2 out of 5

Remember that spot of emotional connection Garth finally managed to inject into The Demon after almost a year of floundering on the title?  The follow up, the three part Suffer the Children, capitalizes on that by… reducing Jason back to a mope, only tenfold more mopey; relegating the already-relegated Glenda to a fairly left field ‘hysterical woman’ trope; losing any sense of setting as our main set piece becomes “rubble;” executing Etrigan’s demon-baby “plan”  in a completely lackluster fashion; and whipping out multiple Deus ex machinas that are rather hilarious in their complete lack of justification.

Hitman’s pretty good here, though, and his final scenes almost makes the arc worth it.  McCrea’s art also looks dammed delightful, the artist having streamlined his line quite a bit, solidified by Stuart Chaifez’s excellent colors.

So Glenda’s kid is born, only to be stolen by The Demon to use as part of his something-something devil baby plan.  Hitman, Merlin and Blood fend off some Etrigan-dispatched zombies while JB figures out how to come out on top.

See my list above for the gist on how that all goes.

Issue 53 essentially – spoilers warning – wipes the slate clean for the book, freeing Garth to start things over with a fresh cast, if he’d chosen.  Perhaps he felt hemmed in by what I considered lacking in this book, which was the charcacters’ lacking sense of history.  Time and again Garth has proven great at writing parts that feel lived in, and The Demon never achieved that.  Our lead was a bore, and the supporting cast felt like one note cut-outs.  Was it like that before?   I can’t say, but regardless, the setup clearly didn’t inspire Ennis’ best, and he was led down this reset path, though he proceeded clumsily.  I suppose I can appreciate his giving things a fair shake before shaking them off, but by the time we got here, low sales would prompt the book’s cancellation after its next, and final, arc.