Now there’s a creepy cover!
This story REALLY reads like a Vertigo Constantine tale. It starts with two demons playing chess, preparing for the endgame…
And then jumps to Damon Hellstrom messing with a sign-bearing crackpot on the street.
That’s like a scene from almost every Garth Ennis book of the 1990s.
For the “B” story, we then meet a soul-stealer who takes souls out of Hell and puts them in the bodies of coma patients. (That’s a pretty cool idea.) So a bunch of rapists, nazis and pedophiles are now loose in New York. This allows for some quicker character-based conflicts and resolutions, while there’s a slow simmer for the overarching story of the “incarnate” coming for the endgame.
Hellstorm, with Gabriel, takes the souls back to the Gates of Hell, where he turns them over to Simon Garth, the living zombie.
Turns out, Hellstrom can’t return to Hell because his daddy doesn’t want him there. The cliffhanger has a father and child reunion…
…Strange to do a cliffhanger when the author is changing next issue.
There’s also a brief appearance by Gargoyle and Patsy Walker, who is still batshit.
I’d like to say that the bigger story “means” something, but the ending of it is pretty rushed. Even with that, this is the best this book has been so far—lots of D-lists occult characters, some genuinely creepy moments, and a narrative where Damon is more than just an exorcist.
I liked Len Kaminski’s work on this title. Also, I have high hopes for what comes next: Author Warren Ellis.