Harley Quinn Book 1: Hot In The City (#0-8)

"Romance.  Who needs it?  I've got all the unconditional love I need right here" - Harley Quinn

Well let's lighten the mood a little now, Harley Quinn's New 52 series was something of a breath of fresh air amongst the doom, gore and gloom of the majority of the rest of the line.  I've already covered her team up miniseries with Power Girl that happened later in this solo series of Harley's but this is her ongoing that debuted in December 2013 and has been going ever since.  If you don't know much about Harley here's a potted history.  She first appeared in Batman:  The Animated Series as Harleen Quinzel the former psychiatrist of The Joker's who became his partner in crime and girlfriend although the relationship was something of an abusive one.  After joining the New 52 Suicide Squad (and you'll be seeing her as part of the team in the Suicide Squad film in August), she was given her own series where she functions much as Deadpool does in the Marvel Universe.  She has no respect for the fourth wall, is a pansexual and somewhat homicidal anti-hero and just generally larks about having a laugh.  She's no longer the Joker's girlfriend after he blew up her home and set fire to her beaver (No not like that perverts!  I mean the stuffed beaver called Bernie who she likes to chat with.  Tsk) and in this series is striking out on her own though she has a casual relationship with Poison Ivy going on now.  The issue #0 I'm not going to cover in any detail because it is basically Harley auditioning artists to draw her new series, with single pages from the likes of Batman: TAS's Bruce Timm and the late Darwyn Cooke amongst those responding. 

Issue Zero: Serious talent involved.

In the end she chooses Chad Hardin, with Stephane Roux (see the Harley Quinn and Power Girl mini I covered a couple of months ago) as a back-up and writers Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti who put in a cameo appearence at the end. Conner is an artist as well and is also responsible for the fantastic covers each issue has.  After she was told she'd inherited some New York Coney Island property at the end of issue #0 from an old Arkham Asylum patient of hers we join Harley in issue #1 driving her motorbike with what's left of all her possessions on it to check her new place out.

She waits at some lights and a hipster is dragging a sad looking daschund along behind him. The dog implores her and so she takes him.  They drive on, then a masked man pulls up along side with a shotgun and fires at Harley.  He misses but causes a crash and pile up.  Annoyed she wallops his head off with her giant mallet.

Stop. Hammer Time.

Finally she arrives, it is a four floor building with a Freakshow, Creepshow and Criminal House of Wax as some of the businesses there. The real estate agent shows her around.  The second floor is flats where the people who run the businesses live.  The third floor is empty, mainly storage and lumber and the fourth floor is a living space with access via an elevator of its own and roof access too.

Harley: "I think I've died and gone to heaven"

It's almost too perfect she thinks and the estate agent hits her with the bad news.  She is to be responsible for the back taxes, real estate taxes, insurance and upkeep.  The tenant's rents don't cover all this so she will have to earn about six thousand extra a month to keep the place.

Harley's new digs.

Later Tony, a small man who looks after security in the building, gives her a welcome gift, a local newspaper with the help wanted section circled, a milky coffee and a Brooklyn everything bagel with cheese.  This makes her happy and she gives Tony a hug and the person looking at her through a sniper scope can't make the shot.

So she uses make-up to give her a normal skin tone and applies for a job at a mental health clinic as a counselor using faked references.  They say they'll call her back.  Then she tries out for Roller Derby and the team are impressed with her violence and hire there and then.

Later that night Harley is lying out on the roof of the building saying how much she in enjoying the secutity having a place of her own gives her.

Harley:  There's no place like home.

Then Tony appears and shoots the assassin who was about to attack Harley from behind.  Harley rummages around in the assassin's clothes and finds a flyer, it has a bounty listed on her head for two million dollars!

Still has feelings for the Joker.

Next day Harley is looking round the House of Wax which has models of all famous criminals including The Joker.  Harley spots a fridge and realises she needs one of her own and goes and purchases one.  Outside she sees a demonstration, a pet shelter is going to put down fifty animals tommorrow if they don't get adopted.  Harley applies to adopt but the woman she hands the form to rips it up.

So Harley calls Poison Ivy to come and help with her plan.  While she waits, she hangs out with Bernie at her place.  Then the corpse of the hitman comes to life causing Harley to jump in fright.  But it's just Ivy standing on the fire escape using her vines to make him move.  Harley is relieved, "I don't know if I wanna kill you or kiss you".  Ivy replies, "kisses please."  Harley then says:

Harley: "You wanna meet my beaver?"

Ivy: "Um.. Okay... why not?

Harley: [shows her Bernie]  Bernie, meet Poison Ivy, Bernie.

Ivy: "Oh.. it's an actual beaver.  And he's burnt".

A well stuffed beaver is such a rich source of double entendre.  So after that at night they go to the shelter and let all the animals out.  Who promptly all run away.  Harley and Ivy split up to round them up and take them back to Harley's place.

"Rescuing" the animals.

Once she is alone, someone in a car tries to run her down.  She jumps onto the roof and chokes the man with a pair of giant pliers and he tells her that her address has been posted online with the bounty.  She throws him through a butcher's window and ties him up with sausages and this attracts the dogs so she leads him and them back to her building.

Ivy has already got the cats and birds there, so Harley decides to put the dogs on the third floor.  She then tosses the sausage wrapped hitman to the dogs and they make short work of him.  Next day Ivy wakes first and goes downstairs and makes floor three an indoor forest area with trees and grass.

Ivy and Harley make a cute couple.

Pleased with this, Harley is asked by Tony what she plans to do with all the poo that's going to need to be dealt with.  She says she has an idea, and is Tony good at building stuff?  He says he is, so she tells him she has "something spectacular" planned.

We next find Harley on valentines day attending the Creepshow.  She is ambushed by a hitman in there but kills him with his own shotgun and as she leaves, tells the proprietor she left something scary in there for him.

Brooding about her lack of a date she finds Tony looking similarly despondant holding some flowers.  He was going to ask Queenie out but she's gone out with someone else instead.  He gives Harley the flowers and leaves sadly.  In the bath later Harley complains about all the romance on TV, Bernie says "admit it fruitcakes.  You're lonely".

Bernie: "You need to put your ass out there, meet new people and sell your wares.  Giving all your attention to just your pet beaver will make you appear antisocial".

Pondering Valentines Day.

Harley spots a plant Ivy left her and eats a berry from it.  Then she gets a call from the nursing home she applied to be a therapist at, she's got the job.  To celebrate she dolls herself up and gets ready to hit a singles bar.

Harley: "Look out world, here I come!  I'll never understand why Superman wears the same outfit every damn day."

She strolls on out, but the berry gives off some sort of scent that affects the driver of a bus full of criminals and he crashes it and they all escape.

Each one of them smells a different delicious smell coming from Harley and advance on her.  She runs into a hardware store and battles them inside using the likes of strimmers and drills until there is only one left and she blows him up.

Harley deals with the besotted criminals.

She goes back outside and is kissed by the policewoman who was called out, much to the policewoman's surprise because she isn't into girls.  But Harley smells like the best donut ever.  Harley runs home realising the berry was causing all this and catapaults the plant out of her home.

Then Tony appears, the berry has worn off and he asks Harley for the flowers back so he can fight for Queenie.  Harley gives him the flowers and the last berry saying it'll "give you an edge".  Then she goes and plays with the cats and dogs for a while.  She ruminates on how Valentine's Day is the meanest holiday there is.  But as she leaves to go for a walk she sees Tony being hugged by Queenie and a man and thinks:

Harley: "Although it is awfully nice to play Cupid every once in a while."

Next day Harley disguises herself and gets ready to attend her first day at the clinic.  She meets with Tony who has the plans for the mysterious contraption she wants building which he negociates four months rent free to do so.

A tale of woe and neglect.

Her first patient is an old lady called Mrs. Rubenstein who tells her a sob story about how her son rarely even calls her and she hasn't seen her grandson in ages and she thinks they are just waiting for a big blood clot to claim her life.  Harley says they'll talk again on friday, Mrs Rubenstein responds, "If I don't die of a broken heart, sure."  Harley then tells the receptionist to rearrange her appointments for the evening she has something to do now.

At the Rubenstein's house, the grandson is playing videogames, his mum is demonstrating massage devices to some friends to sell and the dad is playing with his model trains upstairs.  Harley crashes through the side of their house on a bulldozer and takes all three of them hostage and dumps them in the boot of her car.

She goes for some food at a diner and while she does so, takes out another hitman with a fork.  Then she attends her first roller derby match, which she is late for.  Her team loses, but she runs over the opposing team as they leave the stadium, "wow, that was kinda hot" says her team captain.

Harley then remembers she has the Rubensteins in her car boot and gets them out and sits them on the end of a pier.  She kicks the grandson and his mum off it and takes out the son/dad's gag.  When he realises why she is doing this he furiously tells her he sees his mother three times a week, his wife has lunch with her once a week and his son sees her every saturday.  Harley is non-plussed.

Mr Rubenstein: "She has alzeimers you twisted clown!  She can't even remember what she had for dinner!"
Then he jumps off the pier to save his family but lands on sand, luckily the tide was out.  Totally unconcerned with her actions towards them Harley cheerily drives off telling the father to call his mother. 

The Rubensteins get some unorthodox therapy.

She attends her evening appointment which turns out to be an elderly Jewish man on a mobility scooter and with bionic limbs.  He is called Sy Borgman, and he knows she is Harley Quinn.  He is an ex secret agent and he wants her help tracking down and killing some Russian sleeper agents here in New York.  Are you ready to serve your country he asks her? "Well, Mystah Borg.  Let's do this thing" she replies.

Sy gives her the files on the seven targets they are after and tells her to study it ready for tommorrow.  In return for her help he can find out who put a hit out on her, though Harley says she has someone looking into that.  She returns to her building and is invited to a Burlesque show taking place there.  She gets a bit to involved though and storms the stage thinking the fight taking place is real.

Sy Borgman.

Then she go upstairs to read the files and nods off, she has a very weird dream in the process.  Next day she attends her clinic jobs until it is time to meet Sy in the evening and begin their job.  The first target is in hospital on life support so they gain entrance to his room by attaching the mobility scooter to a zipline and crashing through the window.

Sy rips all the wires out of the wall.  Nothing changes.  He cuts all the tubes.  Still nothing changes.  He electro-punches the man.  Nothing.  So Harley gathers up the tubs and blows hard down them making the mans arteries explode.  This kills him and they make their escape from the hospital.

One way to make an entrance.

They arrive at their next target's house, they break in through the gates and battle the gaurds.  The target phones one of the others and says it is their job to alert the others.  Then, when Sy and Harley reach her she sets off a huge explosion that blows up the whole house.

Sy uses his cybernetic enhancements to fire up some cables that grab onto a passing news helicopter.  The three off them are dragged free of the building and Harley takes the woman's rings before letting go of her.  She and Sy clamber into the chopper and take control.  Harley manages to fy it to the zoo and crash lands it outside, their next target "The Bear" works inside.

Dealing with the Russians.

As they go find the secret entrance, Sy tells them The Bear got his nickname because he used to feed whole families to them to get prisoners to talk.  The Bear is watching them on CCTV and says over the phone to another target, "zey von't know what hit zem.  I have a plan".  He lets out some of the more ferocious animals.  The bears don't want to get up though, he kicks one and it rips him to pieces in a rage.  His head goes bouncing out of the enclosure and is picked up by one of the eagles.

Inside the zoo Sy tells Harley their work has been done for them, he recognises the tattoo on the arm one of the tigers is chowing down on.  With The Bear taken care of, Sy says they can do a couple more tonight, while Harley wants to stay and play with the animals for a while.

Then the rest of the Russian targets pull up at the zoo entrance.  After trading insults they fight Harley and Sy.  Two of them blow themselves up with faulty bagel grenades, Sy blows one up with a rocket launcher, Harley brains one with a pipe and the older female in charge kisses Sy but aims a dagger at his back.  Before she can strike, he drives forwards and knocks her into the rhino pit and she is impaled on a horn.

The Bear falls victim to the zoo animals.

With all of them dead, they go for the mystery eighth target.  Turns out he's an American who sold Sy a rare car in 1959 but didn't tell him it had a radiator leak.  When he broke down and had to go for some coolant, he returned to find his dream car had been totally stripped of parts.  When he says he would have left the car to Harley, she gets mad and kicks the man out of the window.

Sy and Harley watch the sunrise on the boardwalk.  She kisses him and says, "you sure know how to show a girl a good time".  Then the eagle drops The Bear's head in Sy's lap.  Harley kicks it into the sea.  She returns home to find Poison Ivy there who has taken care of another couple of hitmen and says she has a lead on "who put out that bounty on your cute, crazy little head."

Another wacky escapade over.

Next day, she and Harley go to the beach.  Ivy tells her she tracked the postings down to Harley's laptop, so someone must be breaking in and posting while she is out or asleep.  Two men come up to them and flirt with them, the girls decide to play along.  One of them paints Harley's toenails:

Harley: "I'm keepin' this one".

Ivy: "Do what you want just put him away when I'm around".

They return to Harley's place and check her laptop activity.  The site advertising the hit gets updated once every five days and so that means tonight will be another update time.  They find a file called "Nunya" as in "nunya business" but it is user and password protected.

Ivy's plan is to hide in the closet while Harley sleeps and they can catch the miscreant in the act.  Harley finally gets off to sleep, then starts sleep walking.  She goes to the laptop and increases the bounty to three million, her plan is to attract all the local competition and kill them off.  She opens the Nunya file, but then two assassins crash in through the window.  Ivy starts fighting them and Bernie exhorts Harley to wake up:

Bernie: "Hey!  Turnip head!  They're going to kill your favourite houseplant if you don't wake up!."

Harley wakes up and between them, she and Ivy kill the attackers.  But in the fight Harley's laptop is destroyed.  Ivy fills Harley in on what she found out.

Ivy: "With the computer gone and you unable to remember the site or password, you're a bit screwed".

Harley unconciously hiring her assassins.

One of the attacker's phone goes off and he has a text update about a meeting of the "Brooklyn Assassins Guild" the next day.  They decide to crash it and Tony comes along for extra firepower.  Once there, Ivy uses her powers to tie them all up with vines.  Harley tries to explain to them how there is no bounty on her, and if they come after her she'll go after their families.  A grizzled assassin says he doesn't believe her and has no family to threaten, so Tony shoots him in the head.

As Harley, Ivy and Tony walk back to Harley's place, she thanks them for her help and she'll just have to keep dealing with the ramifications of the bounty on her head for now.  As a reward to Tony she buys him some new boots with the cash they took from all the contract killer's wallets.

The Assassin club.

We next see Harley trying to pawn the rings she took from the Russian lady.  Unfortunately they have been reported stolen so she has to take a lower price for them, boosted by the fact she takes out two robbers who try to stick up the pawn shop up when she is in there.

After a meatball lunch with Tony, she attends her next Roller Derby match.  She is doing too well and the opposing team send out their secret weapon, Bertha, to take down Harley.  She knocks Harley out and when she is revived in the changing rooms she is angry when she discovers she's had a tooth knocked out.  Her manager forbids her going back out but Harley ignores her, grabs her mallet and smashes Bertha's head in.  Unfortunately this gets her banned from Roller Derby, but her manager gives her a card with details of something called "Skate Club" on it.

Once home, all the occupants of the building have gathered to see something Harley is going to unveil.  It turns out to be a giant catapult which she nicknames the "scatapult" as this is the way she is going to deal with all the animal poo building up in the place.  They start firing bags of the stuff off the roof.

The scatapualt revealed to the rest of the building's tenants.

The first hits a roller coaster.  The next hits a train.  The next hits DC's office window where an editorial conference about a new line-wide reboot is being discussed.  Hah!  Harley goes  downstairs to get more poo, but a hitman has a hold of a kitten and threatens to kill it if she doesn't let him kill her.

He is grabbed from behind by Mario, one of the building's tenants and Harley whacks him with her mallet.  They put him on the scatapult and fire him into the air.  He bounces off a advertising zeppelin and gets minced up in the propellers of an advertising aeroplane.

As these shenanigans are going on, a creepy looking man watches Harley through binoculars from the top of a train.  A cop stands behind him and calls him Edwin, exhorting him to give up. Edwin disarms and kills the cop then dressed in his uniform says he's coming for Harley and wishes to marry her.

Yes, fire that poo at Dan Didio, noone deserves it more than him!

And that brings this first book of Harley silliness to a close.  I found this tremendous fun.  The scripting is sharp and snappy with plenty of double entendres and groan worthy punnage.  The sheer enjoyment Harley has as she bounces through life make her a very appealing character, especially now she has come out from under the shadow of The Joker. Giving her a property full of freaky people like her makes for some fun interludes as she investigates the various businesses working underneath her.  Her no-strings relationship with Poison Ivy is very sweet, after one as abusive as The Joker's one with her was, it does make sense she'd turn to a woman like Ivy afterwards. The various misadventures are enjoyable to read, especially when you get characters like Sy Borgman along for the ride.  The art really does suit the tone and atmosphere of the book, it's very lavish and almost garish in places the hyperreality suits a character who seems to exist in her own little self-contained part of the DCU that other characters occasionally get to visit. The mystery man at the end has got me intrigued and I'm looking forward to reading the next volume to find out more and also enjoy more daft antics from Harley and everyone she drags along with her for the ride.

Demon Knights Book 3: The Gathering Storm (#13-23)

"A storm is coming" - Arthur Pendragon

I think it's fair to say I have been incredibly disappointed by Demon Knights,  one of the first US comics I followed was Swamp Thing under Alan Moore and he understood that Etrigan wasn't a stupid thug and that Jason Blood wasn't an annoying little piss-weasel.  Really, if you want Etrigan action, don't buy Demon Knights buy the Alan Moore Swamp Thing run from all good comic shops now for the ultimate Etrigan/Jason Blood appearances.  Or check out their appearances in Garth Ennis's Hitman series for a different but also awesome take on the pair.  And if for some reason you're interested in the rest of the characters I'm confused as to why.  I have some residual affection for Sir Ystin from Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers series but the rest of the characters are so thin and one dimensional that it's hard to care about them. In fact I don't care about them. At all. Anyway here's the final collected volume of their so-called Exciting Adventures.  It's eleven issues, I was going to split this into two posts but then decided that no, like drinking a capful of Night Nurse, it would be better to hold my nose and power on through to the end of the run in one go.  Anyway, previously on Demon Knights, Etrigan threw a bitch fit and sent his comrades, Sir Ystin, Madam Xanadu, Al Jabr, Vandal Savage, The Horsewoman and Exoristos to hell along with the non-mouldering corpse of Merlin and their horses after his amazing plan to gift Avalon to Lucifer or something failed.  We join our not so merry band in a Hell of Mild Inconvenience as they are somewhat put out by being briefly trapped in their slightly unpleasant daydreams. It really looks like the worst afterlife ever. No really.

Jason Blood is the only one left on the mortal plane, Lucifer having given Etrigan a temporary respite from his curse.  Etrigan bows before Lucifer saying they are his offering, Lucifer is all "you promised me Avalon".  Etrigan says he will get it, Lucifer puts him down saying his plans have worked soooo well in the past.  He had hoped Etrigan would be plotting something that would allow him to crush him again.  Lucifer also wants to know why the horses are here as well, Hell isn't known for its stabling facilties.  He says Etrigan has one day to implement his plan or else.

Meanwhile the others are being "tormented".  Sir Ystin's Hell is being forced to admit a gender preference, as if he doesn't have to put up with that all the time in the non-afterlife.  Al Jabr is not being tortured just confused as to why he, a good Muslim, should be in the Christian Hell with only booze to drink.  A potentially interesting plot thread not picked up upon of course.

Even Lucifer is put out by Hell's lack of imagination.

Vandal Savage is being hung upside down and poked with sticks by the souls of his damned children, he literally laughs in their faces so unthreatening they are.  The Horsewoman is reliving the day she lost her legs and parents in a horse stampede.  Exoristos is chained within feet of Paradise Island and Lucifer comes to her saying he needs a person who has an issue with the people of the earth and hands her a black diamond, which forms part of one of the four billion crossovers going on in the Nu52 at that point, "The Black Diamond Probability".

Madame Xanadu has been transformed into an obedient little wife for Etrigan although he is too stupid to see she is just acting for his benefit.  Anyway Sir Ystin quickly escapes his "torment" because he has drunk from the Holy Grail, and sets about rescuing the others.  The denizens of Hell don't seem to care.  Back in the mortal world, Jason Blood is about to commit suicide when he is found by The Questing Queen from book one.

Etrigan and Xanadu as a sitcom couple.

To derail slightly for a moment and sorry to keep harping on, but in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run Swamp Thing has to go to the DCU Hell to retreive the soul of Abby, unjustly cast down there by her evil uncle Anton Arcane.  He comes across an immobilised Arcane full of rot, filth and maggots who asks Swampy how many years he has been there.  When Swampy replies with the devastating "Since yesterday" and Anton screams in horror at what this means and the eternity of suffering that awaits him still, it remains once of the most powerful and affecting visions of the Christian Hell I have read since The Inferno cantica of The Divine Comedy.  I can only assume the constant cosmic retcons in the DCU have weakened its Hell into something easily tolerated and easy to stroll out of. Feh.

The Questing Queen offers to help Jason to get into Hell without killing himself.  He is told they are after the Holy Grail and Etrigan is the most likely person to find it.  They plan to get ahold of Etrigan and Jason can see Madam Xanadu again.  She in turn is playing the meek, submissive wife to Etirgan who doesn't like it, so he says "I now return your magic" and leaves her to "do whatever course you see fit."

Meanwhile off panel, Sir Ystin has rescued the others without much of a problem.  Etrigan confronts them saying he will return them to their torments (ooh scary).  Sir Ystin decides to battle Etrigan as he has had it coming for a while now.

Sir Ystin about to let loose on Etrigan.

On earth, Jason is sent to Hell using the Questing Queen's wizard's magicks.  Etrigan is pulled out of Hell in return.  Jason is conviniently dropped into Hell alongside his companions.  Xanadu meanwhile has gone to Merlin's coprse which was transported there along with a handy communication sphere she is going to use to open a portal to Avalon.  Held in a magick prison, Etrigan is interrogated by the Questing Queen.  He says he knows what Madam Xanadu will be doing, and when the portal opens to Avalon...

The action cuts to Lucifer monitoring this conversation and he concludes Etrigan's plan, which will be to allow Lucifer and the Legions of the Damned into Avalon and he will be rewarded.  Lucifer shrugs and says it's an interesting plan I guess and matches what he wants which is to let Exoristos out of Hell with the Black Diamond.

Lucifer: "Legions of Hell - today we conquer a new land of the dead!  Which is very exciting.  I suppose".

UGH.  I hate this kind of snarky aside, it totally undermines the gravitas and threat of a character and when everyone is doing it like in this Paul Cornell penned run of issues it just makes everyone sound the same, boringly Joss Whedonesque flippant.

Xanadu is reunited with Jason and opens the portal to Avalon while the Legions of Hell amass.  The others appear with the horses and Exoristos clumsily asks Sir Ystin if he'd like to travel with her.  Sir Ystin says he believes Exoristos loves only a part of him, the female part and she/he is both male and female, and could Exoristos live with that?

They all go through the portal, but it doesn't close behind them.  In front of them appear "The Silent Knights", the defenders of Avalon.  Close behind them are the Legions of Hell and also appearing thanks to Etrigan's link to Jason are the forces of the Questing Queen.  Time for a massive rumble I think.

A storm over Avalon.

A big threeway fight kicks off.  Xanadu flies the gang up and out of the way and onto a nearby hill.  Etrigan uses the magic fire breath of one of the Questing Queen's army machines to break his magic manacles and prostrates himself before Lucifer.  Who is pissed because he believes Etrigan led the Questing Queen's forces there to wipe out Lucifer's.  This accusation flummoxes Etrigan and he finally gains some self respect and flies off saying "he will never again serve anyone."  About damn time Etrigan.

The dead Merlin starts to revive and sends out a message that summons "the forces of King Arthur Pendragon".  That's handy.  They wade into the fight as well.  Merlin then summons a rainstorm over the battlefield as he has fully come to life (off-panel! why didn't we get to see it? Sequential FAIL). Exoristos agitates to get back to the mortal realm, and Xanadu notes "something's changed about you".

As it rains, the hill they are on comes under attack so they fight while quippty, quip, quip, quipping. Etrigan confronts Merlin and tries to kill him to seek his revenge while telling Xanadu this was his plan all along to get her out of Hell.

Merlin: "You're making that up.  You actually feel guilty!".

Real Etrigans NEVER feel guilty.  His character assassination continues, sigh.  Merlin zaps Etrigan and himself with lightning then reminds everyone what the water of Avalon does.  It starts melting all the demons and even affects Lucifer himself.  It also cleanses the Questing Queen's forces of their enchantments so they beat a hasty retreat.  Lucifer also withdraws saying "hmmph, at least this has been diverting".

Merlin reborn.

With all the baddies gone.  Merlin is consumed by light and rejuvanates into a younger form as he ages backwards.  Arthur officially knights Sir Ystin.  Merlin calls the gang "my Stormwatch" tying them to the present day DCU comic of the same name though as they continue calling themselves the Demon Knights it feels a somewhat pointless inclusion.

Merlin then binds Jason and Etrigan back together saying they still have a destiny to fulfil.  Then they leave Avalon via a portal back to the mortal world.  The group decide to separate.  Jason and Xanadu will go off together.  Exoristos plans to go alone due to the influence of the Black Diamond, but Sir Ystin decides to go with her.  The Horsewoman says they are fools for splitting up, "to be offered hope - a destiny - and deny it immediately".  And she rides off rather hypocritically.  And that brings this arc and Paul Cornell's tenure on the title to an end.  Is it over, can I come home mum?  Gah no there is still eight more issues to go, with Robert Venditti taking over writing chores for the rest of the run.

The action shifts to several decades in the future. The Horsewoman, who doesn't age if her soul is bonded to a horse is run down and captured by some bounty hunters who kill her horse.  She is taken to a city and thrown in jail, only to find Exoristos and Sir Ystin also in chains there, and they seem to have had a falling out in the past.

Then a counsel comes and frees them saying their capture and treatment was a mistake, the Caliph has been loking for them but didn't mean for them to be treated so brutally.  The Caliph turns out to be an elderly Al Jabr who has been hunting down the Demon Knights because there is a threat to the world he wants them to deal with.

The Horsewoman chased down by Bison Riders.

The threat turns out to be an army of vampires making their way across Europe led by a man called Cain (a link to the also cancelled series I, Vampire).  They have their minds set on reaching and vamping Themyscira much to Exoristos's distress so they need to find Jason Blood and Madame Xanadu as well.  Jason Blood is being held captive by Vandal Savage who has cast a mute spell on him and tortures him everyday while Etrigan sulks down in Hell, baited by Lucifer who mocks him for relinquishing his service to him.

Sir Ystin, Exoristos and The Horsewoman make ready to leave.  Al Jabr won't be coming as he is too old, so huh, they wrote out the one non-white member.  Great. The Horsewoman picks a new horse to ride called "Brickwedge", a stumpy service horse who she chose for his conversation over the snobby palace steeds.  And off they ride to Vandal Savage's castle.  There isn't really any reason given for why Savage is torturing Jason Blood, but Vandal Savage has and is always a dick so I can't be critical of this turn of events.

Ouch!

Exoristos enters Vandal Savage's castle, she says she is here to join his clan.  Vandal says she has to prove her worth, so they decide to arm wrestle:

Exoristos: "Haven't you ever wondered if you were man enough?"

Sir Ystin arrives in the cell area and kills the guards.  He unties Jason and is shocked to see his mouth sealed up.  Exoristos gets ready to wrestle with Vandal then she headbutts him viciously, sending him tumbling to the floor.

Sir Ystin throws Jason of the battlements and jumps after him and Vanguard his flying horse catches them both.  As Exoristos flees the castle, The Horsewoman mentally tells the enemy's horses not to follow them and they escape.

Sir Ystin and Vanguard to the rescue.

They keep riding until they find a cottage where Jason had marked the map with an "X".  It is where Madame Xanadu is and she attacks them before realising who they are.  Meanwhile the Bison Riders of the steppes are met by Cain and his vampire army.  He tears their leader to pieces before pressing on to Themyscira.

Madame Xanadu removes the mute spell upon Jason saying they had been apart for decades after he went to Alba Sarum on business. They hug, then Exoristos says "time is short... we need your stronger half.. or the whole of Europe is doomed".  Jason can't believe they want Etrigan after all the betrayals he put them through, but swaps places with him anyway.  Brickwedge thinks to The Horsewoman:

Brickwedge: "This one's a bit of a whiner."

He's now my favourite character.  They recieve a message delivered by falcon from Al Jabr saying "Cain has crossed the Danube."  After some bickering they race to Theyscira to find a battle already going on on a beach nearby with an advanced guard of vampires.

A somewhat underwhelmingly depicted battle.

They pile in and fight, one of the Amazons yells at Exoristos for being there, then tells them to pierce the heart and behead the monsters.  Finally they subdue the vampires and Etrigan tries to swap back with Jason to regain his strength.  But Jason refuses and keeps Etrigan on the mortal plane where his strength is ebbing.  In Hell Lucifer comes to query this but Jason tells him "why should I fear you?"  Why indeed?  This Hell you can have picnics in.

Exoristos helps her fellow Amazon shore up their defences.  She is told the Amazon helping Cain is called Fara who was Exoristos' friend and who left the island to come looking for her in order to try and get her exile lifted.  Meanwhile Vandal Savage's forces have crept up on them and noting Etrigan is out of action says "...this will be easier than I thought."

Cain.

Vandal approaches and goes to cut off Etrigan's head, wanting revenge for being sent to Hell. But when he is filled in on the vampire threat he still tries to kill the weakened Etrigan so Xanadu zaps him.  They build a boat to get to Themyscira where the vampires have already taken the beach.

The Amazons fall back to the city.  Their guide says the soldiers will wait all day for an attack, but of course they vampire will attack at night to gain full advantage.  Our gang, including Vandal Savage sail to Themyscira.  Sir Ystin has a vision of himself as a vampire and mutters, "is this what Merlin meant for me to do?"

In Hell Jason is being tortured by Lucifer but refuses to switch places with Etrigan.  Lucifer decides to look in and see what his friends are doing and when he realises they are fighting Cain and his vampire hordes, urges Jason to change.

The Amazons and the Vampires are fighting as the Demon Knights arrive and charge into the fray.  Sir Ystin approaches Cain saying he has forgotten his quest for so long.  Cain bites Sir Ystin saying he "looks forward to your undying loyalty."  Jason agrees to swap with Etrigan who says to Lucifer:

Etrigan: "You reek of fear.  When all the world is soulless and undying, there won't be much use for Hell."

Don't piss the Amazons off.

Lucifer returns Etrigan to full strength and he returns to the battlefield.  Combined the Amazons and the Demon Knights defeat the vampires.  Cain hovers above the battlefield saying he'll be back (he won't) before turning into several crows and flying off.  Exoristos goes to Sir Ystin who is fighting off the vamping.  Somehow being turned is part of his quest for the Holy Grail (*shrug* beats me), which Queen Hippolyta says she might know where it is.  With the end of this arc, Bernard Chang leaves as artist and instead we get Chad Hardin as penciller and Wayne Faucher as inker.  It's not an improvement.

In the Amazon city, Sir Ystin is fighting off the vampiric infection and being taken care of by Exoristos.  Hippolyta appears and rescinds Exoristos' exile.  But Ex says she was right to send her away, "I don't fit in with your drills and rules and codes of conduct".  She points to Sir Ystin and says "I know I belong with her." Then respect her pronouns you insensitive cow!

The others are scouring the Amazon library for clues to where the grail might be.  They find a possible location on the map and Sir Ystin appears and says he knows that is where it is.  He also asks for help as he can't do it alone.  The others agree and we cut to them on a boat getting ready to leave.  Vandal is coming too, he says no hard feelings to Jason who says he'll get his revenge when Vandal is out of earshot.

The magic island revealed.

After two days at sea, Xanadu's magic reveals a hidden island that many other ships had crashes into.  They disembark and immediately are attacked by a many tentacled hydra.  One tentacle grabs Madame Xanadu and Jason turns into Etrigan to save her.  The others get stuck in and finally Xanadu kills it with a powerful spell.  They find some glyphs on the wall and Xanadu says she knows what one of them means, "the Holy Grail".

Etrigan changes back to Jason so he can translate the glyphs.  According to them, crossing the threshold will take you to another place, reciting the glyphs will take you to the grail but it is a one way journey.  Sir Ystin says he'll go but Exoristos says he is too weak and it's time to let others serve.  After some bickering Vandal Savage and Jason go through and find themselves in a room full of treasure.

By the fire sit Sir Ystin and Exoristos.  Sir Ystin says he was told about "evil that would own my spirit... the loss of everyone I love".  Exoristos admits that the Black Diamond's influence made her angrier and angrier and that's why she split from Sir Ystin.  She has hidden the diamond and it's influence on her has waned.  She says she'll always be there for Sir Ystin and they kiss.

Of course the ramifications of this on Ystin's gender and Exoristos's sexuality is never explored.

Back with Vandal and Jason, they find the box holding the grail, they also find a huge door.  It opens and two giants appear. When they notice vandal and Jason they attack them.  Jason calls Etrigan and when he is down in Hell he uses the threat of the grail to get Lucifer to transport him back to the others.

Lucifer does so, and Etrigan vanishes leaving Vandal facing the giants alone.  Jason is reunited with the others and hands an overwhelmed Sir Ystin the box holding the grail.  When asked where Vandal is, Jason grins and over an image of Vandal's unconcious body says ".. he finally got what was coming to him."

Nice derp face, Ystin.

Chad Hardin takes over art duties in full.  It's.. enh.. OK. Vandal Savage is questioned by the giants about the Grail and where it has been taken.  Meanwhile the others have arrived in Al Jabr's city of Al-Wadi.  They find Al Jabr and present him with the Holy Grail although none of them have yet opened the box.

Al Jabr goes to open it himself, but Sir Ystin stops him saying the time is not right.  They are going to find Merlin and think the Grail will be safe with Al Jabr.  He is not sure, his people are getting restless and violent.

Later, outside the city, The Horsewoman and Brickwedge are just chilling out and chatting when they hear a rumbling sound.  It is an approaching army of giants who have Vandal Savage in a cage.  She goes to warn Al Jabr, while the giants outside demand the Grail back.

They fire a warning shot at the city and the shockwave knocks the Grail's box onto the floor and it opens.  Immediately plants start growing through the floor and attack them as its lifeforce runs out of control.  They stop almost right away though, The Horsewoman has returned the Grail to the box and can now stand up, her damaged spine has been healed.

The grail heals all.

Sir Ystin has also had the vampirism curse lifted from him and Exoristos hugs him with joy. She also admits that last time she was here she left something in a locked chest in the vault.  She entrusts the contents to Al Jabr, handing him a key.  Jason summons Etrigan and they ride out to take on the giants alongside Al Jabr's army.

As they fight what seems like a losing battle, suddenly several zeppelins appear and fire down on the giants.  Aboard one is Al Jabr who has acquired what Exoristos sent him to get - the Black Diamond.  He realises this is what was making his people so aggressive.

He tosses the Diamond down onto the battlefield and the giants start fighting amongst themselves.  Watching them from the walls of the city later as the last few finish each other off, Sir Ystin notes the irony of Lucifer's gift of the Black Diamond saving the Holy Grail.  Etrigan returns to Hell to tell him.  Vandal Savage has also escaped the battle and scarpered.

Exoristos says she will take the Diamond back and bear its burden, but Al Jabr shows them the Diamond and the Grail together cancelling each other out.  Together they will be safe in the secret chamber in Al-Wadi.  Sir Ystin says the Grail is hope and:

Sir Ystin: "Let those who try and take it know forever oposing them will be the Demon Knights".

The End (thankfully)

And that abruptly concludes the series. So what is there left to say?  What kills me about this series is that it came highly recommended.  I read so many people who had issues with the New 52 making an exception for Demon Knights.  And with a writer I previously was a fan of in Paul Cornell, how could it fail?  Well for me it failed hard.  Everyone was badly or negligently mischaracterised and often just going through the motions with no inner life to speak of.  After two years the only thing I had found out about The Horsewoman was that her name was Sarah. Think about what we had; a pagan witch, a Judeo-Christian demon, a lesbian who worships the Greek Pantheon, a Muslim scientist, a transman and a paraplegic.  That should have been the basis for some amazing character based interactions, but apart from some weak magic v.science stuff and some pronoun arguments regarding Sir Ystin there was a complete lack of any interpersonal spark such differences in background should have caused. The storylines were weak and grotesquely padded.  Plot points were badly set up and often dependant on important things happening off-panel.  Paul Cornell seems to work best in a contemporary and sci-fi setting, his delvings into British myth have always been a miss with me and this didn't change my mind on that. 

The series didn't improve with a new writer and apart from Bernard Chang's run of issues the art was very weak, and even he stumbled badly in his depiction of the DCU Hell.  This series had a ton of potential, and it was squandered at every turn.  If this was considered the best of the New 52 then it just proves my point that the New 52 was one of the worst things to happen to DC continuity and the few series that were good - Batwoman (at least the first half), Batman Inc, Frankenstein and Dial H - were the exception rather than the rule. Add in epic fails like handing control of three books to Rob Liefeld, the ruination of the Wildstorm universe's characters, the appalling lack of female creators and their terrible treatment of Gail Simone and the botched mess of attempting to run 52 comics within a tightly linked universe with crossover after crossover making the series read badly in their trade editions and it just has ended up being the worst few years to be a DC lifer since I started reading post-Crisis On Infinite Earths. Nevermind, it's over now, hooray for the DCYou.  Etrigan seems to have survived this debacle as he always does, but I fear the rest of the cast may not be lucky enough to have new and better writers champion them.  We shall see.  Summing up, Vic?

Can't say fairer than that.