the original run) and that Jason Blood was some poor guy who had been bonded to him by Merlin, like a supernatural version of Rick Jones and Captain Marvel (In the original series, it was more of a Thor/Don Blake scenario, with Blood just being an illusion/construct). Naturally, Jason is pretty pissed about this whole situation, but after centuries, he’s grown more or less resigned to it and gone to live at Merlin’s tomb in England, cutting off contact with all of his friends. However, Glenda (Jason’s former love interest) isn’t happy with this:

 She’s also been learning to use the Philosopher’s Stone, although she isn’t very good at it yet:

 Whatever her skill at sorcery though, Glenda has found what she thinks might be a key to freeing Jason from his curse. After looking through an old grimoire, she came across a woodcut featuring a demon that bears a startling resemblance to Etrigan:

 Even though Jason doesn’t see any resemblance, that’s clearly the result of some sort of mental block the curse has on him, so the two go on a quest to find answers, with lots of cliffhangers and attacks by demon guards along the way, who Jason has to turn into Etrigan to fight off. Eventually, they find out that the demon in the woodcut is Belial, and not only is he Etrigan’s father, but Merlin is Etrigan’s half-human brother. Thus, if Jason wants to end his curse, it’s Merlin who he has to deal with. However, is Etrigan also willing to be freed?

  This series is a pretty cool deconstruction of the original. Here, the villain isn’t Morgan Le Fey (or “That bitch Le Fey”, as Jason calls her), but Merlin himself, previously depicted as a kindly mentor figure. Jason’s characterization is also very unusual; he wants to be freed of his curse, but it’s gone on for so long that it really isn’t his #1 priority anymore. In his own way, he’s come to accept his situation. The main reason he even starts to take the final steps to salvation is less for his own sake, and more because Glenda ends up kidnapped.

  Glenda is also interesting. She’s no longer the damsel in distress of Kirby’s series, but an aggressive, no-nonsense chick who has had it up to here with the occult weirdness in her life, and refuses to let Jason just accept his curse. At the same time though, there’s also the implication that she isn’t doing this because she gives any particular fuck about Jason Blood, but because she’s thrilled at the idea of having the chance to pull one over on a demon and the most famous wizard in history. She’s had a taste of wielding occult power with the Philosopher’s Stone, and even if she doesn’t necessarily want more of the same, she at least wants a big pay-off to her occult ventures before she goes back to being a normal person.

 As much of a deconstruction as it is, there are still some fun shout-outs to the Kirby series. There’s a mention of that weird Golem-thing from the first issue, a reference to Klarion the Witch-Boy, and even word by word quotes from the famous Camelot prologue. Most writers doing deconstructions of characters usually hand-wave the sillier or stranger aspects of a character’s past to fit their take, or revel in them to the point it becomes obnoxious (I think you can take it for Granted who I’m talking about), but Wagner manages a fun balance, even if some things, like the fate that befalls Harry Matthews (the comic relief character from Kirby’s run, and an obvious Kirby self-insert) feel a bit mean-spirited (During the Alan Grant series, Harry came back, and he ended up becoming perhaps the single weirdest supporting character in the history of comics).

  The series is not without flaws though; Etrigan’s rhyming sounds more like poorly-written limericks to me, and gets really forced at times (Although Wagner is still better at it than some other takes I’ve seen). The big showdown with Merlin also happens so abruptly, so mechanically that it feels underwhelming, not to mention the fact that the whole series is told as a flashback by Belial, who has claimed Merlin’s soul and is recounting to him the events that led to his downfall while he tortures him. This would have worked better if it was unclear at first who it was being tortured, but it’s so obviously Merlin that you wonder why Wagner attempts to hide it. This move kills a lot of suspense. Also, even though Merlin is clearly meant to be seen as a hypocritical scumbag who gets his comeuppance, he does so little throughout the series (He mostly just sleeps) that his gruesome fate never feels all that satisfying.

 On the plus side though, Wagner’s art and storytelling abilities are at their absolute peak. Some of his panels have an almost Toth-like quality. Take out the color from the art, and it wouldn’t look out of place in some Warren magazine.

 Speaking of taking things out of the art, the scene with the woodcut has an interesting history. It’s from a real 1483 German manuscript depicting Belial called “Belial at the Gates of Hell”, but here’s the thing; in the original limited series, there was nothing depicted on the page!

 Apparently, no one got the memo to include it, and when Wagner noticed the error, it was too late to make corrections, and since it fit the dialogue, they left it in (That wasn't the only printing error, they also misnumbered the second issue as number four). Nice to see they added it in here.

  Also, interestingly enough, the same anonymous German artist who did that woodcut also did another woodcut featuring Belial, and in it he’s colored yellow.

 There’s also a different edition of that book which also colors Belial yellow in the “At the Gates” picture:

 That’s---eerie. I’m going to shut up about this now, because this is the kind of stuff of which Creepypastas are made.

  As for the bonus story from Demon #22, it’s a simple, to-the-point tale told in rhyme about a witch who forces Etrigan to save her beloved familiar/pet from a rival. It has a nasty, EC-like vibe where everyone gets screwed over. In some ways, it’s actually more entertaining than the 4 issue limited series because of how compressed it is. Wagner’s more mature art is also brilliant, although it seems to have picked up a bit of a Mignola-esque quality to it.

Yes folks, Wagner drew that Cock--with a cock

 This isn’t an earth-shaking volume by any means, but considering how rare it is for DC to acknowledge, let alone reprint obscure material like this, it’s definitely worth a blind-buy, and if like me you’re a fan of the character and artist, a must-have. 4/5 for what it is.

Poetic Justice!

  Ah, Valentine’s Day. Birds are singing. Gifts are being exchanged. The scent of love is in the air (Or is that scent in the air chocolate?). I hate it.

 Anyway, here’s EC’s famous story “Poetic Justice” from Haunt of Fear #12, illustrated by “Ghastly” Graham Ingels. This isn’t quite Ingel’s best art job, but it’s more than serviceable. Thanks to the magic of Heritage Auctions and Comic Cube.com though, here’s a look at bits of the art in black and white.

 Coincidentally, Fantagraphics is releasing a black and white Ingels-centric collection tomorrow called Sucker Bait and other stories, as part of their series of EC artists collections (I knew Fantagraphics was good for something!). How’s that for a Valentine’s Day present?

 

 Enjoy!

 



  I also should mention that this story was adapted for the 1972 Tales from the Crypt movie, with Peter Cushing as the Elliot character, called Arthur Gimsdyke. Cushing is absolutely heartbreaking in the role (in real life, his wife had recently passed away, just like his character), and the script thankfully tones down the cartoonish nastiness of the neighbors to make for more realism (it also implies that his neighbors accuse Grimsdyke of being a pedophile). The zombie makeup is also superb, scarier than the comic in fact.

 Watching it is something of a Valentines tradition for me. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for? Get off my stupid blog and go watch something that’s actually entertaining!

Top 6 Twisted Toyfare Theater Stories!

  Ah, Twisted Toyfare Theater. How long has it been since last we met?

  For those who’ve never heard of this series, it was a fumetti (photo) comic that ran in Toyfare magazine from 1997 to 2011 and featured warped adventures of various Marvel characters using a line of action figures from the 70s called Megoes. It garnered a number of big name fans during its run; such as Kevin Smith and Seth Green. It occasionally used some DC characters and 80’s action figure lines, but the Mego/Marvel toys were the primary focus up until around 2007, when it began focusing more and more on Star Trek and video game characters.

 Still, although mostly well-known for inspiring TV’s Robot Chicken, TTT was a strip once eagerly awaited by millions every month during its heyday of the late 90s and early 2000s. During an era of gimmicks, cancellations, limited series, beloved titles completely going off track, foil/holograph covers, pollybagged cards and Rob Liefeld getting his own jeans commercial, TTT was an amusingly self-reflective, funhouse mirror look at the depths the industry had sunk to, published by the very same people who had helped to promote all the previously mentioned vices with Wizard!

  Sure it was juvenile, lowbrow, vulgar, repetitive, sexist, loaded with pointless sub-Family Guy reference humor, helped turn an entire generation into obnoxious faux-cynics, was rarely funny upon re-read and tried too hard to wring laughs out of attacking kiddie franchises, but on the other hand…..it was juvenile, lowbrow, vulgar, repetitive, sexist, loaded with pointless sub-Family Guy reference humor, helped turn an entire generation into obnoxious faux-cynics, was rarely funny upon re-read and tried too hard to wring laughs out of attacking kiddie franchises AND IT MADE FOLKS LAUGH.

 Seeing such sophomoric nonsense like Hulk binge-eating Tacos in order to kill Redwing after Redwing gets lodged in his sphincter, or the Lizard being run over while carrying a flaming bag of dog shit is the kind of stuff which your brain tells you that you shouldn’t find funny, but that you do anyway:

 Still, for all of the cheap shots, randomness, stereotypes and lazy ‘parody’ characterizations (Spider-Man is an irresponsible jackass, The Hulk is retarded, Iron Man is a drunk, Thor is gay, Captain America is a racist pedophile, Daredevil’s blindness works against him and Dr. Doom is…you know what? He’s pretty much unchanged!), TTT was a strip that, when it wanted to be funny, would be genuinely funny. So here are my favorites:

 6)  “Idol Hands” from Toyfare #67: Some people may have taken it for granted these days, what with the Ultimate universe comics having basically become just a grittier version of regular Marvel and having been highly influential on the films, but back in the early 2000s, there was a very real fear among long-time fans that Marvel was going to stop publishing all its titles and make the Ultimate universe the “official” universe. Granted, there were also a lot of fans who thought that the Ultimates line was doing a better job, and welcomed the idea.

 This story manages to lampoon both sides when all the characters greedily enter an American Idol-style talent contest to win their chance at an Ultimate book.

 The gags range from uproariously funny to cringe worthy, some at the same time. We see everything from X-treme sports Mephisto to Captain America trying to prove he’s down with black people. Only a lousy ending involving tired jokes about William Shatner’s Transformations album keep it from scoring higher.

 

 5) “Seder Masochism” from Toyfare #94: It’s been sort of an open secret for a long time that Ben Grimm is Jewish, and this story milks it for all it’s worth when he decides to get in touch with his roots after deciding ‘Jews have it good’ (Apparently, he assumed his circumcision was a side effect of his exposure to cosmic radiation).

 Featuring appearances by just about every Jewish hero and villain in the Marvel U, this one manages to be hilarious and a scathing condemnation of how religion is handled in comics. Never show this comic to 4-Chan under any circumstances.

 4) “Risky Business” from Toyfare #82: One of the best things about comics involving villain team-ups is the downtime scenes with villains acting like regular people, and TTT got a lot of laughs out of the same method. Here, 80’s cartoon villains Skeletor, Megatron, Gargamel and Cobra Commander spend an evening playing Risk and swapping anecdotes.

 There’s really not much more to it, but if you look at all the things that happen in the course of the story, it all has a weird sort of logic at play. These guys were all potentially badass villains who were ruined by standards and practices, so it makes perfect sense they would revel in playing a world domination board game (since it’s the closest they’ll ever come to their goal), and the idea that they would all view Darth Vader as some sort of hero figure is oddly touching. Besides, you just can’t hate something with lines like “Go with God, Calcium-Deficient Smurf”.

 3) “The Way We Wuz” from Toyfare #64: The Thing, Northstar and the Avengers spend an evening recounting their origins; cue the most hilariously skewed versions of classic origins imaginable:

 This is my favorite:

 Although the take on the mind-screwing different origins of the Vision are also pretty funny (Seriously, what the hell is his origin?):

There are laughs galore, even from the unfunny and stereotypically portrayed Northstar (the butt of even more gay jokes than Thor). The only reason it doesn’t rank higher? The concept is too good for the space it is allotted. This one deserved a sequel or to be saved for a higher page count special.

2) “Project Greenlight” from 2002 Wizard Spider-Man Special: One of the big problems with comic book movies prior to Batman Begins was that they all had a tendency to trot out the archenemy for the first film and kill him off, making the double mistake of ensuring the use of lesser villains for sequels, as well as destroying the stature of some great villains. This story, released in a 2002 Spider-Man summer special when the first movie came out, parodies this problem by having Venom, the Lizard and the Red Skull (don’t ask) compete to become Spider-Man’s new archenemy so they can be in the sequel.

 So how do they intend to become Spidey’s new arch-villains? By being…kinda mean to him:

 This one is loaded with great slapstick, villains acting like bored kids, hilarious ruinations of valuable action figures, and the unforgettable sight of the Green Goblin blinged out:

 

 



 1) “My Big Fat FAT Wedding” from Toyfare #79:

 One of the biggest problems with modern comics fandom has always been how fans tend to write off a lot of silver and bronze age stories as goofy, but it gets really bad when they single out certain stories based on the covers alone. It leads to a lot of fairly decent storylines getting trashed undeservedly, and it also leads to disappointment when camp fans track down said stories expecting cheesy laughs only to find fairly unremarkable/normal stories.

 The infamous “Doctor Octopus marries Aunt May” storyline from Amazing Spider-Man #130-131 is a good example. It’s a fairly decent little arc which comes up with a perfectly logical reason for Ock trying to marry May (and was built off of a long-running subplot that had its roots going as far back as the first annual). It’s just a slightly off-beat Spider-Man story, with nothing really funny about it besides the cover.

 TTT of course, took the inherent humor in the concept of Ock marrying May and ran with it.

 It has its share of groan-inducing moments (though honestly, how else would a relationship between an obese tentacled supervillain and an 80+ woman at death’s door come off as?), but things really take off when everyone flies to the wedding and Ock invites the Sinister Six to be his best men. The laughs just keep on coming with jokes about Mysterio’s inconsistently portrayed powers, the most bizarre spoof of Nightmare at 20’000 Feet you’ll ever see, hotel room antics between Kraven and the Lizard, Con Air references and an ingenious way of ending the story that doubles as the most macabre parody of Spider-Man’s origin ever put to paper (Granted, TTT had done a similar gag before, but it wasn’t nearly as funny).

 There’s nothing really poignant or significant about this story (although, I honestly don’t think I’d know what a ‘poignant” or “significant” TTT story would look like if there was such a thing), but in terms of laughs, nothing else really compares. As Kraven says, “Dig in Tovarisch”. This is as good as TTT got.

~

 There are lots of other memorable TTT stories, but these are my favorites, as well as the ones I think would come off as funniest to people who shy away from this kind of stuff. Even Scans_Daily enjoys the series. I may do a follow up someday, especially since there are a lot of gems that Wizard never reprinted because of legal issues (there was a big lawsuit from DC comics which prevented the use of their characters) or because of gimmicks that made the stories impossible to reproduce (Like a story scattered throughout random pages to give it the feel of a wild goose chase). It’s something I look forward to, because, I never thought I’d say this…preparing this post has sort of made me miss the late 90’s-early 2000’s right now. Maybe I’m getting soft.

This will forever haunt my brain