Editor's Note: Dead of Night: Devil Slayer #1 arrives in stores Thursday, September 4.

"One Foot in Hell"

I have to admit that I really don't know what to make of this comic. I'm not sure about the purpose behind it. I'm not sure where it's going to go. I'm not sure if this is the best approach to reinventing the character. I'm just not sure about a lot of things.

I've never really been a fan of the original character, but that's entirely down to the costume. That costume was just silly, so I never took him seriously. It was only over the past few years that I discovered that his first appearance was in a Deathlok story in Marvel Spotlight #33. Since Deathlok is maybe my favorite Marvel character ever, that makes me want to like him, but the story he debuted in really wasn't very good, if I remember correctly.

Anyway, that's a whole other character. Much like the recent Max titles, Foolkiller and Terror, Inc., this is a grittier, more mature approach to the character (although the original did have his gritty, mature side), which usually means cursing and lots and lots of graphic violence.

Writer Brian Keene's first issue actually feels a bit restrained compared to those other Max titles, which kind of surprised me. You see, Keene is the author of some of the best zombie novels out there (particularly The Rising and City of the Dead). They're not groundbreaking or anything, but he is a solid, workmanlike writer who knows how to pace a story and create relatable characters. He is very good at setting up his characters and then suddenly surprising you with some horrific violence that utterly changes the status quo of the story he was telling.

Now that I think of it, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the approach to this first issue, since that previous sentence pretty much sums up this book. Sergeant Danny Sylva is going back to Iraq for his third tour of duty, since things didn't really work out back home for him. So we have a character completely different from the original Devil Slayer, but he shares some similar personality defects, like alcoholism and depression.

Keene does a good job introducing the character and the situation, but there's nothing here that really jumps out and grabs the reader. In fact, most of the issue is a little on the boring side, and I don't really get the impression that it is an intended stylistic choice to reflect what life is like for soldiers in Iraq, with long stretches of boredom followed by intense moments of truly FUBAR insanity (HBO's recent Generation Kill did a good job of touching on this in its opening episode, as did the film Jarhead).

The final pages of this issue, however, raise the stakes dramatically, and I'll just warn you now; don't get too attached to any character besides Sylva. But up until the final page, this could still be pretty much any war comic. The last page throws everything off its axis and we are going to be heading into some disturbed, demonic territory.

Keene also has chosen to name a company of defense contractors who play an important role in the story, after another mainstream Marvel character: Bloodstone. I'm kind of hoping to see a variation on Ulysses Bloodstone show up somewhere in these pages. It's only four issues, so I don't know how big, or small, a story to really expect here.

Chris Samnee, who did the art for Daredevil: Blood of the Tarantula, and kept it pretty much in the "house" style for Daredevil titles, continues that approach here. There's barely any exaggeration and he uses shadows effectively to create a believability and realism that helps ground the book. It also helps to make the violence of the final pages more effective and gut-wrenching. And again, the last page is a game-saver, presenting the scene that while grotesque and disturbing, makes the occult elements work realistically. I don't know if it was just the fact that this is a comic about the military, but there were quite a few panels where Samnee seemed to be channeling the work of John Severin. And that's high praise, indeed.

I'm curious to see where this one goes. I've been more impressed with narrative voices of the first issues of Terror, Inc. and Foolkiller, but neither really made me interested enough to check out their second issues. So Devil Slayer has that going for it. Slow and steady wins the race, as they say.

---

What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!

---