And now, a special bonus feature here on the ol’ LiveJournal. A Mr. Paul Kienetz, known to those of you who frequent the Bad Movie Message Board as “Supersonic Man”, has contributed a look at another comic Kirby dreamed up for DC, the enduring Etrigan The Demon. Take ‘er away, Sonic!
The Demon #1
The sad fact is, Kirby's "Fourth World" titles didn't sell. And so,
before long, they were canned. He responded by thinking up a bunch of new characters, and this time, they diverged further from the paths he had worn ruts in at Marvel. For some of these characters, he reached back to ideas that had felt exotic and exciting to him when he was himself much younger. The most enduring of these new characters -- not especially popular, but refusing to die off -- has been Etrigan the Demon. My theory is that he has endured because he is awesome. When I first encountered this origin story as a kid in 1972 I thought it was one of the coolest comix I'd ever seen... and I still feel much the same way.
It's well known that Kirby was inspired in his design for the Demon by a Prince Valiant strip that had run decades earlier, in which the prince fashions a fake demon mask out of a goose, using the feet for ears. And the tale of Kirby's demon opens in the same setting: Camelot. On its final day of existence -- an army is at the gates, led by Morgaine le Fey. We see a wizard, clutching a book to his chest...
(They shall not take what they are after -- Merlin and his treasured Eternity Book!)
Next we encounter one strong incentive to read these old Demon issues, though there are only 16 of them: a signature of the series was that pages 2 and 3 were always a single gigantic panel. In this case, they depict the assault on the walls of Camelot. Men, arrows, towers, walls, shields, horned helmets, battering rams, fire, fire, fire everywhere. In these pages Kirby the artist did his utmost, and it is something to see. "The fates were bringing an age to a close!!!"
An explosion rends the walls. (BAAAAAM!!) "The new names for [these forces] were not yet born -- and men still called them magic!" Morgaine, having broken through, sends her men (and other, er, entities) inside. (And what is the well dressed evil witch wearing in the dark ages? A golden mask and a headdress bigger and gaudier than that of Galactus... yet pleasingly feminine.)
Her massed troops are thrown back by a single opponent -- "Legend would say it was a demon in the service of Merlin!!" And at this point, unlike how he is depicted later, or even on the cover, he's got two-tone skin: an orange face and yellow scalp.
The Demon's fight comes too late to turn the tide... Merlin decides it's over and calls him up into a tower, gives him a scrap of parchment from a page of the book, and sends him away. Then, with a wave of his hand, he obliterates Camelot. (BAARROOOMM!!) And the demon's hunched form straightens up... and walks away like a man.
(W-what's happening? All memory is leaving me! -- I - I)
And we jump to modern times and meet "Jason Blood! -- Demonologist!" So proclaims a gnarled old man named Warly, whom Mr. Blood has sought out as one of the few more knowledgeable in matters of magic than himself. He shows Warly the parchment, which says "Yarva Etrigan Daemonicus". It turns out that "Yarva" means "I summon". They discuss the great effort Jason had to make to track down Warly's well-concealed whereabouts. And Jason gives his reason:
JB: "A demon haunts my dreams! A demon
haunts my life! But to find a meaning in it -- I first had to find ---"
Warly: "The true authority -- a true sorcerer!"
Warly's response to this seeker for knowledge is rather surprising: he uses his magic to animate an empty suit of armor, which then does its best to chop Jason Blood in half. (KROMP! SHOK! RRUPP!) He dodges desperately -- he grabs a shield only to have the suit punch its broadsword right through it (KLUNKKK!!) -- and can't understand why Warly has attacked him.
Warly: "You'd better know the demon well, Jason Blood --- or you'll die!"
Jason's answer prefigures the approach that Etrigan will end up taking with a
lot of unsavory supernatural opponents in the forthcoming issues:
JB: "Then let the flame be my reply! Let the fires of the primal inferno give power to this burning brand!"
He grabs a burning stick from the fireplace and jabs it at the armor's faceplate. The suit explodes. (DZZWOMM!) Jason falls
unconscious. "Well done, Jason Blood!" says Warly... as he is joined by Morgaine le Fey. Who reveals what is under her mask --she's finally dying of old age, and the only answer is to find the Eternity Book. Her plan: to locate the tomb of Merlin by tracking Jason Blood, who will soon be called to it. How was she able to identify him?
Morgaine: "His loss of memory ever betrays him! It makes him hunger for his true identity!"
When JB comes to, the Warly mansion is a burnt ruin, and has been for years. The cop who finds him attests that he's used to hearing weird stories from those he pulls out of there.
Meanwhile, at Castle Branek, somewhere in Eastern Europe, a statue comes to life and walks... a character named Milovic shoots at it with no effect. He and a mustachioed gent in a goofy uniform resembling that of Kenneth Mars in Young Frankenstein only more colorful, addressed as "Inspector", watch a hole open in the ground and the statue walk into it. Milovic says they should go in after it and destroy everything they find...
Inspector: "It was tried, years ago [...] That's how I lost my left arm!!"
JB is at the City Men's Club, with his pals Randu Singh and Harry Matthews. Jason and Randu are sparring at some martial art resembling judo. Jason wins -- Randu noting that he seems extra fired up due to whatever happened to him in "Witches Brew, Vermont". And while later artists tended to depict Jason Blood as a tall, thin, rather effete upper-class gentleman type, Kirby draws him nearly as heavily built as his
alter ego, only with better posture. Harry's workout regimen consists of smoking a cigar and making wisecracks. As they towel off, Randu says he's bringing a blind date for Jason to tonight's party.
The blind date is a blonde named Glenda, who is, er, built in classic Kirby fashion. We'll see her again in later issues. She is very impressed with the Jason Blood collection of art and antiques. And... she notices that the paintings of Blood's "ancestors" all look exactly
like the Jason of today. One is a Rembrandt, and Kirby, in a rather clumsy bit of writing, tries to give her an excuse to say "you referred to
him --- as if you actually knew him!" But any minor clumsiness of this bit is instantly wiped from your mind by the following classic line, spoken while putting on a record and starting to dance:
Harry: "Let's get off the weirdie jive, gang! Let's rock it! Sock it! -- And send it first class mail!!"
Now that is unique and deathless prose.
Fortunately for readers who have sensitivities to prose, the party is then interrupted by a knock at the door... a stone statue. It's about the size of Shaq, only with a head resembling an oversized gray watermelon. With shades on. Which fit perfectly. It's also wearing a trench coat, dress shoes, and a cravat. But no hat. The statue delivers
a scroll, which asks Jason to come to Castle Branek. Jason is downright eager to go.
Morgaine and Warly see the whole thing. Not with magic, not with electronic bugs, not with telescopes... they've moved in next door and replaced the whole wall with a one way "trick" mirror. You'd think JB would notice something like that, given that his pad is not a ballet studio. I guess he lives a life where he's accustomed to the macabre and unusual, which would give ordinary people pause.
They don't even, like, whisper when they do their gloating over the guy who is still right in the next room. And they're fully lit. By weird
mystic smoky candles.
Jason and the statue ride horses through the town of Wolfenstag, people jumping out of their way. It's the last inhabited town before Castle Branek. The townspeople know that trouble is coming -- "The inspector
must be told!" Cold wind, lightning, up a rocky ridge, across a long causeway, to the castle. They enter the courtyard... and the gate is slammed behind them, and goons with two-pronged pitchforks (?!) jump them en masse.
goon: "The one who summoned you here must make himself known -- or watch you die!!"
JB: "Killing me won't be that easy!"
The statue, who isn't bothered by pitchforks (though they do stick into him somehow) clears the goons away from their target. And that's when Jason Blood hears the summoning voice, and sees the opening in the ground. It tells him that it's time for the awakening... and then it does something which would, in the hands of later writers, grow into a permanent un-eraseable contamination -- excuse me, enrichment -- of the mythos of Etrigan. It speaks in verse.
"Cross the border where man's world ends! ---
Where time and space --- and matter bend!
That which feared --- and that which ran --
Was ne'er the kin of Etrigan!"
Passing stone faces and flaming stone hands, JB comes to a tomb guarded by stone gargoyles. At the voice's command, they move and advance on him, snarling, then return to their seats...
"Closer --- closer --- Jason Blood!
Let thought run through you like a flood!
Powers that were --- are powers that be...
Like these, you live as part of me!!"
The voice ceases, but JB's eye is drawn to one inscription on the tomb... he knows instinctively that it is meant for him. He translates it, and reads aloud the words that will remain forever a potent part of the DC universe...and as he speaks, he transforms:
"Change! Change, o' form of man!
Release the might from fleshy mire!
Boil the blood in heart of fire!
Gone! Gone! --- the form of man - !
Rise, the demon Etrigan!!"
Morgaine and her soldiers are right behind him. She boasts that he's too late, her forces have breached the tomb. (And what does the well-dressed evil witch wear nowadays? Her headdress now includes a 'fro wig over a bushel in volume, and golden horns with a span of about 1.5 meters. And a cape, which appears to be hanging not from her shoulders, but from the 'fro.) And in the final panel of the book, Etrigan smashes through her men, scattering weapons and bodies willy nilly. The events of Camelot are repeated in reverse.
"Demons cannot be stopped when unleashed! What had been Jason Blood explodes with fury into the twentieth century!"
So what we're left with, then, is the loosing of a terribly powerful character whose real motives and desires we know absolutely nothing about. We have seen him in action only when carrying out the will of another... as a free agent what he might do is unguessable. All we can be sure of is that it will certainly make a lot of noise.
But Kirby's final narrative box does give us a hint... Etrigan will be "one of the strangest and fiercest heroes ever to battle the horror-cultures that have plagued this world since time began!!" So, apparently, despite his demonic nature, he's going to function as a good guy. And some say that this is just where the series went all wrong, after such a promising start: in having him, all too soon, take on a conventional superhero role on the side of the good guys.
But, I ask you... when had any previous superhero ever been this wild?
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