The Furies by Mike Carey and John Bolton

The Sandman Presents: The Furies

Originally published: 2002
Acquired: February 2022
Read: March 2022

Writer: Mike Carey

Artist: John Bolton
Letterer: Todd Klein

I read this over a decade ago in its context as a Sandman story. Now, I return to it with a new context: a JSA-adjacent story. Specifically, a story of Lyta Hall, who had been a main character in Roy Thomas's Earth-Two comic Infinity, Inc. before she got picked up by Neil Gaiman as a Sandman character. When we last saw Lyta in Infinc, she was married and pregnant, and then her husband Hector died, but it turned out he kind of lived anyway, as the new Sandman of the Dream Dimension. When Gaiman picked up with Hector and Lyta in The Sandman, he killed off Hector again and made Lyta the instrument of the death of The Sandman's Dream, and then made their son Daniel the new Dream. So when this comic starts, Lyta is trying to return to her life in Los Angeles, attempting to cope with the seeming death of her child. (From a chronology standpoint, it does read a little strangely. Lyta's apartment still has a baby room? This comic was published in 2002, and Lyta got pregnant way back in 1987 or so, but such is comic-book time.)

So how does it work as an Infinity, Inc. story? The answer is that it's okay, not as good as it does a Sandman story. There is an Infinity, Inc. group shot on one page, but overall this does the Sandman thing of being very oblique in its references to the superhero world it was all derived from. I did have to wonder at some of the continuity of it all. Lyta is of Greek descent, and knows the Greek language and Greek mythology... this would have made sense in her pre-Crisis backstory, when she was the daughter of the Earth-Two Wonder Woman, but post-Crisis, though her mother was Greek, she didn't know that until she was an adult; she was adopted and raised by Admiral Derek Trevor and the former superhero Miss America, Joan Dale-Trevor. But maybe I am overthinking all this!

Whose work has John Bolton pasted these real people heads over, anyway?

 

The Furies works as a story of a strong woman whose strength fails her. Lyta was an immensely powerful person, but she became a victim and a pawn—how can she get her agency back? I really like Lyta, and I remember liking the story, so I was looking forward to the reread... but I struggled with actually being emotionally connected to this story, since as I last read the relevant issues of The Sandman back in 2010, I was a bit fuzzy on what had actually happened to Lyta! So overall, fine but not great.

When I read panels like this, I kind of wonder what Roy Thomas thinks about Lyta's post-Infinc life. Did he ever imagine a comic where Lyta gets out her frustrations by having sex with and then beating up random men she meets in bars?

I am curious to see how it ends up playing into Geoff Johns's JSA run, if it does at all. As of this writing, I've read the first volume of that, where we're told Hector (resurrected again, of course) can't find Lyta. But according to this, she's living in their old apartment in LA, and the police have her on a register of ex-superheroes, so how is he so bad at looking!?

This post is twenty-eighth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers JSA by Geoff Johns, Book One. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)
6. Showcase Presents... Power Girl (1978)
7. America vs. the Justice Society (1985)
8. Jonni Thunder, a.k.a. Thunderbolt (1985)
9. Crisis on Multiple Earths, Volume 7 (1983-85)
10. Infinity, Inc. #11-53 (1985-88) [reading order]
11. Last Days of the Justice Society of America (1986-88)
12. All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant (1999)
13. Steel, the Indestructible Man (1978)
14. Superman vs. Wonder Woman: An Untold Epic of World War Two (1977)
• Wonder Woman: Earth-Two (1977-78)
15. Secret Origins of the Golden Age (1986-89)
16. The Young All-Stars (1987-89)
17. Gladiator (1930) ["Man-God!" (1976)]
    
18. The Crimson Avenger: The Dark Cross Conspiracy (1981-88)
19. The Immortal Doctor Fate (1940-82)
20. Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice (1951-91)
21. Armageddon: Inferno (1992)
22. Justice Society of America vol. 2 (1992-93)
23. The Adventures of Alan Scott--Green Lantern (1992-93)
24. Damage (1994-96)
25. The Justice Society Returns! (1999-2001)
26. Chase (1998-2002)
27. Stargirl by Geoff Johns (1999-2003)
    

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman Spin-Offs, Part XXV: God Save the Queen

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2007
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2012

God Save the Queen

Written by Mike Carey

Painted by John Bolton
Lettering by Todd Klein

When I remarked to my wife (who has not read any of The Sandman, but has patiently listened to me gab about it for over two years now) that the faerie elements of The Sandman had never been among my favorite, she said that must be true, for she'd never heard me mention them at all. And it was then that I realized how little I cared for Titania, Auberon, and the rest. Gaiman's original jaunt into this realm (the one with Shakespeare) hadn't done much for me, World Fantasy Award nonwithstanding, and neither had its various reapperances. I like Nualla, but it's her separation from Faerie that keeps her interesting, and if I like Cluracan, it's mostly because of a vague feeling that I ought to like characters like him.

So it turns out that not even Mike Carey and John Bolton, who previously came together for the excellent Sandman spin-off The Furies, can make Faerie very interesting. Though there's some good artwork here, the Faerie politics are a big fat load of "who cares?" I don't care if Titania or Mab rules Faerie, and the climax is a big load of nonsense. There's some okay stuff about a teenage girl acting out, and Bolton's art is good when it's not being exploitative, but for this story to be interesting would have required more than the 96 pages it was given; everything has to be sped through too fast to be interesting. The best part, as in so many Sandman spin-offs, is the brief jaunt into the Dreaming, not the actual story.

Dark X-Men: The Beginning

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2010 (contents: 2009)
Acquired January 2011
Read May 2012

Utopia: Avengers/X-Men

Writers: Matt Fraction, Craig Kyle & Chris Yost, Mike Carey, Kieron Gillen, Paul Cornell, James Asmus, Shane McCarthy, Marc Bernardin & Adam Freeman, Rob Williams, Jason Aaron, and Simon Spurrier

Pencilers: Marc Silvestri, Terry Dodson, Luke Ross, Bing Cansino, Dustin Weaver, Leonard Kirk, Jesse Delperdang, and Paco Diaz (with Michael Broussard, Eric Basaloua, Tyler Kirkham and Sheldon Mitchell)

Inkers: Joe Weems, Rachel Dodson, Rick Magyar, Mark Pennington, Luke Ross, Roland Paris, Edgar Tadeo, Jay Leisten, Leonard Kirk, Andy Lanning, and Guillermo Ortega (with Marco Galli, Eric Basaloua, Rick Basaloua, Jason Gorder, Sal Aegla, Jon Sibal, Ryan Winn, and Jesse Delperdang)
Other Artists: Mike Deodata, Daniel Acuna, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ibraim Roberson, Michel Lacombe, Jock, and Paul Davidson
Colorists: Frank D'Armata, Justin Ponsor, Rain Beredo, Dean White, Christina Strain, Edgar Delgado, Brian Reber, Matt Milla, John Rauch, and Dave Stewart
Letterers: Chris Eliopoulous, Joe Caramagna & Cory Petit, Rob Steen, and Dave Sharpe

Holy cow! Not counting cover artists or editorial staff, 64 different people worked on this 368-page book.  Even if you discount everything but the core story "Utopia," which has just one writer (Matt Fraction), there are still some nineteen artists at work on six issues.  Oh, the American corporate comic book factory: how delightful.

Suffice it to say that I'd never ordinarily buy such a book (X-Men comics alienate me in general, and their gigantic crossover events even moreso), except that Paul Cornell has a few stories in it: three shorts that were part of a miniseries called Dark X-Men: The Beginning. Originally these were going to be published as their own book, but that ended up not happening and so I had to by this whole fershlugginer crossover just to get 20-something pages of Paul Cornell goodness. I hope you're happy Marvel!  These stories see Cornell reunited with his Captain Britain and MI13 collaborator Leonard Kirk to tell the tales of superheroes recruited for Norman "Green Goblin" Osborn's government-sponsored X-Men team.

"Namor/Norman" is probably the best of the three, as Osborn attempts to figure why Namor, Prince of Atlantis, could possibly care about what's going on in the surface world. Given its placement in the book after the reader has learned the answer, it's a delightful example of two men out-out-thinking one another.  I also enjoyed "Hidden Depth," where Emma Frost probes Namor's mind herself.  The weakest was clearly "The Temptation of Cloak and Dagger," which didn't say anything that wasn't revealed in the earlier chapters of Utopia.

Utopia as whole is about X-Men leader Cyclops's attempt to keep the X-Men based in San Francisco in the face of growing anti-mutant hysteria and attacks by something called "Bio-Sentinels" whose origins are never explained, not to mention the arrival of Norman Osborn and his government-sponsored Avenger and X-Men teams. The first chapter is actually quite good, building a feeling of tension and unsettledness as the streets of San Francisco are filled with angry rioters, and no one's quite sure what to do. Reading it for the first time after "Occupy Wall Street," it actually feels very prescient.  After that, though, the story stretches out too long through its last five chapters. The characters do interesting things, but we're not privy to their interiority enough to really experience them; Emma Frost must be really conflicted over what's going on, but the plot precludes us from discovering how she feels about her role until its over.

Terry Dodson's art was an unexpected delight, though: nice, clean, and vaguely cartoony.  I got tired of Luke Ross's well-rounded butt shots, though, and the less said about Marc Silvestri's identical faces for women and poor story-telling skills, the better.

I was delighted to see Mike Carey here, after enjoying his work on Lucifer so much, and joined by Dustin Weaver, one of the better artists on Knights of the Old Republic, but their story (about what Rogue gets up to during the riots in the first chapter) feels like a pointless fill-in.  Otherwise, I found the rest of this volume fairly disposable.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part XII: Evensong

Comic trade paperback, 212 pages
Published 2007 (contents: 2002-06)
Borrowed from the library
Read March 2012

Lucifer: Evensong

Writer: Mike Carey

Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Jon J Muth, Zander Cannon, Dean Ormston, Aaron Alexovich

Colorists: Daniel Vozzo, Guy Major, Fiona Stephenson
Letterers: Jared K. Fletcher

The last volume of Lucifer ties up everything in the series nicely, so that it can end with no dangling loose ends. Over the course of the eleven volumes of this tale, we've seen universes begin and end, Heaven and Hell crumble, gods rise and fall, so it's nice to get a set of small-scale stories at the end, letting us breathe and reflect on what's gone by. Thankfully, it also turns out to be one of the best Lucifer collections yet.

The first story, "Fireside Tales," reunites Elaine Belloc with the boy from the Stitchglass storyline of Exodus. It's a last chance for us to see the centaur people of Lucifer's creation, as well as one the stories-within-a-story that Lucifer often delighted in. It also gives us a cute example of teen love.

"Evensong" shows us one last mission for Lucifer, as he reclaims the writ of passage that he used to make the portals to his creation. The best part of this story was the final conversation between Lucifer and Mazikeen, two complex characters with a complex relationship, finally her consummated... in their own strange way.

Any regular reader of this blog will be unsurprised to learn that I loved "The Gaudium Option," the last chance to see my favorite ex-cherub in action. Gaudium and his sister, Spera, get a chance to show they really do have what it takes when the new God, Elaine Belloc, sends them into the subbasement of the universe to shut down an afterlife that keeps on limping along. Not only do they deal with God's worst angel, Remiel (I used to like that guy), they also end up reunited with their brother, the unfallen cherub Lumen. Ah, greatness. I read an interview with Carey where he regrets that they never did a Gaudium spin-off, and it is indeed a bummer.

"Eve" is a magnificent story. What could have been a facile comedy tale-- Elaine unites all the series's female characters for a night out-- is actually oddly touching. Elaine, Jill Presto, Mazikeen, Spera, Rachel Begai, and Mona (goddess of hedgehogs) go out for drinks, and we get to see how these people have all touched one another. Elaine gives many of them one last gift-- a lover for Jill, a brother for Rachel-- and even writes herself out of her parents' lives, replacing herself with her brother, the failed half-angel who died a couple volumes ago. And then at the end, having realized that micromanaging the universe is never going to get her anywhere, she sinks into creation.

Elaine was my second-favorite character in Lucifer, and her journey here is excellent-- as is her solution to the problem of omnipotence that has plagued Lucifer throughout the series. It's a solution that Lucifer could never have taken, though, as he didn't want to rule justly, he just wanted to not be ruled. Elaine, in a sense, will always be ruled by everyone; she saves the universe at the cost of her own individuality.

The last story, "All We Need of Hell," shows Lucifer as he journeys outside of creation. He experiences his own past: his rebellion against God, and then his opening of Hell, a replaying of the events of Season of Mists from his perspective. There's a long section that uses the dialogue from Neil Gaiman's original story over again, and it's odd seeing it in the mouth of Carey's Lucifer. Gaiman's Lucifer is long-winded and prone to speeches, whereas Carey's never explained himself this well in his life. The two don't entirely fit together.

I really like the final conversation between God and Lucifer, Lucifer's final rejection of God, and then those closing pages, as Lucifer goes somewhere we can never see, having finally found what he always sought in the only way possible...

Unfortunately, this is followed by "Nirvana," a Lucifer story that was released as a standalone around the time of The Divine Comedy and take place then, too. It's noteworthy in that it gives us Lucifer's only encounter with the new Dream, but little else about it is interesting. It's one of many early Lucifer stories where he goes up against a god-like entity and wins because he's Lucifer. I wish it had been collected back then and not tacked onto the end of this volume, because it's a poor coda. Jon J Muth's beautiful art lacks much storytelling ability, too.

In his afterword to this volume, Mike Carey declares that Lucifer was supposed to be the next chapter in a saga whose previous installments were the Bible, Paradise Lost, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and The Sandman. Placing one's self with Milton, Blake, and Gaiman is a tall order indeed, but I feel that Carey very nearly pulled it off. When actually discussing and examining the character of Lucifer and his effects on others, Lucifer was on fire; it was only when it became a fantasy hack-and-slash or a story about the universe's foremost wizard that it became uninteresting. If every story in Lucifer had been the caliber of the end of Children of Monsters, A Dalliance with the Damned, The Divine Comedy, Mansions of the Silence, "Wire, Briar, Limber Lock"/"Stitchglass Slide", "The Yahweh Dance", and this volume itself, it would have been a great series. As it was, it was an average-to-good one with occasional flashes of brilliance.

Next issue: an adventure in prose with the Man of Steel: the first comic book novel ever, George Lowther's Superman!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part XI: Morningstar

Comic trade paperback, 189 pages
Published 2006 (contents: 2005-06)
Borrowed from the library
Read March 2012

Lucifer: Morningstar

Writer: Mike Carey

Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Colleen Doran, Michael Wm. Kaluta

Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher

The structural similarities between The Sandman and Lucifer continue: the climax of Lucifer comes in its second-last volume.  Most of this volume is given over to the epic story "Morningstar," where everything comes to a head.  Lucifer decides to save the universe from Fenris, and in doing so, must return to Hell to convince the new ruler of Hell, Christopher Rudd, to side with the Silver City and not against it.  The story has its moments (Lucifer, Mazikeen, and Elaine Belloc are all badass), but too much of it is again generic fantasy without much in the way of apparent rules.

It all picks up when Elaine sits on the Primum Mobile, placing herself at the highest point in creation, and making contact with God, who is outside it.  The conversation between Elaine, Lilith, and God over the fate of the universe is great, as is Elaine's journey into Lucifer's universe to save all three creations from destruction.  The end of the book, as Elaine sits in ascendancy over the remaining combined universe, is fantastic.  (I also amazed when Elaine reverted to the age she held at the beginning of the series when she sat on the Primum Mobile.  I hadn't realized how much she'd aged since then; the artists have done it very gradually, which is quite clever.)

Despite the epic events of this volume, Carey still finds time for two side stories.  The first, "The Wheels of God," is another featuring Solomon, and I didn't see the point of it, besides wrapping up the fates of some of the random side characters I'd long forgotten about.  It still has its moments, though.  The second is "The Beast Can't Take Your Call Right Now," which tells what happens when a magician summons the most powerful demon in Hell... only Rudd's taken them all out and so only Gaudium and Spera are left.  Hilarity ensues (except that though Michael Kaluta's art is good, it took me too long to figure out who Gaudium actually was).

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part X: Crux

Comic trade paperback, 167 pages
Published 2006 (contents: 2004-05)
Borrowed from the library
Read February 2012

Lucifer: Crux

Writer: Mike Carey

Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Marc Hempel, Ronald Wimberly

Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher

Though I have enjoyed Lucifer on the whole, its major plot strands sometimes became less than interesting-- and even when they might have been okay on their own, they got dragged out far too long.  Crux is a good example of this, at exactly the wrong time.  The previous volume, The Wolf Beneath the Tree, introduced the threat of Fenris; by the end of Crux, Fenris's threat still hasn't been resolved, and a snarling wolf-god who wants to unmake the universe when its death is already imminent for not-very-well-explicated reasons isn't interesting enough to be the major threat for this much of the story.  Nor was I particularly interested in the people hanging out with Lilith who wanted to do much the same for only-slightly-better-defined reasons.

However, there was some great stuff in Crux regardless.  "The Eighth Sin" takes us to Hell, where we see that Christopher Rudd, the damned man liberated from his torment, has become a messianic figure, preaching a message that neither damned nor demon needs to be subject to the torments of Hell, pointing out that it is unjust for God to keep them down there (little does he know that God absconded from the universe three books ago). (An appearance from Gaudium, the cigar-chomping-ex-cherub-with-a-heart-of-gold-but-not-much-competence doesn't go amiss, either.)

The best part of the book was of course "The Yahweh Dance"; Lucifer is at its most interesting when discussing the problems of being a deity, and "The Yahweh Dance" is no exception.  The archangel Michael has passed his demiurgic power onto Elaine Belloc, his half-human daughter, and she is struggling to maintain some kind of control over it-- and in doing so, accidentally creates a universe.  How do you balance wanting to protect people from harm with wanting to let people make their own decisions when you have omnipotence?  It turns out to be harder than you'd think.  In glimpses of another universe, this story plays out some of the fascinating ideas that keep me coming back to Lucifer every time.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part IX: The Wolf Beneath the Tree

Comic trade paperback, 159 pages
Published 2005 (contents: 2004)
Borrowed from the library
Read February 2012

Lucifer: The Wolf Beneath the Tree

Writer: Mike Carey

Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, P. Craig Russell, Ted Naifeh

Colorists: Daniel Vozzo, Lovern Kindizierski
Letterers: Jared K. Fletcher, Ken Lopez

The feature of this volume is obviously "Lilith."  Just like its mother series, the 50th issue of Lucifer is an extra-long flashback story gorgeously drawn by the legendary artist of Killraven, P. Craig Russell.  It looks great, of course, better than most of the art we see in Lucifer, but I was a little disappointed in the story.  It tells the story of the construction of the Silver City (thus firmly establishing that Lucifer is not set in the same continuity as Murder Mysteries) and the rebellions of Lucifer.  But with an absent God and a lot of bickering, it all feels so... petty.  It's not as interesting as I think the beginning of Lucifer's rebellion should have been, nor as high-minded.  I did really like seeing young Mazikeen, though!

There's also a short side story called "Neutral Ground," where demons from Hell and from the Disapora meet for negotiations being held within a man's soul-- poor him.  This one was fun, in a black comedy sort of way.

Most of the volume consists of "The Wolf Beneath the Tree" itself, where Fenris of Norse mythology decides to take advantage of God's continuing absence to do... well, something devastating.  I think he wants to destroy the universe, though I'm not sure why.  Like the fight between Lucifer and the comedy Titans in the previous volume, it feels like a sidetrack, a failure to capitalize on the potential of a universe without God.  And then it doesn't end so much as stop.  

 

There's a cameo by Delirium of the Endless, but the best part of the story is definitely the frustrating conversation between Destiny of the Endless, Lucifer, Michael, and Elaine Belloc, where we learn that even Lucifer can lose his cool with sufficient provocation.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part VIII: Exodus

Comic trade paperback, 165 pages
Published 2005 (contents: 2003-04)
Borrowed from the library
Read January 2012

Lucifer: Exodus

Writer: Mike Carey

Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly

Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher

This volume is has two distinct halves.  The first, "Brothers in Arms," features two pretty dopey Greek gods discovering that Yahweh has departed our universe, and attempting to take his place at the center of creation.  When I had anticipated that the departure of God in Mansions of Silence would lead to some stories, I had thought they would be more interesting than this.  They're a little too comic to take seriously as a threat (though admittedly they have their moments), and the battle becomes a little too arbitrary-magic-rules at time. (They create a duplicate of Lucifer... somehow... which will kill him when he touches it... for some reason... and yet when he fights it, he survives... some way.)

The story does succeed in part, though, by being focalized through the perspective of the waitress who worked in Lucifer's bar before it was converted into a temple, fighting alongside Mazikeen against some demons.  It turns out that she fell in love with Mazikeen, and Carey wrings a lot out of her confusion at the strange happenings in her life since then.  And the climax, with her and Mazikeen in the Silver City, is one of the best moments in the series so far. (Though could Mazikeen wear an outfit any less like armor?) I also like Lucifer being forced to defend the Silver City.  So it has its moments, even if I was overall disappointed in it.

The second half of Exodus is two interlocked stories: "Stitchglass Slide" and "Wire, Briar, Limber Lock."  In these stories, Lucifer decides that all immortals must be evicted from his new universe, and Elaine Belloc, half-angel and guardian of everything beside hedgehogs, assembles a task force to take care of the problem.  I liked this one a lot, but like many of the best Lucifer stories, Lucifer's not in it a whole lot. (The same problem that afflicted Gaiman's Sandman, I suppose.) Carey creates a really interesting demon for them to fight, one who weaves physical objects out of emotional responses, and forms a touching relationship with a young boy from Earth who stumbles through one of the portals into Lucifer's universe.  It's nice to see Elaine taking charge, but in her own way distinct from Lucifer.  I liked these stories a lot.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part VII: Mansions of the Silence

Comic trade paperback, 142 pages
Published 2004 (contents: 2003)
Borrowed from the library
Read January 2012

Lucifer: Mansions of the Silence

Writer: Mike Carey

Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Dean Ormston, David Hahn

Colorist: Daniel Vozzo

After the somewhat disappointing Inferno, Lucifer is back on form.  Lucifer himself is largely shunted to the side in this volume, as he assembles a crew for the Viking ship made of toenails he acquired last volume.  This ship will be journeying into the Mansions of the Silence, an area on the fringes of reality, where the soul of Elaine Belloc ended up after her death in The Divine Comedy.

I was doubly pleased by this setup: I really like Elaine, and her death was a big gut-punch, so her return would be welcome. (In some comics, I'd feel peeved that a death was being undone like this, but given all the crossing between Earth, Hell, the Silver City, and various other afterlives, death never had a whole lot of meaning in this series to begin with.) The other great part of this setup is the crew of the ship, basically every side character we've seen in Lucifer so far: Mazikeen, Lucifer's former consort and War Leader of the Lilim-in-Exile; Cal, who I'd actually forgotten about, but is Elaine's older brother and also half-angel; Jill Presto, the oft-scantily-clad invincible cabaret dancer/pop musician carrying the child of the Basanos; Bergelmir, half-brother of Loki and lover of Jill; David Easterman, a ghost who is one of many people who is not Elaine's father; Gaudium, the universe's most incompetent fallen cherub; and Spera, his long-suffering sister.  Lucifer himself cannot go because his presence is so large that it was destroy the Mansions of the Silence.

As you might imagine, the journey of this motley crew never ceases to entertain.  There's a lot of tension and conflict there, but when it comes down to it, they make an odd sort of team, even if one or two of them end up more dead than they were before.  The only part I didn't really like is that when they get in over their heads, Lucifer just shows up and solves all their problems, a return to the dull plotting of the earlier volumes.

While they journey, though, Lucifer isn't just sitting around relaxing; he and Michael have accessed the Mind of God through a backdoor created by Mazikeen's ex-husband. (To say that these books get complicated and weird sometimes would be an understatement.) What they discover there is another one of the series' shocking, clever, and fascinating revelations.

The volume wraps up with a one-part story where Elaine and her friend Mona, returned to life, discover that our universe isn't exactly what they'd hoped.  It's nicely illustrated by David Hahn, who also did some fill-ins on Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane back in the day.  It's also quite funny, though there's a great dramatic bit where Elaine confronts the demon who's taken her father's form.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part VI: Inferno

Lucifer: Inferno

Writer: Mike Carey
Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Dean Ormston, Craig Hamilton
Colorist: Daniel Vozzo

Comic trade paperback, 166 pages. Published 2004 (content: 2002-03).  Borrowed from the library.  Read January 2012.

I should have known it couldn't be sustained.  Though it's by no means bad, Inferno is probably the weakest volume of Lucifer yet.  I think it's better than the first two, but by virtue of the two excellent volumes between Children and Monsters and this, it feels comparatively weak.  "Inferno" picks up right where "Purgatorio" in The Divine Comedy left off: after his battle with the Basanos, Lucifer is weak, but he still must fight his scheduled duel with Amenadiel, a throne who he ticked off in an earlier volume.

Unfortunately, far too much of "Inferno" is buildup, and buildup concerning the politics of Effrul again.  Even though I liked that kinda stuff in A Dalliance with the Damned, it feels like filler here, when I know there are bigger issues to engage with.  Still, Lucifer once again feels like he's actually in danger-- and as Mazikeen goes out in search of Lucifer's missing wings, seeds are laid for something very interesting that I suspect will have major repercussions to come.

The side stories in Inferno are some of the weaker ones in Lucifer so far.  "Bearing Gifts" was okay (great Gaudium cameo!), but I'm not sure what it had to do with anything.  "Come to Judgement" has some interesting revelations, but is also confusing.  But, you know, more Gaudium!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part V: The Divine Comedy

Lucifer: The Divine Comedy

Writer: Mike Carey
Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Dean Ormston
Colorist: Daniel Vozzo

Comic trade paperback, 180 pages. Published 2003 (content: 2002). Borrowed from the library. Read January 2012.

Now that Lucifer has his own universe, it turns out that everyone wants a piece of it. Most notably, the Basanos, the living deck of magical cards that created a prophecy for Lucifer briefly in Devil in the Gateway, want to strike out on their own... and they have the power to do it. The bulk of The Divine Comedy is the knock-em-down, drag-em-out fight between Lucifer and the Basanos. This is the best conflict in Lucifer so far: not only is there a genuine, warranted sense of peril in the battle, there's also something at stake for Lucifer that's far more interesting than his survival. The Basanos want to set themselves up as gods in the new universe, and that violates the only commandment that Lucifer has set for his new realm.

Prominently displayed on the back cover of The Divine Comedy is an image of Death, big sister of Dream of the Endless. I wondered if this was a gimmicky cameo to appeal to Sandman fans. And when Lucifer is dying, Death turns up to talk to him, and I was kinda thinking yes. But then... well... gimmick is far from it. I should have known that when Death turns up, she's for real. Man, what a killer moment.

Elsewhere, Elaine Belloc is getting up to her usual hijinks, which are enlivened by the introduction of the greatest comedy side character since Merv Pumpkinhead: Gaudium the Fallen Cherub. Hardly the most imposing of demons, the little guy talks big, but is unable to back it up, and talks tough, but turns out to be pretty nice: "God? Oh shit, yeah. We used to be big, big friends of his. Yeah, really big. This was when the firmament above and the firmament below hadn't been divided yet. In fact, now that I think back, it was me who gave him the idea for that." He's initially Elaine's bodyguard, but he eventually gets his own side story, a quest into the realm of a dangerous god... only neither he nor his sister are really prepared for what they have to do. Hilarious, even if does spin out of some rather dark events.

There's also a great sidestory about a centaur girl who tries to do the right thing by Lucifer and gets exactly what you'd expect for her troubles.

Lucifer is definitely firing on all cylinders on this point; now I need to find out what happens next. Like right away.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part IV: A Dalliance with the Damned

Lucifer: A Dalliance with the Damned

Writer: Mike Carey
Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Dean Ormston
Colorist: Daniel Vozzo

Comic trade paperback, 157 pages. Published 2002 (content: 2001-02). Borrowed from the library. Read December 2011.

So at the end of the second volume of Lucifer, Children and Monsters, I was already beginning to weary of the format (Lucifer goes somewhere, seems to be in trouble, turns out to have known everything all along), but there was a nugget of an idea that demonstrated promise for a future installment: Lucifer had borrowed the demiurgic power of his brother Michael to create a new universe. Woah. It seemed as though this wasn't going to be a series about a Mean Wizard beating Meaner Wizards; Lucifer was going to be about something.

A Dalliance with the Damned delivers on the promise of those final moments of Children and Monsters. The highlight here is undoubtedly the sequence where Lucifer creates a garden with a man and a woman in it, and gives them only one commandment: "Bow down to no one. Worship no one. Not even me." Of course, there's a snake in the garden, there always is. The snake in this case is an angel from our universe, who tells the man and the woman that if their maker will not give them strictures, they should make their own. And so it ends badly. But unlike the Lord, Lucifer admits that there must have been a flaw in his design, and so does away with them. Here is the true potential of a story about Lord Lucifer leaving Hell. If Lucifer decides not to rule in our universe anymore, what is the kind of place he would consider acceptable? Carey plays with some great ideas here, and comes up with answers that were new to me, at least.

The rest of A Dalliance with the Damned is good, too, thankfully. While Lucifer is trying to arrange his garden, young Elaine Belloc discovers that she has more powers than she thought in an encounter with Brute and Glob of Simon/Kirby fame. Elaine ends up in Hell, but gets out; she's a good character, and provides a much-needed human anchor in the cosmic struggled that beset this series.

The bulk of the book is taken up by the story "A Dalliance with the Damned" itself, which is largely Lucifer-free, detailing political machinations in Effrul, a domain in Hell. What shakes things up in Effrul is that Lady Lys, the daughter of Lord Arux, the demon archduke of Effrul, brings a human up from the damned to be her sexual plaything. Christopher Rudd is a great character, a man who killed an innocent boy in a moment of anger three hundred years ago, and so has suffered ever since. Lady Lys even turns out to be a good character, which I did not anticipate at first, as she begins to take too much of an interest in her plaything. Complicated politics are the order of the day, but they're interesting politics, with good ideas backing them, and some pretty unexpected outcomes. I wouldn't have thought that a sidestep like this would work, but it does completely.

If Lucifer can keep this level of quality up, it will be a great series indeed.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part III: Children and Monsters

Lucifer: Children and Monsters

Writer: Mike Carey
Artists: Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Dean Ormston
Colorists: Daniel Vozzo, Marguerite Van Cook
Letterer: Fiona Stephenson

Comic trade paperback, 202 pages. Published 2001 (content: 2000-01). Borrowed from the library. Read December 2011.

In Devil in Gateway, Lucifer got some kinda paper from the Silver City. In this book, he uses it, opening up a gateway that draws people to his bar for reasons they don't fully understand, but more importantly, allowing him to travel where he needs to go next. For you see, Lucifer has a plan... just not one that we are privy to. In "The House of Windowless Rooms," Lucifer travels into the Japanese afterworld to get his wings back.

This is where I started to get bored with Lucifer. Honestly, the premise that the universe contains innumerable different belief systems, all true, doesn't do much for me. It worked in The Sandman, which often treated the idea fancifully, but Lucifer takes them all seriously-- and you can't take them all seriously, because they're not compatible. I think it makes the story of Lucifer have a whole lot less impact if he's not rebelling against the Lord, but one of a countless number of gods. Lucifer doesn't really treat them as belief systems, just complicated fantasy worlds into which our protagonist travels. And our protagonist does not have to be Lucifer, he could jut be any old grouchy wizard and the story would be exactly the same.

The other reason that "The House of Windowless Rooms" didn't work for me is because it's the point where Lucifer's all-knowingness became too much. To travel into the Japanese afterlife, he must travel as a mortal... but it makes no difference. From twelfth page, where he blind the gatekeeper, it's obvious the despite being mortal, he still knows everything about everything and thus he's never in any danger. Plus, everyone he goes up against is dumb-- and that doesn't make him seem smart. You just know he's gonna win no matter what. What ever happened to suspense?

Meanwhile, his piano bar comes under attack from gross demon things, and this did work for me, since it felt like there was actual danger. Mazikeen and the human waitress are vulnerable-- very vulnerable-- and so there was actually some suspense. Also the sassy magician woman from Devil in the Gateway makes a surprise reappearance, and I liked her.

The second story here, the titular "Children and Monsters," brings back Elaine, the girl with ghostly grandmothers from last volume. I liked her too, so it's a welcome reappearance. Then there's a lot of strange mythological stuff and Lucifer knows everything about everything and the Heavenly Host invade Los Angeles, but turn out to be pretty lame. Elaine made me care some, but I didn't care a lot. It's kinda like one of those Star Trek or Doctor Who episodes where everyone is always talking about a ray and it doesn't mean anything because the ray does whatever it needs to at that moment, except with a gross version of a vaguely Christian mythology.

But, the ending. Hmmmm... This was the moment where it became clear why this was a story about the Lucifer, and not Lucifer the Grouchy Amoral Wizard. So I'm intrigued enough to keep on going, at least.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Lucifer, Part II: Devil in the Gateway

Lucifer: Devil in the Gateway

Writer: Mike Carey
Artists: Scott Hampton, Chris Weston, James Hodgkins, Warren Pleece, Dean Ormston
Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterers: Todd Klein, Ellie de Ville

Comic trade paperback, 158 pages. Published 2001 (content: 1999-2000). Borrowed from the library. Read December 2011.

Since we last saw Lucifer in Murder Mysteries, mulling over the injustice of the Lord, some 13 billion years have passed. More than that if Murder Mysteries takes place before the creation of the universe, which it probably does. Since then, Lucifer has rebelled against the Lord, been consigned to Hell, given up Hell (its dominion passing into the hands of a pair of angels), and set up in a piano bar in L.A. because, you know, what else would you do? His former consort, Mazikeen, works there with him.

And he'd probably be there, enjoying himself just fine, if Amendiel, an angel himself, didn't pop into Lucifer's bar, Lux, from the Silver City to ask Lucifer to undertake a mission that the Lord can't be seen to directly intervene in. In "The Morningstar Option," someone's granting wishes, or something. It's all very vague and cosmological. Lucifer recruits a human girl who tied into the phenomenon and strikes out to put a stop to it. The story actually reminded me a lot of "The Thessaliad" in The Sandman Presents: Taller Tales in that Lucifer, like Thessaly, knows the ways these kinds of stories work, and therefore undertakes the story in line with the way it should go.

In the second story here, "A Six-Card Spread," Lucifer heads off the Germany to get another former angel to read some cards for him. Of course, there's trouble afoot, what with a bunch of racist thugs running around and the cards themselves gaining intelligence. And Lucifer's not the only person after them... (Who would have guessed that?)

In both good and bad ways, these remind me of the early Sandman stories. There are big, neat ideas being played with. But there's also a protagonist for whom no problem ever seems to exist. As in the Sandman stories, I found myself focusing on the minor mortal characters, because they had lives and problems and such. Lucifer only has smugness, and that works much of the time... but not all of it. I found "The Morningstar Option" more interesting, but "A Six-Card Spread" got bogged down in all the mythology of the cards, which I didn't find very interesting. Part of the problem (again, like early Sandman) is that the story often doesn't seem to operate by rules the reader is aware of. Lucifer and all the myriad demons do things when they need to, and that is that.

The villains of "The Morningstar Option" bothered me, in that they were gods from before our universe or something... but that didn't really matter. They could have been wish-granting Star Trek space aliens for all the difference it made to the story being told. Just saying "gods" didn't do a whole lot to make the story different.

The book ends with a short story, "Born with the Dead," about a girl whose dead grandmothers give her advice, which comes in handy when her best friend is murdered. I liked it a lot, probably for the same reason I liked a lot of the Sandman fill-in stories-- it had a protagonist I could identify with. Lucifer's here, but it's a small bit at the end.

Last time I read a Mike Carey take on a Sandman spin-off, I got the excellent The Furies. So far, this isn't bad, but it's no rival either.

Faster than a DC Bullet: The Sandman Spin-Offs, Part XII: The Furies

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2002 (contents: 2002)
Borrowed from the library
Read August 2011

The Sandman Presents: The Furies

Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: John Bolton
Letterer: Todd Klein

Lyta Hall is probably my third-favorite character in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Which is weird, because she isn't exactly up to much. (Though what she is up turns out to be quite important.) She used to be superhero Fury of Infinity, Inc., but within The Sandman, she's the poor woman whose husband turns out to be long dead, manipulated by nightmares escaped from the Dreaming, whose child is taken from her by Dream to become the next Dream, and who is manipulated by agents outside mortal comprehension to bring about Dream's death. Poor woman-- no wonder she's a bit overwhelmed, and I like the idea of the character, gone from being a powerful young superheroine to a plaything of the gods through a ridiculous series of bad circumstances.

Anyway, I was excited to read a book focusing on her, and Mike Carey and John Bolton's graphic novel did not disappoint. The Furies sees the Greek god Cronus returning with a complicated plan to destroy the Furies so that he can become the new Furies, in which Lyta Hall, thanks to the link forged between herself and the Furies in The Sandman, is the lynchpin. It's half a tale of gods and monsters like Neil Gaiman would have told, half a woman trying to figure out her crazy life, but you get the feeling that Carey treats the mythology more seriously than Gaiman ever did and that Lyta might actually acquire some agency for once. Endowed with superstrength, and she finally manages to do something super, even if it's just getting her life back a bit.

John Bolton's painted art was very nice, sort of Alex Rossian, but with a little less majesty. It's maybe too realistic: his depiction of Dream (there's Daniel Hall again!, though he seems to have forgotten his mother) and some of the other supernatural characters looked a little goofy because they looked so normal, making their supernatural characteristics a little awkward. On the other hand, Lyta's journey in the underworld and the appearance of the Furies themselves were fantastic.