Please let this comic be good. I have Jack Kirby's original sixteen comic run, the initial Demon 4 part mini-series, and all of the second run by Alan Grant and Val Semeiks (which I believe was taken over at some point by Ennis and McCrea). I know Hitman was created by Ennis and McCrea in The Demon Annual during the Bloodlines event, so I'm pretty sure they took over after Semeiks and Grant left the book. It's been a long time since I've read the series, though. I loved Semeiks artwork in that series. You can tell I loved it because I still remember his name (although I just realized I didn't know Semeiks gender for certain when I began to type the pronoun and had to look it up online!). My other favorite artist back then was Chris Bachalo from Shade the Changing Man.
I've put in some time following Etrigan although I don't have all of his appearances across DC's other various titles the way I have every issue that Ambush Bug has ever been in. Still, I can already picture this comic ruining Etrigan and me erupting into fanboi nonsense ranting for the entirety of the run! Man, I'd love that. Except I promise not to rant. Instead, I'll just draw pictures of the various DC editors being tortured and killed in interesting ways. Anyway, on to the fun!
Demon Knights begins 400 years in the past. I think it also begins with a pun. It says, "The Last Night of Camelot" as the castle burns in the background. But we also see in the foreground the last Knight of Camelot holding Excalibur.
I didn't realize the Knights of the Round Table were concurrent with Shakespeare. Didn't Monty Python's Holy Grail take place in the 10th Century? And that's historically accurate, right? At least as historically accurate as can be for a legendary figure and his legendary court and his legendary sword and his legendary quest! Plus, Monty Python's King Arthur is the extent of my knowledge of King Arthur. Except maybe that Disney movie where the wizard's turn into different beasts as they fight each other.
Here in 1611 (or thereabouts), Madame Xanadu is out and about in a boat taking Arthur's body outside of time. And then she actually dives into the water to try to grab Excalibur when the knight throws it in! She's actually doing things! It's amazing! Maybe it's actually an ancestor of hers. Or maybe, since she fails to grab the sword and someone else tells her there's nothing she can do since "this must happen" and "it always will" and "you can't change it", we see Xanadu having the experience that leads to her sitting in a room playing with her cards and just watching people take active roles in their lives.
Maybe I'm wrong! Maybe Madame Xanadu actually does more than tell people about the future and watch them fail and then make snide remarks. Perhaps I'm judging her unfairly! I'm not even sure what comic books I would have read in the past that she was a part of! Where do I get off taking pot shots at her?!
Next we see where Merlin traps the Demon Etrigan into Jason Blood. And then the scene changes to declare it is Now in the Dark Ages. Oh! Okay, so that last scene was 400 years prior to the current time of the comic. Nothing is actually pinned down though since The Dark Ages spanned quite a bit of time.
We join The Horde of the Questing Queen as they march North. The Queen travels in a palace on the back of a Brontosaurus. The wizard Mordru sits at the Queen's side. Almost immediately, he explodes a baby by summoning a demon within it! I think that proves he's a bad guy!
Jason Blood and Madame Xanadu enter the village that the Questing Queen is about to stomp through. They meet up with another immortal, Vandal Savage, and share a few rounds while discussing Camelot. Quickly they're interrupted by The Shining Knight. So that makes four immortals in one place and since the title of this chapter was Seven Against the Dark, I suppose we should expect three more.
Two more show up although I'm not sure if they're immortals or not: Al Jabr and Exoristos. My guess is Al Jabr is a Moslem (yeah, I'm really going out on a limb there!) who makes automatons (again, big guess since he mentions he makes mechanisms). Exoristos might be an Amazon. She's from an island where men are castrated so that's not much of a wild guess either.
A seventh figure, an archer, still remains outside the village saving peasants from The Horde. And since he/she was backlit by the sun, I can't make any guess as to who it might be. The farmers tell him/her to warn the village but they're a little bit too late. The Horde has arrived at the inn.
Jason Blood takes no time in releasing Etrigan. I can see early on in Blood's life, releasing Etrigan was not considered a last resort! Once Etrigan appears, he and Madame Xanadu make with some kissy face before Etrigan blasts a bunch of attackers with his hellfire breath.
Back at Castle Brontosaurus, Mordru and the Queen sense magick being used and summon a shit ton of dragons to solve the problem. Seems like a plan!
As you can see, I didn't bother to scan any pictures out of DC's Big Book of Number Ones. I looked online for the panels I wanted to scan but didn't find any. So just picture people in medieval garb with large flagons of beer and great big chicken legs and you'll be close enough to the truth.
Here's my review of #1: Too short!
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