Lucifer #2

Aug 1990. Cover price £1.10.
28 pages. B&W contents.
Trident Comics.

Edited by Martin Skidmore.

Cover by Paul Grist.

Contents:

 2 Credits; illustration by Paul Grist. / Indicia

 3 Lucifer, part two, Book Two w: Eddie Campbell; a: Paul Grist.

27 A Different Kind of Antichrist... in-house advertisement for The Saviour; illustration by Nigel Kitching.

See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance to waste and havoc yonder world.

John Milton, PARADISE LOST, 1667.

Lucifer, now firmly ensconced as the new King of Hell, takes stock of his minions. Refusing sausage and mash from the chef, he requests caviar and French fries, champagne in his coffee, and custard in his flambe banana. A parade before the assembled crowds of Hell seems to go well enough, but then his mother calls him out - first asking him why he wasn't present when she and Lucifer's brothers were shot by police, then calling him a no-good bum.

If there's one thing you don't do, it is call the ruler of Hell a no-good bum.

Lucifer isn't a man to be trifled with. With his mother dealt with, Lucifer finds complete control over Hell to be boring, pointing out the world of men, and stating that it is the goal... Hell's prize. Charon, once introduced to the "new boss" of course, rows Lucifer across the River Styx, where the he learns that entrance to Hell over the river used to cost one obol. Which gives him an idea how to raise funds...

There's a nice fourth-wall shaking moment when the wall between Hell and Earth is torn asunder, and it momentarily appears that Lucifer is looking at the reader. He isn't, of course, arriving on a street where scientists and the military have arrived to investigate strange readings from their equipment. Television news cameras capture their arrival, describing the denizens of Hell as aliens, and warning the populace to remain in their homes.

Finding a room to rent, Lucifer starts to plan his conquest of the world. As you do.

There are moments when I am taken aback at the foresight of writers working in comics. You wouldn't imagine that a great many predictions would prove correct, but there is a television program included here which is named Pop-o-Tunities (basically Opportunity Knocks with a musical angle), over a decade before Pop Idol and Popstars. Eddie Campbell has seen the future, and he is ready to skewer it.

Madam, a pop singer who appears on the show gives Lucifer an idea. Obtaining her address from Channel 10's reception, he approaches the young woman with promises of success, riches, adulation, and celebrity, though her reaction is less than enthusiastic. Seeing the error of his approach, Lucifer changes the deal, requesting that she spend a week with her aunt in Michigan when she is at the height of her popularity, so that he can inform the press she has been kidnapped. Did Fairlie Arrow read this?

With the plan in motion, Lucifer sets about rigging the charts - if it is good enough for Stock Aitken Waterman...

When Madam is sufficiently famous, and the plan is about to be put into action, everything seems to go wrong - Steve, her husband, arrives and assaults the press. The resultant storm of newspaper headlines plays into Lucifer's plans, so he rolls with the punches. First claiming that she has been kidnapped, then that he is responsible, on behalf of the moral majority of America.

As the city goes straight to... Well, you-know-where, Lucifer sends his troops out.

This is me. Lucifer. In my triumph.

Before me the way is cleared by the beast with three heads.

- and before the beast, the four bicyclists of the Apocalypse.

Some nice cameos (including Swamp Thing and Rorschach) enliven the artwork, though neither creator need tricks to make the comic entertaining - there's a heart to this title. Although the title character is, by any definition, not a particularly nice individual, he's amusing, rather petty, and ultimately very real. It is difficult enough making regular characters believable, but making a conqueror of the underworld believable is an extraordinary achievement.

There's a brutally (apparently) simplistic image of Lucifer carried aloft over the city, rendered as white squares against a black background, which is oddly beautiful. Indeed, there's a great deal of wondrous imagery throughout, playing with layout, space, and time in an confident chiaroscuro style. While there are hints of influences here and there (a touch of Hugo Pratt, a dash of Mike McMahon), Grist owns the pages of Lucifer with a remarkable assuredness.

#01

Lucifer

#03