Tentacle Tuesday: Rise, the Demon Etrigan!!

« Challenge Merlin and be a fool! — Challenge a demon — and be destroyed! »

Suddenly having so much time on my hands (courtesy of COVID-19) is an eerie, though by no means unpleasant, experience. While I could crochet mini couches for my cats or enrol my partner’s help to re-create some favourite classic paintings, I prefer to catch up on books I’ve been meaning to read for a while. Case in point: in April, I’ve been joyously absorbing Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga, reprinted in a handsome 4-tome omnibus (and to which I have easy access, thanks to co-admin RG’s vast library). That ended all too soon, and I moved on to a collection of Etrigan the Demon. It was a somewhat underwhelming experience, especially given the epic scope of Fourth World, but of course still worth a read.

The red-eyed, yellow-skinned creature called Etrigan came into existence in 1972. Mark Evanier, in his introduction to Jack Kirby’s The Demon, explains: « There was, at the time, a feeling around DC that perhaps superheroes were on the way out again. Ghost and mystery comics like House of Mystery and Phantom Stranger seemed to be selling, and some in the office felt the next trend was what Joe Orlando, who edited most of them, dubbed “weird adventure” comics. A few weeks later, [Carmine] Infantino asked Jack to whip up something in that category… »

Kirby accepted the challenge and, despite his lack of interest in horror, created The Demon, patterning his face on a a detail from Hal Foster‘s Prince Valiant strip as an inside joke.

As great a storyteller Kirby is, I think being asked to write about a subject he wasn’t particularly into had its repercussions. Although he clearly tried to give Etrigan a stimulating playground of supernatural rogues of varying degrees of viciousness to bat around, the overall result is rather underwhelming by Kirby standards. I’ve seen quite a few people in comic forums expressing their undying love for the Demon – if you’re one of them, I’m open to being convinced!

I actually first encountered Etrigan the Demon in a Swamp Thing issue written by Alan Moore. He first made an appearance in Swamp Thing no. 26 (July 1984) and then came back for the 14-issue storyline American Gothic that ran from June 1985 to July 1986. In Moore’s hands, Etrigan cut a dashing, mysterious figure, and he spoke in rhyme, which was a really nice touch. I admit I was disheartened to find out that he really wasn’t that exciting in his original form.

However, he *did* encounter tentacles, and more than once!

I was rather hoping the Somnambula would stick around, but it came and went in one page. Merlin’s Word… Demon’s Wrath! was published in The Demon no. 5, January 1973.

The spoiled and malicious brat Klarion and his cat/pussycat-princess Teekl are my favourite characters of the series. The One Who Vanished!! was published in The Demon no. 15 (December 1973), the penultimate issue. This scene is reminiscent of a sequence from the 1961 movie Night Tide.

In the following (and final) issue, tentacles reared their grabby suckers yet again. Immortal Enemy! was published in Demon no.16 (January 1974). One more complaint from me – Kirby’s use of the philosopher stone (which Warly is clutching on this page) as a sort of Deus ex machina, that can be used for accomplishing pretty much everything (some examples: it produces the ultimate cold or demon flame, shields the owner from thousand-volt electricity or brings people back form the dead, turns people into vultures or an Egyptian mummy or a chair into flowers, randomly makes objects levitate, etc.) This makes one wonder why Jason bothers running around at all, instead of elegantly waving the stone about and solving all problems instantly.

The three pages above are Etrigan’s encounters with actual tentacles, but we have an honorary mention of almost-tentacles-but-not-quite, which I wanted to include in the spirit of thoroughness.

Can the following creature’s beard tentacles be used to grab anything? We never learn if they’re prehensile or not, because the fear-monster doesn’t stick around long enough.

The Demon no. 3 (November 1972). This little baby is one of my favourite monsters of the series, despite just being part of Jason Blood/Etrigan’s nightmare – one can really felt its crushing weight. Besides, it’s probably a preview of the Kamara, a creature that becomes what the person fears most, and an awe-inspiring enemy.

A panel from Reincarnators.

In case anyone is interested, I am currently re-reading Kamandi: the Last Boy on Earth, which was my first exposure to Kirby.

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