Death-Defying 'Devil #4 - Dynamite Entertainment

DEATH-DEFYING 'DEVIL No. 4, November 2019

Having finally started to ‘rationalise’ the utterly bizarre happenings occurring within Winslow House with her script to Issue Four of “Death-Defying Devil”, Gail Simone probably felt a little hard done by that this title was only the three hundred and forty-seventh best-selling comic book in December 2019. True, the GLAAD Media Award-nominee’s slightly choppy narrative still lurches in between the modern day world and a universe populated by a little girl’s demon-infested flights of fancy. But at least the publication’s 2,867 readers are shown just why the child who “died when she should have lived” is haunting the residential building, even if the twenty-two page periodical doesn’t explain how the dearly departed Mika is doing it.

In addition, the Oregon-born writer also includes a rather fun nod to “Dungeons & Dragons” fans everywhere by transforming the titular character into a steely-thewed barbarian, and thrusting him into a mass battle against an entire army of Frost Goblins almost single-handedly. This sense-shattering sequence really forms the central core of this comic, and aside from its superb portrayal of a brutally bloody battle atop a frozen mountain top, also contains some much-appreciated cameos from Masquerade, the Black Terror and the Green Llama; “So we are a company, you see, not a solitary guest. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? They’ve killed enough of your kind.”

Somewhat surprisingly, for those gore fans not sated by this scene’s graphic depiction of severed heads, dismemberment and splattering of brains, Simone then later repeats Bartholomew Hill’s apparent predilection for gratuitous violence, by having the costumed crime-fighter mercilessly butcher a number of hot-headed demons with his infamous razor-sharp boomerangs. To be fair, this modern-day, street-level skirmish is probably far closer to the original concept of the “public domain Golden Age character” than the vast majority of this mini-series’ plot has produced so far. Yet it is still somewhat disconcerting to witness a so-called super-hero gleefully decapitate hoodlums, even when they’re torch-waving, red-skinned demons.

Helping inject this book’s outlandish storyline with some dynamically-drawn action and just the odd bucket of blood, is Walter Geovani, who alongside colorist Adriano Augusto, does a prodigious job illustrating Daredevil’s peculiar exploits. The “Brazilian visual artist” seems especially talented at pencilling large formations of warriors, and as a result there is a genuine feeling of great scale to his representation of Bart’s aforementioned confrontation with the vile Goblin King.

The regular cover art of "DEATH-DEFYING 'DEVIL" No. 4 by Inhyuk Lee