Review: 1996's Lobo/Demon: Helloween #1

The most striking image in this one-shot special is also one that marks it as a product of the 1990s. That would be the caricatured visage of one William Jefferson Clinton drawn atop the familiar yellow-skinned, red tunic-and-blue-caped body of Jack Kirby's Etrigan, The Demon.

This strange composite figure appears in two panels. The first is a splash page, in which it pounces upon Lobo from behind (above). 

In the second, the figure leaps back from the now prone bounty hunter, bathing him in flames spat from its mouth with a "FWOOOSH!"

It's only then that Etrigan pushes back his President Clinton mask and declares "Trick or Treat, Lobo!" For, as the subtitle of this 1996 one-shot denotes, it's set around Halloween (and was originally published in October of that year). Lobo was on his way to celebrate "Hallowe'en on a planet so rude it doesn't have a name" but lacking the funds to buy booze to bring with him, he takes a last-minute job on Earth...or thereabouts. 

He has come to Earth's moon to meet his new employer. And as for The Demon? Well, he's on the moon to meet his new employee. You can probably guess where this is going. 

The two wildly different characters might seem an odd match from a 30-year remove, but then, writer Alan Grant was associated with them both. He had written Etrigan for about 35 issues of the character's longest ever ongoing series, between 1990 and 1993 and, as of that October, he was on his 34th issue of the Lobo ongoing (after having written or co-written several Lobo miniseries and one-shots before that had ever even launched). Lobo had guest-starred in two different Demon arcs, during the course of which the characters developed a sort of grudging respect for one another. While Grant's The Demon and Lobo were often tonally quite different, they did share a similar sense of dark humor.

How tight are the two at this point? Well, Lobo doesn't even seem upset that Etrigan attacked him from behind and then set him ablaze, responding only to the attack with, "Etrigan--Th' Demon! I might've fraggin' knowed it!"

The specifics of the job that Etrigan has hired Lobo to perform are kind of complicated, and, indeed, a half-dozen pages of the 24-page book are devoted to flashbacks of the backstory...it's a long enough sequence that Grant has Lobo interrupting Etrigan's telling of that backstory more than once, the sequence only ending when Lobo finally puts his hand over Etrigan's mouth to stop him from going on and offers to simply guess the rest.

Briefly, there is an ancient giant monster that emerges from imprisonment every 10,000 years or so, "on th' night o' some ancient pagan festival" and then seeks to destroy the world. Lobo assumes Etrigan has hired him to help stop the monster, but he assumes wrong. Etrigan has hired Lobo to help the monster destroy the world, by fighting off the ancient guardian warrior that awakens at the same time as the monster, ritualistically battling it to keep it from destroying the world. 

While these two characters generally play the role of hero (or at least anti-hero) in their appearances, I suppose it's worth remembering that Etrigan is a demon from Hell, and Lobo is a bounty hunter and mercenary who basically does whatever he's paid to do, there being only a few lines he won't cross (Like going back on his word, or allowing harm to come to space dolphins).

So yeah, the guys with their names in the title of this comic book are here bent on destroying the world, not saving it. 

Of course, circumstances are such that they end up with no choice other than to slay the monster themselves. After they defeat the guardian, the monster looks them over and perhaps encouraged by some taunting from Lobo, swallows them both alive. In order to save themselves, they have to kill it. 

The world is thus saved...by a couple of guys who were, moments before, trying to destroy it.

As I said when I mentioned this book in passing the other day, I had bought and read this when it was originally published...and forgot almost everything about it, which is what prompted me to reread it now.

The reason I had picked it up back then was that, if I recall correctly, there wasn't much else that caught my eye during that particular trip to the comic shop. That and, of course, I was a fan of Alan Grant's writing. And this particular Alan Grant comic was drawn by Vince Giarrano. 

I'm sure I've mentioned him on EDILW before, but I was and am a big fan of Giarrano's. He drew some Batman stuff here and there, and had his own short-lived, 13-issue title in the form of the post-Zero Hour volume of Manhunter. If you ever come across anything he's drawn in a back issue bin, I'd recommend snapping it up. 

His style is very '90s, but in a way that always struck me as somewhat ironic, perhaps even sarcastic, the work of someone who saw what was popular at the time and attempted to do his own version of it. His work was highly expressive, and exaggerated to the point of cartoony, sometimes even silly (In this regard, he reminds me a bit of Kelley Jones; their artwork would never be mistaken for that of the other or anything, but both had a tendency to always go as big as possible). 

He was thus a perfect choice for this book, and I was curious to see how he would handle the two characters. 

Unfortunately, I don't think there's necessarily any particularly potent imagery in this particular comic, the mythological aspects are all more or less generic in conception, though well drawn in a loose, exaggerated, cartoony style (There is a neat splash page where the world-ending monster escapes from a volcano and its tail is all smoke while it seems to solidify as it emerges).

Giarrano's Lobo is pretty much standard issue, the character's hair maybe being a bit bigger and pointier than other artists have drawn it, but his Etrigan is a rather unique one: Big but squat, with sharp facial features, huge ears and a severe underbite. There's something of a bulldog about him. 

Perhaps because Lobo's appearance here is tempered by that of Etrigan, this particular story didn't seem as Lobo-y as many other Lobo appearances of the '90s. That is, it doesn't rely so heavily on the one basic Lobo gag and, given that he's in a story where every other character is as powerful as him or more so, his tendency towards ultra-violence is a non-factor. He can't really kill, maim or bully anyone in this small cast. 

In that regard, I wonder if this isn't a decent place for someone who doesn't particularly care for Lobo—or doesn't really have any prior experience with or interest in the character—to meet him...? 

At any rate, it's a well-made if unremarkable comic from Alan Grant, a man who could by this point write these characters in his sleep (and, perhaps, was doing so here), and an extremely interesting artist. 

Of course, this book, like Lobo/Deadman, has never been collected anywhere, so I don't suppose anyone particularly interested will have an easy time tracking it down anyway...

I'd love to see DC collect Grant's Demon run at some point, as I had only read a handful of issues from it, and maybe, if they did, this would end up with it (That, and Grant's 1989 Action Comics Weekly story featuring The Demon...? And/or maybe his 1989 Detective Comics arc, that culminates with the best Batman/Demon fight ever...?)

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If you are interested in the work of Vince Giarrano, here are some of the Batman books he drew for DC in the '90s that I read an enjoyed:

•Batman Annual #16 This was a tie-in to the Eclipso: The Darkness Within annual crossover event, with writers Alan Grant and John Wagner (And a cover by Sam Kieth!) It's never been collected, but I hope DC will get around to collecting The Darkness Within eventually, maybe in a couple of volumes of DC Finest, as they did with Zero Hour...

•Batman: Seduction of the Gun #1 This 64-page one-shot special was written by John Ostrander and addresses the issue of gun violence. It's strident enough that I have a hard time imagining DC having published such a book in the 21st century, for fear of offending someone. It's never been collected.

•Batman: Shadow of the Bat #11-12, #19-20, #24 and #48-50 These were all written by Alan Grant. The first two issues introduced teenage villain The Human Flea, a character I loved but who never reappeared; it's been collected in 2016's Batman: Shadow of the Bat Vol. 1. The next two introduced the minor villain The Tally Man, pitting him against then-Batman Jean-Paul Valley, and #24 was a single-issue story also featuring Valley as Batman; all three of these issues have been collected in 2017's Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 2 or 2018's Batman: Knightquest: The Crusade. Issues #48-49 were chapters of the "Contagion" crossover, and #50 was an anniversary issue with multiple artists; all three issues are collected in 2016's Batman: Contagion.

•Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #0 This is a "jam" issue with about a dozen writers and even more artists, and was released during the "Zero Month" that followed the Zero Hour crossover event. Giarrano drew the framing sequence, if I recall correctly. You can find this one collected in 2017's Batman Zero Hour.

•Batman Annual #20 This annual was a "Legends of the Dead Earth" tie-in; that year, DC's annuals were thematically tied together by telling stories set in a far-flung post-apocalyptic future but were all otherwise standalone stories rather than chapters of a bigger mega-story. It was written by Doug Moench. It has never been collected.

Scanning through his credits on comics.org tonight, I see plenty more from Giarrano at DC, some from the later 1980s as well as the 1990s. In addition to his work there, he also drew comics for Marvel, Dark Horse and First. I would certainly be interested in tracking a lot of these down...I'm especially interested in how his style might have changed between the '80s and '90s. His last DC credit seems to be 2002's Batgirl #26. I understand he has long since left comics and gone on to devote himself to painting. He's left a great body of work, though.