Demon Knights #15 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Isn’t it the worst feeling, waking up one day and realizing you’re young?

The Review: So we’ve come to the end of Cornell’s run on this title, and many more’s the pity, since it feels very much like he’s only scratched the surface of what he wanted to do with this particular set of characters.  It wasn’t even that long ago that they were first referred to by their collective identity as the Demon Knights, and here it seems they’re ready to never be identified as such ever again.

Of course, we know there’s no real danger of a permanent split, what with Robert Vendetti taking over for the indefinite future starting next month.  More than that, the strings of fate are wrapped tightly around the Knights, and despite their resistance, they’ll have no choice but to respond when the next crisis calls.  Horsewoman calls them fools for even attempting to thwart what’s been determined:

“To be offered hope—a destiny—and deny it immediately.  If you are still stupid enough to think you should be apart—then it is indeed the doom of humans—that they forget.”

Demon Knights #14 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Actually, Hell’s starting to look like a pretty peaceful place, comparatively.

The Review: Last month I felt a distinctly Secret Six sort of vibe from our cast of characters, which can only be a good thing, in my view.  Aside from the obvious connections (the presence of a Savage, romantic ambiguity, etc.), the Demon Knights share the same resignation to a loser’s fate as the Six, although both continue striving (fruitlessly, you might say) for better things to come.

Consider Jason reuniting with Xan.  Though overjoyed at finding each other and the prospect of ridding themselves of Etrigan forever, their happiness barely lasts a couple panels before bitter experience sets in.  Jason immediately recognizes that nothing so good can come that easily for them.  Xan agrees, but neatly describes the cautious optimism (the “desperate hope,” Jason calls it) the Knights all have: moving forward might at least give them “more options,” even if none of them are any good.

Demon Knights #9 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Diógenes Neves & Robson Rocha (pencils), Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira (inks), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: I left my love in Avalon…something, something…And so I’ll travel on to Avalon.

The Review: Now that our “heroes” have proven capable of amazing feats as a team, the next step is seeing if they can go any bigger and if they keep themselves together long enough to do it.  As it stands, they came together by necessity, and arguably only necessity keeps them together.  Yet there seems more at work in their union; considering how drastically different each one’s motives and background are, there must be some great destiny at the end of their collective road.

And does it get any greater than Camelot?  There’s no way to tell even if the Knights succeed in recovering Merlin’s soul, whether that means the kingdom of Alba Sarum will really be considered the newest incarnation of the fabled city  As a concept, Camelot doesn’t seem to be something which someone can create or even earn.  It’s a bit like performance; you rarely know what you did to resonate with the audience, and when you do, it doesn’t work.

Demon Knights #8 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Bernard Chang (guest artist), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Except for the demon choking you part, that’s a pretty romantic story, Xanadu.

The Review: Most of the great superhero teams come together by necessity; some disaster strikes, and there’s no one to face it except the heroes who happen to be nearby.  Whether they handle the problem competently or with much mishap, once the whole thing’s over and the dust clears, they have to figure out where they go from there as a group?  Can these (semi) randomly assembled characters find enough common ground to stick with each other beyond a crisis?

The Demon Knights may not be the best of buddies, to grossly understate things, but they did just go through hell together—some of them literally—and as the old maxim goes, you can’t experience such perils with others and not form some kind of bond, however tenuous.  This is the first chance we get to see how they interact without impending doom hanging over them, and how they behave at rest might surprise you.  For example, Horsewoman is of surprisingly good humor, thought that might be her multiple head injuries talking.  Overall, suspicion has been replaced with curiosity and perhaps resignation that they must endure each other for a while.

The focus of this curiosity quite naturally lands on Xanadu, who clearly has the juiciest story to tell, what with her two-timing both her human and demonic lovers.  The explanation requires a bit of telling and takes up practically the whole issue, and while it’s all very interesting, you don’t come away feeling like you’ve learned more about the inscrutable witch than before—and not just because of Etrigan’s highly outlandish side of the story (“I now pronounce you demon and wife!”).  The madam’s motives have never been clear, and though seemingly well-intentioned, she also has an ends-means streak that often undermines her trustworthiness.

Uncanny X-Force #21 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Greg Tocchini (art), Dean White (color art)

The Story: Nightcrawler proves he’s more Sean Connery than Roger Moore.

The Review: You know what, Greg Tocchini? You almost had me. I was honestly beginning to think here that you were using such thick, scribbly lines for an artistic purpose. I thought maybe the messy aesthetic to this book was intentional, and that I was simply too dense to appreciate what you was trying to create. But then I got to the last page, and I had the same sensation I experienced the first time I put on glasses. All of a sudden, everything came in focus. The lines became smooth and expressive, figures became distinct from one another. I actually double-checked the title page to make certain that a different artist hadn’t been brought on for the last page. But no—the same man who can draw such befuddling art for twenty-two pages also drew this last one. What on earth I am supposed to make of this?

I can only assume at this point that Tocchini signed on to this project and discovered too late that the printing schedule for Uncanny X-Force was about half as long as he would have liked, and thus has been forced to turn in rushed, sloppy art. Because honestly, what else can account for this? I can’t say the art is bad, because the layouts are all great and I actually really like the surreality of the visuals. But the lack of detail is criminal. Backgrounds look like mere sketches. Hardly any character’s faces look completely drawn. At one point, I though that one of Deadpool’s speech bubbles had been misappropriated to Nightcrawler because I couldn’t tell, until scouring the panel for minutes, that Nightcrawler was in fact carrying Deadpool’s head. This issue reminds me of some of those late Monets that look more clear the farther away you stand from it. I’m not being glib here; hold this comic at arm’s length, and it looks brilliant. Get a reasonable reading distance though, and it becomes a mess. Dean White deserves some blame for using muted colors that can make it hard to tell some figures apart, but the colors are not the root of the problem. Perhaps Tocchini should have had an inker assigned to him for this arc, or maybe he should have gone with a less ambitious style. Either way, this issue, while having tons of potential for being beautiful, is a visual eyesore.