Violator # 6 // Review
It’s October, 1976. David’s getting a bit of guff from his neighbor’s dog. Damned thing’s a demon, but it’s not just the neighbor’s dog. It’s also a leering blue-faced clown in the early 1990s. He’s that and so much more. Because he’s a demon. He’s going to meet his end at the beginning in Violator #6. Writer Marc Andreyko rushes to wrap everything up for his mini-series with the art team of artist Von Randall and colorist Brad Simpson. Without much time left to move on everything, Andreyko and company throw a whole bunch of history and plot elements into the blender and hit a few buttons until it all jams.
The Son of Sam was just one guy. The demon in question had run into a whole bunch of different people throughout history. There's quite a lot going on over the course of history that has to do with the darkness that rests in the hearts of everyone. And quite a lot of it is animated and resonating through the heart of a single demon. It's really only a matter of time. It's really only a matter of time before the agents of Heaven catch up with it.
Andreyko has a lot of different ideas with what he can do with this particular character. There are a lot of different directions that the series could take things in. However, this is all along, long premise with a lot of different angles that they could be. And really doesn't have much time. There's only one issue left. It feels very, very rust. There really isn't much insight into the nature of human darkness when things have to move this quickly. So it feels like a bit of a fever and not a very compelling one. It's just moving through such speed with such haste that it really sort of forgets to be about anything specific.
Randall manages to be pretty good when it settles down for long enough to actually play with a visuals a little bit. The repetition of the close-ups on the face of the main character and feel a little tedious as the issue progresses. That being said, the whole progression of the visuals over the course of the sex issue end up feeling pretty good. And so this is going to feel like a visual climax to the whole thing. However, it wasn't nearly enough, set up over the course of the five issues prior to this one to really make it feel like it's justified.
It would be nice to have this being an ongoing series where the author would have an opportunity to explore everything. Really have an opportunity to explore everything that needs to happen with respect to this particular demon and history of the 20th century and beyond. Would be really interesting to see them actually be able to have this as an ongoing thing because there's a lot that can be said with this particular character throughout history. Substance of human darkness would be really fine with this particular demon. However, there's only six issues and it feels kind of sad to see it come to crunch and whimper at the end.
