John Byrne's star doesn't exactly shine as brightly as it once did in the industry, but DC clearly has a lot of faith in his abilities as a storyteller, as they keep green-lighting projects for him, seeking for that one that's going to turn a lot of heads. I don't know if this will be the project to do it, but there are certainly some elements here that made me sit up and take notice. There's a more graphic, darker approach at play here that we've seen in Byrne's work in the past, but not when he tackles mainstream super-hero properties. The story is thoroughly accessible while acknowledging past explorations of the characters. There are elements here that strike me as a bit too generic, though. This isn't a bad first issue, per se, but it didn't completely hook me either. The jury's still out on this one.
A dark sorceror has learned that Jason Blood has knowledge of the whereabouts of the demon Etrigan, and he has captured him in order to force the information from him. What the sorceror doesn't know is that Etrigan lies within Blood, but in mid-transformation, Jason is attacked and is left for dead. A Gotham City police detective gets involved when Jason's body is discovered, but she has no idea that death isn't the same concept for one whose life is immersed in a world of magic.
Byrne's work here boasts the kind of polish I like to see; sometimes, when he inks his own pencils, the result is somewhat loose and sketchy. That's not the case here, thanks to inker "Nekros." Still, there's a gritty and dark quality to be found in the line art that works with the supernatural and edgy tone of the story. The torture scene near the beginning of the book convey's Blood's excrutiating pain, and the sight of missing strips of flesh was certainly not something I was expecting. Still, the designs for the bad guys are rather generic; we've seen the emaciated monster leader in other recent samples of Byrne's work.
Barely disguised nudity. Swords cleaving creatures in half. A man swinging a severed head as a weapon. This isn't the sort of DC Universe fare we're used to seeing outside of a Vertigo title. Is it gratuitous? I'm honestly of two minds about it. The violence makes sense given the context of the characters, but is it entirely necessary to tell the story? Given how impressed I was with the torture sequence, I guess I'd have to say that it does add to the story.
Will Pfeifer's script makes for a thoroughly accessible story, even though obscure supporting characters from the title character's past pop up here. I also like the slight tweaks that have been made to the main characters, such as the new phrase that triggers the transformation. Dumping the rhyme scheme was a smart move as well. It makes the character seem like less of a gimmick. Pfeifer's script seems to ignore the fact that we've seen Etrigan as a villain the past, but it also establishes the air that this new development is a cataclysmic one. 6/10
