Demonic #1 ( Top Cow – Kirkman / Benitez / Silvestri )
From the creative minds of Image partners Robert Kirkman & Marc Silvestri!
The demon is in his head. The demon makes him strong. The demon gets angry when he doesn’t kill. Scott Graves is possessed and he will do anything the demon asks as long as it promises not to make him kill his wife and daughter. Scott stalks in the night as Demonic, a vigilante known for savagely slaughtering the wicked. He asks himself, how long can he continue living this way and what if the demon isn’t real?
So I just checked out Demonic from the brilliant Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) and Marc Silvestri (Anything Top Cow). With two creative powerhouses like this, there is just no way this can go bad, right? Wrong!
It’s not that this is the worst demonic good vs. evil story I’ve ever read, it’s just the most common. There is really nothing new here. The main character, Scott, is a midnight crime fighter, killing the guilty to appease a busty barley covered deamoness. What the spawn of hell really wants is for Scott to kill his wife and young daughter, but he’s resisting…for good reason.
Meanwhile the police are setting up a special task force to chase down this pycho with blades on his fingers, and guess who’s the head of the task force? Yep, it’s our main character and demon haunted cop Scott! Splash on copious amounts of blood and silhouetted decapitations, print, and serve.
It’s not that the writing or art are bad here, there not. Kirkman is one of the best writers out there, it just that he doesn’t have much to work with here. And the Benitez’s art is fun to look at too. Demonic just isn’t something that’s ground breaking or fresh. This is just the first issue, so maybe there’s something up Kirkman’s sleeve. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
Grade: C
