A new dynamic comes into play.
Creative Staff:
Story: Andrew Constant
Art: Brad Walker, Andrew Hennessy
Colors: Chris Sotomayor
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
What They Say:
Jason Blood and Etrigan: the best of enemies, destined to spend eternity bound together. When a haunting vision leads Jason to Death Valley, a supernatural weapon is unleashed, radically transforming not only the land, but also Blood…and the Demon. The worst, though, is yet to come, as hell begins to make its way into our world.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ve long had an interest in the characters of Etrigan and Jason Blood and have enjoyed numerous books with them over the years, from series to miniseries and starring roles in a number of books and events. They’re not an easy pair to work with as their stories don’t seem to lend to long form storytelling but rather more defined events, hence being keen on this new miniseries. It marks the first work by Andrew Constant here, which means it’s definitely a good challenging book with what the characters demand, and we get some fantastic artwork from Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessy that capture the power of Etrigan himself but also really engages well with all the fiery elements that gives everything more life.
This miniseries is the kind of thing where if you have a basic idea of the dynamic you’ll be fine but I think new readers will be able to ease into it as well as Constant gives us a lot of it at the start. Focusing on Jason Blood as he’s drinking and trying to cope with being bonded with Etrigan, a demon from hell, for what seems like an eternity sounds like the right thing to do. It’s through this that we cover their dynamic and that Jason is dealing with some strong visions in his dreams of a child dying that’s haunting him. For Etrigan, this place in Death Valley feels like a strong magic location similar to others like London, Gotham, and LA, so he’s pleased to be here at the same time that it seems like Jason’s ability to keep Etrigan at bey within him is starting to ebb some, giving Etrigan some opportunities to watch out for.
While they struggle with this events are conspiring on a larger scale to come into play. One focus is on the child from the dreams who is struggling with not being able to sleep in general, hence their family bringing them on a vacation to Death Valley to try and change things up a bit. That all goes askew in a big way when under the direction of something demonic, a military general changes the course of a missile that has a specialized payload that the demon wanted on it that ends up landing in the same area where Jason and the kid are at. Suffice to say, it’s all an engaging setup even as we know the basics will unfold (Etrigan given control, the family turns demonic and the kid has to be protected now) because there’s a good sense of terror to it. The general has been under the sway of this demon since he was a child and that ups the scale of things nicely, making me really curious to see just how long term this plan is and if it’s truly all about Etrigan.
In Summary:
Though this does largely work the familiar setup angle of most miniseries it does it in a way that’s accessible to new readers while putting in just enough so that longtime fans of the characters don’t feel like it’s all starting from scratch. I haven’t read a book with Etrigan since… Shadowpact? So I have no idea of what the character has been involved in and it doesn’t seem to be necessary to know here. Andrew Constant handles the challenge of Etrigan’s speech pretty well with the rhyming and Tom Napolitano does the best he can with what I find to be a difficult to read speech style, something that has been used since forever much to my chagrin. Walker and Hennessy put in some great pages here and wonderful use of black space to work the tone of what Jason is feeling early on but also to really push the kind of squat strength and build of Etrigan toward the end in a way that just clicks in a big way for me. It’s a great looking book through and through and it feels like a proper Etrigan series that we haven’t had for what feels like a very long time.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 22nd, 2017
MSRP: $2.99
