DEMON KNIGHTS #1

DEMON KNIGHTS #1 by Linsay @softlyspokenlas

September 23, 2011, 10:35 am
Filed under: Comic Reviews, DC Comics | Tags: DCNew52, DemonKnights, DiogenesNeves, MarceloMaiolo, PaulCornell

Linsay and Craig talk Demon Knights.

Linsay

Paul Cornell has worked a bit of magic here in the DCnew52. At first I groaned when I heard his name as I do not enjoy Doctor Who and thought he was just in there as a name to bring his fans over to DC but I absolutely loved Stormwatch – both the writing and the art were top notch and so I hoped we’d be on to something here with Demon Knights.

Sadly, we’re not. I have now read this comic 3 times and still find it complicated, unwieldy with dialogue so bland I almost fell asleep. I’m over my jetlag too, so it was definitely the comic.

What I think this comic is about is the Demon Etrigan being sealed inside the body of a young man with unusual hair and who goes out with Madame Xanadu. Not sure how this works if she is palling it about with Constantine in JL Dark but hey ho. This should be a great book, dark magic, warriors, sorcerers, Shining Knight, Camelot, Madame Xanadu but its actually just a jumbled up rammy which I have struggled to follow. Perhaps I’m too daft for this comic. I’ll read some Naruto instead. The art is good but somewhat cliched and let down by bad story direction.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Linsay @softlyspokenlas

Craig

Unfortunately – I have to agree with Linsay, I wasn’t hugely keen on this book either. I think I knew going into it that it wasn’t for me, however after Paul’s sucess with Stormwatch the week before, I had high hopes that I would be wrong and come away with yet another book for my pull list.

Sadly though, there wasn’t much that caught my attention here. One of the only things I did like was the character of Etrigan – the demon, not the man. I was immediately drawn to this character after his first piece of dialogue – what’s not to like about a sarcastic and dry witted demon – however I was quickly disappointed as he’s merged with a human, who then takes center stage for most of the issue. It’s not until near the end we get another glimpse at the bad ass again. He’s so bad ass, he’s cheating on himself with old Xanadu.

I might be interested more if this guy had the whole comic to himself, kicking ass and making quips, but I don’t think that’s what we’re going to see going forward.

Again, similar to Linsay’s views, the artwork is pretty good. I don’t think I really noticed it until a further read through for this review. Diogenes Neves’ panel layout is pretty funky – not quite as majestic as Batwoman’s, but enough to enjoy looking at it. And Marcelo Maiolo’s colours are spot on. Because of the period this is set in, there’s a potential pitfall of making everything very boring greys and browns – but this packs plenty of purples and greens in it to make it much more interesting.

Craig @hastiecraig

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