Writer: Mike Carey Artists: Peter Gross and Ryan Kelly Publisher: DC/Vertigo
Plot: Elaine goes on a journey to find the ghost of her friend Mona. Elaine travels in spirit form and observes Mazikeen’s tribunal, arrives in a dream forest, and eventually escapes to Hell where she meets friend and foe alike.
Commentary: Lucifer is one of my favorite monthly books. Like its parent, the Sandman series, Lucifer presents intricate plots, surprising worlds, and characters doomed and rewarded by varied motivations and choices.
Both this issue and issue #14 are good jumping on points for new readers. You’ll want to read the Eisner nominated earlier issues once you immerse yourself in the wonderful world of this series. However, now is as good as any time to begin. Lucifer has defeated the angels, and various forces, including his trusted Mazikeen, are gathering to observe and probably challenge Lucifer, who has created a whole new world.
I love Elaine’s straightforward, fearless observations as she travels amongst the various clueless ghosts in the opening pages: “The trouble with dead people is that they don’t always know they’re dead. You can talk and talk at them sometimes and they just don’t get it.”
The covers have been a highlight of this series. In this issue, the cover shows Elaine, dressed in her prep school clothes, holding a lamp. She almost could be mistaken for Nancy Drew solving a mystery in a cave as opposed to who she actually is: the daughter of the archangel Michael searching for answers in an unfriendly, untrustworthy world.
Like the heroines with the sigils in the Crossgen comics, Elaine does not understand her powers, often is surprised once she obtains what she lightly wishes for, and must deal with the results of those wishes. She trusts only one “adult”, Lucifer, since he has been the only one who has kept his promises to her. Of course, how trustworthy Lucifer is is always in doubt and slowly Elaine is being introduced to other “adults” perhaps more worthy of her trust and respect.
The artwork duties have shifted in varying issues of this series but the artwork is uniformly excellent in #15. I especially enjoyed the depiction of Elaine leaving the tribunal interrogation of Mazikeen (a repeated scene from issue 14 but from her perspective) and falling into the dream forest. The two fumbling characters, Glob and Brute, provide great comic relief. Despite their monster-like forms, I didn’t find them scary in the least, especially as Glob tries to suck Elaine’s dreams out of her head with a straw. The comic, colorful atmosphere of the forest contrasts well with the drab, pale shade pervading Hell.
Final comments: The writing in issue #15 conveys accurately how a headstrong teenager, like Elaine, might judge in black and white terms the various adults she has encountered. So far she has held angels responsible for all the bad things in her life: they killed her friends and left her with fake parents. Ironically, the angel she trusts is a fallen one, Lucifer. However, some of the new angels she has met in this and the previous issue should provide her a subtle contrast to Lucifer, and it will be interesting to see how her relationship with Lucifer develops in light of her new “friends”.
