3 out of 5

Finally, some actual character work in the series, and wouldn’t ya know, we have an event to thank!

With 1994’s Zero Hour DC’s then-attempt at a line-wide reset, the month after saw their books’ numbering temporarily halted for a ‘zero issue,’ which would theoretically tell us the new, post-event status quo.  Since The Demon was presumably outside of most of the shenanigans, Garth – and some other series certainly went this path too – used the opportunity to go over Etty’s and Blood’s origin.

Merlin stops by casa de Blood, fresh out of Hell and having spied The Demon’s new offspring, and wants to team up with JB to thwart whatever is in the works.  Blood, in return, asks Merlin to remove the mental blocks Etrigan has put in place which keep Jay from remembering his past.  And thus: Issue zero, a flashback outlining the Jason Blood and Demon meet cute.

If The Demon, thus far, hasn’t really felt like any particularly notable version of Garth’s style, issue zero finally plumbs into the depressive, questioning-morality depths he can be so skilled at, and also ‘proves‘ the point issue 50 had failed to: that at one point, Jason was a willing Demon teammate, and he was not a good person.

What’s interesting is that you can see how the narrative would have worked without this issue – Merlin begs for help in issue 51, and Jason could have agreed without the background in 0 – but having this information inform his decision gives the book the emotional investment its thus far been missing.

And thank goodness for that, as issue 51… isn’t very good.  Guest artist Chris Alexander does okay with the bloody stuff but his humans look broken – Glenda might be the ugliest pregnant woman ever drawn – and letterer Bob Lappan does this really odd distracting block lettering style.  Unfortunately, This is primarily a dialogue issue, bickering between odd couple Merlin and Jay, and so broken humans is mostly what you get.  And speaking of Glenda: she’s still nothing but a plot hanger-on; a literal vessel for a kid story line and that’s about it.

Which, as has been the case with much of Garth’s run on this title, lands us about in the middle, quality wise.  One good issue isn’t enough to sway me, but lets see if Ennis manages to build on what he started.