Friday, November 14, 2008

Reign in Hell #4

There is a lot to like in this series. We’ve got the remnants of the Shadowpact team plus some nice magic characters (Ibis, Dr. Fate, Etrigan, etc.) taking the sides of rebellion in Hell, trying to overthrow Neron’s rule. The rebellion is led by Satannus and his sister Blaze, and they are being aided by Zauriel and the Earth heroes. When written like that, the story seems clear, but there are so many minor demons with big speaking parts that I’m getting lost. I remember Asmodel from Morrison’s fallen angel story, but I’m lost on the rest. I’m kind of lost in all the pseudo-military talk from all these similar demons. Almost like this series is falling into a long-standing theory: Giffen does his best works when plotting and working with a scripter. This issue devotes a bunch of pages to Blue Demon taking on Etrigan and doing better than I would expect. We do have the nice side-effect of accidentally freeing a certain main man from Hellish prison.

Tom Derenick’s art is a tad on the muddy side, probably from the inking. The DCU heroes look good, but as I said, I’m lost when dealing with the faceless demons. He does a nice job making Hell look like another alien world of the DCU.

Fair

1 comment:

Always Right said...

I really tried to like this series. The first issue felt like some crossover special from the eighties like Millenium or Invasion. The second issue just made me care less. Sienkiewicz should never ink a traditional penciler. Two styles that don't work together. I did like the back up story, but didn't want to pay so much for 8 pages of Dr. Occult.