The Demon #1 pg8 (1990)

Gone, gone, the form of man. Rise the demon, Etrigan! A sulfurous poof, a painful transformation, and then enter DC’s most hellishly flawed hero, with a rhyming couplet and rakish, sharp-toothed grin. Etrigan the Demon is one of my favorite Kirby creations. One part hell, one part hero, with a healthy dash of horror. Maybe he helps you, maybe he hurts you, but you’re usually shuffled towards something vaguely resembling a Heroic Rescue. What’s not to love? I read through the first series as soon as I could get my hands on them.

Enter Val Semeiks and Denis Rodier, with a 1990 reboot of one of my favorite comic characters. I liked their take right away, starting smack-dab in the middle of Hell with the central conflicts of Etrigan’s existence: his love/hate relationships with Jason Blood, his eternal cage, with his hellish family, and even with Hell itself. And they delivered these dark stories in a great, cartoony style that worked for me.

And what a fun scene to get! Jason Blood AND Etrigan, Glenda, Randu, Merlin and Asteroth in issue 1, dealing with the central premise. A nostalgia hellfire blast to the brain! Thank you to my own decidedly un-hellish family for picking this up for my birthday.