What is the best thing about The Demon #46-49?
Is it black magic zombie Nazis rising to conquer the world?
Is it Jason Blood recruiting the retired, elderly crew of the Haunted Tank to fight the black magic zombie Nazis?
Is it Etrigan, getting his patriotism – such as it is – on?
Is it the crew of the Haunted Tank, right after Etrigan gets his ass kicked, deciding to take on an entire platoon of M1 Abrams tanks crewed by black magic zombie Nazis in their tiny little M3 tank, as they are the only ones who can stop a peaceful small town from being destroyed by the aforementioned black magic zombie Nazi tank brigade?
Is it the Haunted Tank beating all those big bad tanks by driving right over them and throwing grenades into their cockpits?
Or is it when Etrigan gets his hands on the black magic Nazi demon who’s helping all this happen?
The answer is clearly all of the above.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if Etrigan casually admitted to having invented Hip-Hop as a demonic gift of good faith to humanity. The slap-slap-slap is a dead giveaway.
Of course, the question must be asked:
Who would win in a fight? Etrigan or Rex the motherfucking Wonder Dog?
Etrigan vs Rex the motherfucking Wonder Dog?
The senseless waste of pitting these two mighty forces of nature against each other, like matter vs. anti-matter, will be a tragedy, not only for the teams involved, but for our planet. All nations must band together, to ensure that such a conflagration never takes place.
Very Important Messages About Racism are so much more awesome when they’re delivered in rhyme by a demon who is slapping a Nazi.
I own that story arc, it’s among my most treasured comic book possessions.
Clearly what needs to happen is that they need to put out a set of big hard-bound comic collections called simply “FUCK YEAH! The World’s Most Awesome Comic Stories!”
Rex would of course have pride of place, with several of his tales in each volume, interspersed with other awesome characters and stories.
So it’s true: the devil is on America’s side.
That last page is going into my collection of scenes from Garth Ennis comics where a character delivers a monologue to tell another character how they’re full of shit.
It’s a very large collection.
Is it just me, or is Etrigan less hip-hop and more Dr. Seuss? I don’t mean that in a bad way.
Well, Rex the Wonder Dog is 100% Rex the Wonder Dog.
Etrigan is some amount below 100% Rex the Wonder Dog.
Ergo, Rex wins.
Rex will always win, for he is Rex. If you pit Rex against Rex, both Rexes would win.
Ennis’ Demon is one of the best hidden gems of the last twenty years. Always surprised it never gets more play.
Of course, it doesn’t help that every time the character has showed up in the intervening years it’s been horrible.
Garth Ennis eh? I somehow knew almost instantly.
Surely reprints of this and others of the same run would sell much more than the rather the “merely competent” stuff you mentioned earlier.
I mean, I’d buy it. Heck, that one page with the rhyming, verbal and physical smack-down the Demon gives that Nazi is worth the £12 alone.
Also, Rex and Etrigan wouldn’t fight. They’re BFF, like Hellboy and the Punisher.
“Of course, it doesn’t help that every time the character has showed up in the intervening years it’s been horrible.”
Actually, I thought the Demon’s appearance in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell was pretty great.
I did not know Ennis wrote for The Demon. This is enlightening.
This is why I like reading the comics posts in your blogs. I get to hear about great moments of comicry I’d otherwise never even imagine existed. You do a public service, MGK.
Speaking of Nazi zombies, have any of these shown up in the black lantern corps?
Has Hitler, Stalin, Caligula, Genghis Khan or Xerxes I been given a black power ring?
I’m sorry, but The Demon’s rhymes are *not* tight. They’re pretty boring-ass AABB whitebread.
The weakest part of the whole storyline was Etrigan’s rhymes. Juvenile, overt. I don’t think it’s in iambic either, the fiend.
Ennis’s Demon was great stuff. I think the only person at DC reading the book was the editor, so they got away with a lot of crap.
The whole run is 40-58, plus 0 and Annual 2 (first Hitman), and most of them can be found in quarter boxes.
For some reason I can only think of that Elseworlds where bearded Superman fights twin clones of Hitler with a gun that Cable would consider slightly too large.
I love McCrea’s Etrigan. Just the weird scrawnyness of it…
It was a pretty good run. The story above still shines like a lighthouse.
Is it ironic that there’s an explicit message about Nazi racism, given that the Haunted Tank was haunted by a Confederate general? Or is that still Morisettian irony?
Wait, Ennis wrote that?
Okay then, so there’s TWO Super Heroes he likes.
I mean wow. He can bring the awesome when he wants too (and he isn’t driving it into the dirt that superheroes are assholes and raping Green Lantern).
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