What I Bought 1/25/2018

I was out of town for work most of the week, but during my travels I did stumble across a comic store. I found about a dozen back issues I was looking for on the cheap, and one book from this week. Better than none.

The Demon: Hell is Earth #3, by Andrew Constant (writer), Brad Walker (penciller), Andrew Hennessy (inker), Chris Sotomayor (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - That's how most of the bonfires I've attended end, with some drunk idiot falling in the fire.

As it turns out, Etrigan didn't burn a small child to death, because the small child was already dead, and her corpse was being used as a hidey-hole by Etrigan's half-brother Merlin. Merlin had been press-ganged into helping their father with this plan for Hell to overtake Earth, and has used the wild scene after the nuke went off to escape and try hiding.

Ah, the old, "Run away and used a child's corpse as a shell while you try to find someone to save your miserable butt" plan. Anyway, he didn't think he'd find any help, and considering how everyone present hates him, he still may not have. But Etrigan's uncle finds them, and starts talking shit to Etrigan, which ticks him off and makes him determined to screw up his father's plans. Spite is the grease the keeps the wheels of the world turning.

Constant has Etrigan choosing to rhyme or not, rather than the rhyming being a mark of his station in Hell's hierarchy, as it has been at other times. He seems to rhyme when he's excited or fired up about something, which makes sense if we assume it takes some effort, rather than occurring naturally. He'd have to have the energy and interest to do it. That said, I don't think rhymes are a strength of Constant's. Most of them seem pretty basic, or else forced. Do "through" and "coup" really work as a rhyme?

I'm not sure it's a great sign it took half of the six issues allotted just to get the "team" together, and I'm not sure at this point what use Blood is at all. As a source of commentary on Etrigan or Merlin, he can be entertaining, but I assume eventually he might be useful to the plot?

Walker, Hennessy, and Sotomayor get a chance for a messy fight scene, as Etrigan starts dismembering demons, decapitating demon horses, and punching his fists clean through enemies. It's a brief fight, but effective for showing off his destructive power, and giving the audience reason to think these four might have some chance at fighting Hell's armies, even if Etrigan's going to do most of the heavy lifting. And I may not be sure about the rhyme, but that's a pretty good panel of Etrigan there, just for looking cool in his glee about what he's going to do.