There are plenty of demons in comics, but only one is 'The Demon' and that is Etrigan. He was created by Jack Kirby in response to demand from DC for a horror character. His Fourth World series had just been cancelled and apparently he was annoyed that Demon #1 did so well and he had to do 16 issues and abandon the Fourth World before he was done with it. Demon's look was based on a story in the comic strip Prince Valiant, when he dressed up as a demon for a fancy dress party.
Demon debuted in Demon #1, 1972 alongside regular supporting characters, Glenda Mark, Harry Matthews and Randu Singh. Also debuted were the evil sorceress Morgaine Le Fay and Etrigan's half brother Merlin.
His origin has been retconned a little over the years but Etrigan was trapped inside the body of a man, Jason Blood, back in the time of Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. To call forth the demon when he is needed, Blood chants
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!!
Later this has mostly been shortened to just the last 2 lines or sometimes "Yarva Daemonicus Etrigan".
To change back the chant is
Gone now, O Etrigan
And rise again (or rise once more) the form of man!
In the 1st run Etrigan was made to flee Camelot by his half brother Merlin to protect the Eternity Book from Morgaine Le Fey.
The next time Etrigan got his own book was a 4-part series by Matt Wagner in 1987. In this run we discover that Etrigan's father is Belial an Archduke of Hell.
Demon next appears in the anthology title Action Comics Weekly #636 - 641 running from January 1989, it was written by Alan Grant.
Jason Blood and Glenda are still looking at ways to rid him of The Demon who shows his vicious nature, in one issue, he hellfire cooks and eats a lesser demon Malefik that was possessing a young boy.
This leads to volume 3, the one I show off in the video, initially written by Alan Grant with great art by Val Semeiks & Denis Rodier. It ran for 59 issues, 5 years, with Garth Ennis and John McCrea taking over the reins from #40, they also created the character Hitman in The Demon Annual #2 (1993) during the Bloodlines event. He proved to be the most popular of the new characters introduced at this time getting a significant book run of his own.
The humour of this title particularly with the Alan Grant run makes for some of my favourite comics of all time. I read them with my girlfriend at the time, I think when we split up she wanted to keep them so I had to re-buy them all, we may have had our disagreements but we both agreed that Demon was a hellishly good read.
Demon has had a few runs since this one and I have collected, most, if not all of them, and although good, none of them compare in my mind to this one.
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| Demon is NOT scared of tugging on Superman's cape |
Demon: Driven Out ran for 6 parts from November 2003. Written by Joshua Dysart with art by Pop Mhan, Art Thibert and Jake Crippen.
Jason Blood cuts a deal with a cult of modern-day alchemists to divorce him from the Demon for good. But when the ceremony goes horribly wrong, Etrigan must mix it up with street racers and the Yakuza mob!
From 2005 - 06 we had Blood of the Demon, running for 17 issues this was created by John Byrne and Will Pfeifer.
With the launch of the New 52 Etrigan was involved in a team book set in medieval times, The Demon Knights, alongside other immortal DC characters like Madame Xanadu, Vandal Savage, the Shining Knight and a few new heroes created specially for the title. It ran for 23 issues and this was around the time that I had to quit buying for various reasons so I don't have the full run. I really need to buy the ones I am missing now I am back in to buying them a bit again.
It's The Demon, Etrigan with a flipping big sword!! What is not to like??
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