Violator #3 // Review
Paris 1349. There’s a demon that has taken the form of a wealthy gentleman. The smell of rotting flesh mixes with the stench of urine. There’s grief, despair and hopelessness. Destitutes are begging for money the demon will not give them. Most on the street are too miserable to recognize what he truly is. There others who DO know him. Agents of heaven encroach on the demon in Violator #3. Writer Marc Andreyko makes it to the mid-point of his mini series with artist John Wayshak and colorist Brad Simpson. The combination of horror, action, fantasy and dark comedy mix quite beautifully in a fun, little installment in the series.
The Angels naturally have big wings and flaming swords and things. And naturally, they're going to be hanging out at a local religious establishment. The Violator might be taken offguard a bit. The flesh that he is wearing is so very fragile. So he's going to need to find another donor for his disguise. Once he's done that, it's going to be a bit of a challenge. He's going to want to fight the agents of heaven where they are. And that means entering a chapel. Things could get ugly.
Andreyko fuses the narration of the issue with some degree of humor. The attitude of the title character feels enjoyable enough. And the darkness of the narration adds quite a bit to my other otherwise come across as being a very weak sort of a plot. The very traditional look at angels and demons is only made slightly novel by the setting. There is so much more that could be done with the plot. But it doesn't really need to be there. the central conflict doesn't need any undue complexity. It's just kind of fun. The CA cocky demon run into battle against some very righteous agents of heaven.
14th century France looks pretty good under the hands of Wayshak and Simpson. the setting certainly has a very distinct visual imprint on the page. There isn't a great deal of contrast between decadent wealth, and the filth of poverty. That contrast might have amplified the contrast between heaven and hell in the visual reality of the story. Instead of all this kind of looks ugly. So the overall visuals don't quite live up to what they could have been. Which is really too bad. Because they're really is more that could have been done with the amplification of the horror and the fantasy.
So far there doesn't seem to be an increase in tension from issue to issue. it's kind of difficult to find a central pulse of a series which just features a demon aimlessly wandering from place to place. It's fun in its own way. But it would really feel a lot more satisfying to see the direction that things are going in if they were actually going in some sort of a readily identifiable direction. That being said, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun without any central conflict beyond the obvious.
