Jack Kirby's The Demon
When Kirby’s ambitious Fourth World saga failed to be the blockbuster DC envisioned when they hired the comics legend away from Marvel in the early 1970s, the company asked him to come up with some nonsuperhero concepts. Among his proposals was one about a demon from hell named Etrigan, who is bound to a reluctant human host, Jason Blood. The Demon’s horror-comics roots were somewhat afield from the costumed crime fighters that were Kirby’s forte, although it harkened back to the monster comics he drew at Marvel before reviving the superhero genre with Fantastic Four, and Etrigan did possess powers including superhuman strength and magical abilities. Kirby’s over-the-top story lines, overwrought dialogue, and, above all, singularly dynamic artwork placed The Demon more in line with his larger-than-life superhero epics than with, say, the moody EC horror stories of two decades earlier. Although Kirby’s original series ran for only the 16 issues collected here, Etrigan remains a popular supporting character in the DC Universe, even appearing in Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. --Gordon Flagg