Review: LUCIFER #16
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Dan Watters
Artists: Max Fiumara
Colors: Dave McCaig
Letters: Steve Wands
Reviewed by: Seth Singleton
Summary
In my review Lucifer #16 opens with a haunting question. Who is the Hunted God? That is what Lucifer must discover. Prophecy dictates he must save this mysterious prey from a deadly fate in the Wild Hunt. The mythic quest led by one of the most dangerous entities in existence: Odin himself.
Positives
There is a saying that some places are so tough they will chew you up and spit you out. In this example of hell the first part of that saying is immensely true. “The Rarely Spoken of Body Factories of Hell” is one of the more eloquently efficient titles I have read in quite some time. Immediate credit is offered to Dan Watters and the artistic collaboration of Max Fiumara and Dave McCaig. Â They deftly bring the mundane civil servant tone of sanitation workers into the destruction of bodies.
To begin with the opening panels are beautiful and tragic. Incidentally the horrible moments are sweet. The narrator describes the eve of final destruction. The simple fact is that the process of death and burial often leaves the dead in piles of rent flesh or silty ashes. Bodies in hell arrive whole and hale. Demons break the bodies repeatedly. The process repeats. Teeth gnash.
It is here where Odin must enter. In one part of hell all destroyed things are repaired. Hell spawn put back together again. The Wild Hunt horn is broken. Odin must hold it while being devoured if he hopes to emerge with it and he remade whole. Odin was the Aesir god of war. His description is reverent. The demons rend him into remnants. Odin is rebuilt from his own remains.
However the story is not one high note. Mazikeen owns a curiosities shop. Lucifer immediately dismisses it in disgust. He treats her assistant like a plague. despite repeated demands from Mazikeen that Lucifer refrain. Furthermore, she asks what it is he wants. She is easier to understand now that she has a silver tongue. Together they use an powerful artifact to discover the target of the Wild Hunt.
In this case it’s too late. Achilles strikes a blow for vengeance. The horn sounds. The shadows swell and an old evil rises.
Negatives
Mazikeen knows that there is no place she can exist where Lucifer will not find her. But, it seems unlikely that she would not have some magics or tools that would make it painful or difficult for her former master to enter unannounced. Likewise I expect that she would also include some relics that make it annoying or uncomfortable to stay.
Verdict
To summarize, following up a war with heaven is no easy task. Together with his gang Watters has made the next story even more compelling than the last. Finally all of the pieces are now in place for the hunt to begin. It’s going to be fun watching Lucifer try to play the hero and protect the target.
