Yarva Etrigan Daemonicus

#1-2 - Origin: Etrigan, Merlin, Jason Blood; (Morgaine le Fey, Warly). Intro: Randu Singh, Harry Matthews, Glenda Mark.
#3 - The Reincarnators
#4-5 - Ugly Meg and the Iron Duke (Kamara, #4)
#6 - The Howler
#7 - Klarion the Witchboy (last Merlin)
#8-10 - Phantom of the Sewers (Farley Fairfax)
#11-13 - Baron von Evilstein (Rakenstein)
#14-15 - Return of Klarion the Witchboy
#16 - Morgaine le Fey, Warly the Warlock

I have been trying to remember the first "Demon" comic I read. I bought the Matt Wagner mini-series new off the shelves, so that may have been it. I was buying Alan Moore's Swamp Thing as backissues right around the same time, so #25-27 of that series may have been it as well. I was also buying backissues of Jack Kirby's original series right around then, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. I bought Amazing Heroes #93, which cover-featured the then-upcoming Matt Wagner series, and I know I read that before reading any of Kirby's. In that issue, J. Vance provided a "Hero History" of The Demon which I found fascinating. He didn't like all of the issues (he classified them loosely as "The Peak" (#1-6), "The Plunge" (#7-10) and "The Pits" (#11-16), but I found even the descriptions of the issues he didn't like to be fascinating. For the record, I disagree with his assessment, or at least his conclusions; I find the entire series to be of a kind, and you either like it or you don't.

Vance went on to detail all of Etrigan's appearances between Kirby's series and Wagner's (Brave & the Bold, Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, DC Comics Presents, Swamp Thing, Blue Devil), which I used as a roadmap to plot my near-term backissue purchases. I found most of them and read all the ones I did, but I've read few of them since. Later this month DC will publish a "DC Finest" collection of the original series plus a good number of the follow-up stories I mentioned. What took me weeks (if not longer) to acquire on the backissue market back in the late '80s, will soon be available in one swell foop... and if you tell modern fans they're living in a Golden Age of comics, they won't believe you. But I digress...

I have read the original Kirby series quite a few times over the years, but what I'm really looking forward to (re-)reading are those post-Kirby stories. Yet I nevertheless felt the need to refresh those first 16 issues in my mind before jumping into Detective Comics #482. So review (or not) as you see fit, and I'll see you back here on February 25 (or thereabouts).

The Demon's first non-Kirby appearance was The Brave and the Bold #109 by Bob Haney and Jim Aparo, released between The Demon #13 and #14, which is where the editor slotted it in this collection. I understand why he did it, but it breaks up the "Kirby" flow. If it'd been me, I'd've been tempted to slot it after #16. The Haney story isn't very good, but the Kirby series isn't all that great, either. As Cap put it (in another discussion): " I wouldn't be feeling particularly inspired, either, if my magnum opus had been canceled out from under me." I bought it the DCF primarily to have the post-Kirby material on good paper stock between two covers, but that makes for a pretty slim volume, I must admit. I cannot recommend it on that basis, but if you need The Demon #1-16 as well, this would be a good buy.

The story concerns a creature bent on killing every sailor in Gotham in revenge for a death sentence passed on its mortal form 90 years before. Here's what J. Vance had to say about it: "Jim Aparo's art was good, but unusually muddy in reproduction [corrected in the collection]. Far worse was bob Haney's script, which, though faitly consistant in terms of story, betrayed a total misunderstnding of Kirby's characters. Etrigan spouted warmed-over Thor dialogue ("Aye, Randu, and thither fly we to rescue Batman..."). for the sake of 'drame,' Merlin was dragged in to behave like Odin at his most childish, removing Etrigan's 'demon power' (as opposed, one must presume, to Batman's human power) simply because his busy servant had missed an appointment, putting himn at the mercy of the killer creature, only to restore it four panels later. As mediocre as the solo stories had become, this was infinitely worse."

The second non-Kirby "Demon" is The Brave and the Bold #137, also by Bob Haney, which appeared nearly three years after the last issue of The Demon, actually inferior to the first. Vance again: "An ancient Chinese wizard called the Shanhn-zi returned for a rematch wuth Batman (who'd previously defeated him with an assist from the Spectre). Jason and glenda, having sorted things out so far as to having become engaged during the intervening years, happen upon the situation while playing tourist in Gotham's chinatown. Jason offers Batman his aid, to Glenda's consternation (but then, she should've known that bettothal to a demon from Hell would have its drawbacks). The Shanhn-zi's goal is world domination, of course, and to keep the mis-matched heroes out of his hair he turns Etrigan into a fly, Batman into a vampire bat, and finally himself into a cobra. (Don't ask.) Author Haney calls Merlin in from left fieldagain to stingily grant Etrigan shape-shifting ability on a one-time basis. Becoming a mongoose, the Demon brings the threat of the Shanhn-zito an end, allowing all involved to return to human form--except the story, which stayed a turkey from beginning to end."

Replies

Jeff of Earth-J February 25, 2026 at 2:35pm

The Demon's first non-Kirby appearance was The Brave and the Bold #109 by Bob Haney and Jim Aparo, released between The Demon #13 and #14, which is where the editor slotted it in this collection. I understand why he did it, but it breaks up the "Kirby" flow. If it'd been me, I'd've been tempted to slot it after #16. The Haney story isn't very good, but the Kirby series isn't all that great, either. As Cap put it (in another discussion): " I wouldn't be feeling particularly inspired, either, if my magnum opus had been canceled out from under me." I bought it the DCF primarily to have the post-Kirby material on good paper stock between two covers, but that makes for a pretty slim volume, I must admit. I cannot recommend it on that basis, but if you need The Demon #1-16 as well, this would be a good buy.

The story concerns a creature bent on killing every sailor in Gotham in revenge for a death sentence passed on its mortal form 90 years before. Here's what J. Vance had to say about it: "Jim Aparo's art was good, but unusually muddy in reproduction [corrected in the collection]. Far worse was bob Haney's script, which, though faitly consistant in terms of story, betrayed a total misunderstnding of Kirby's characters. Etrigan spouted warmed-over Thor dialogue ("Aye, Randu, and thither fly we to rescue Batman..."). for the sake of 'drame,' Merlin was dragged in to behave like Odin at his most childish, removing Etrigan's 'demon power' (as opposed, one must presume, to Batman's human power) simply because his busy servant had missed an appointment, putting himn at the mercy of the killer creature, only to restore it four panels later. As mediocre as the solo stories had become, this was infinitely worse."

The second non-Kirby "Demon" is The Brave and the Bold #137, also by Bob Haney, which appeared nearly three years after the last issue of The Demon, actually inferior to the first. Vance again: "An ancient Chinese wizard called the Shanhn-zi returned for a rematch wuth Batman (who'd previously defeated him with an assist from the Spectre). Jason and glenda, having sorted things out so far as to having become engaged during the intervening years, happen upon the situation while playing tourist in Gotham's chinatown. Jason offers Batman his aid, to Glenda's consternation (but then, she should've known that bettothal to a demon from Hell would have its drawbacks). The Shanhn-zi's goal is world domination, of course, and to keep the mis-matched heroes out of his hair he turns Etrigan into a fly, Batman into a vampire bat, and finally himself into a cobra. (Don't ask.) Author Haney calls Merlin in from left fieldagain to stingily grant Etrigan shape-shifting ability on a one-time basis. Becoming a mongoose, the Demon brings the threat of the Shanhn-zito an end, allowing all involved to return to human form--except the story, which stayed a turkey from beginning to end."
Jeff of Earth-J February 26, 2026 at 11:57am

A year later, Etrigan guest-starred in the "Man-Bat" feature of Batman Family #17, with art by Michael Golden. Although J. Vance did cover this story in his Amazing Heroes article, this is not one I picked up back then and read it for the first time today. To say that I am not a Man-Bat fan would be an understatement, but Etrigan and Morgaine Le Fey never looked better. Batman, Batgirl and Huntress also appear, and Golden draws himself into the story as a security guard.

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