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Underground > Comic Books >

Lucifer: Why Should I Read It?

Matthew Fluxington

13:00 / 30.11.04

I've recently developed a vague interest in reading Mike Carey's Lucifer. The premise is somewhat intriguing to me, but I'm not sure if I really want to invest a lot of money in catching up with the series. Also, with the exception of the issues by Dean Ordstrom, I'm not very fond of the artwork. In this thread, I would like for you to either make a case for why I should read the series, or tell me why I shouldn't.

16:28 / 30.11.04

I want to read Lucifer somewhat badly, but I really can't spare the seventy odd dollars for it to catch up.

How much work did Peter Gross do on the book?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

16:57 / 30.11.04

I just read his section in this comic writers book and sort of cemented why I'm not really interested in the book. He mentioned that at one point he wanted to have some angel drop a 747 on Tienamenn Square but then 9/11 happened and they changed the scene and blah blah blah. It dawned on me at that moment that this was book where something like that was plausible. I have picked up a few issues here and there, but it's all like that. Pro and Antagonists with too many Z's in their names doing highly implausible things.

The same intangible thing that bothers me about Fables bothers me about this book as well.

Matthew Fluxington

17:11 / 30.11.04

Ha, I read the same book, Birdie. That's kinda the reason why I asked about Fables, Y, and Lucifer. I stopped just short of inquiring about The Losers.

Matthew Fluxington

17:12 / 30.11.04

Still, I really like the concept of an ongoing series that is more or less the Continuing Adventures Of Satan.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

17:16 / 30.11.04

I would love it too if it seemed more centered on the real world and not weird troll worlds, as most of the issues I've picked up seem to.

I actually quite like The Losers. Pretend you read that in the Contemporary Comics thread.

19:47 / 30.11.04

I stopped just short of inquiring about The Losers

...

20:17 / 30.11.04

I read the first couple of trades and it felt very much like Hellblazer: slick magical conman gets himself into serious hot water, occasionally pulls out a bit of stunning magic, finally bests all of his enemies and you realize he's been planning it the whole time. I couldn't work up much emotional attachment to any of the characters, though. Except Elaine Belloc. The issue with her first appearance is fantastic!

Murray Hamhandler

22:01 / 30.11.04

Lucifer is one of the few comics that I currently find to be pretty consistently enjoyable. I like the big, intricately woven tapestry of a story. I like the fact that the devil is an effete, snarky smartass and not some mopey Hot Topic shopper. And the constantly reiterating theme of rejection of predestination is pretty sweet.

Still, it's Vertigo so you have to approach it as such. It's good, but kind of like watching third-generation videocassettes of Buffy or Angel, maybe. If you can dig it. I'd recommend reading the first couple collections in Borders or something.

lonely as a cloud...

07:04 / 01.12.04

First three or four books are great alright...it's been going downhill a little recently, but it's still a decent read, IMHO. Solid writing, nice art; the plot gets a little tangled occasionally, and you may need to read back a little for any given issue to make sense, but...yeah, it's the continuing adventures of Satan!

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

08:33 / 20.11.06

Thread resurrection... I've borrowed the full run from somebody and I'm into the thirties and really struggling to keep going. Might bail, actually.

At the mo', it feels like "Vertigo does Dragon Ball Z" -- granted you have a snarky wise-ass instead of a dopey meathead as the protaganist, but it's a series of improbable battles buttressed by talk, talk, talk and scheme, scheme, scheme. There's not much joy in reading because you know Lucifer is always going to pull some long-term planning out of his butt when things look their direst, and the "suspense" of seeing what clever trick he uses to get out of the current jam isn't sustaining my interest any more.

Plus I wish Carey was a little more ruthless with the cast of supporting characters. I'd be much more into the book if I didn't know that all the minor characters would also make it through these epic Heaven-shaking battles more or less unscathed.

Maybe reading it all back-to-back in a big glut is a bad approach, and it worked much better spaced out as a monthly.

Does it get better? Should I pace the reading more?

10:44 / 20.11.06

I started reading the book about 20-25 issues in, went back and got the rest, and carried on buying it, but never really reading it until this practice collided with my general apathy to comics. So, I never actually followed any stories through, but did get an idea that it was all a little 'goblins and flying boats' for me.

14:01 / 20.11.06

Does it get better? Should I pace the reading more?

The character of Elaine Belloc is a mite interesting... but more or less in the tradition of supernatural female characters of Vertigo note. Molly O'Reilly. Gaiman's Death, etc.

Carey's single issue stories are also very good. But it does kind of end in a puff rather than a bang.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

15:20 / 20.11.06

I read the series from when it first came out at at times considered dropping it but never did.

I enjoyed most of it all the way through, I think Elaine's arc was really the best thing it had going, along with the Tarot/Vegas Dancer arc.

I liked the way 3 or 4 part 'stand alone' stories that seemed to fall outside the overall plot came back to be fairly important (I am thinking Rudd here, his story seemed like a few issues about a guy in Hell, then he became a pretty major player).

Overall I think the series was worth reading and I plan to eventually pick up the trades to make rereading easier (my collection is pretty disorganized).

10:47 / 21.11.06

I thought the first trade was relatively weak - just not quite there, with only a couple of images which caught me enough to get the next. Then for the next four trades it genuinely motors, with some moments of genuinely pretty cruelty. I think it's wandered a little afterwards, but the first 30 issues were intense. Anything with the living Tarot deck - and, yes, that's the most Vertigo standard idea ever - was brilliant.

In fact, generally speaking, it was the thing in the last five years which was closest to the "traditional" Vertigo, and not just because it was a Sandman spin-off. I think it's good though. There's a reason it went the full arc when so many other things were cancelled.

KG

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:57 / 21.11.06

The first trade has the Lucifer LS which was indeed, rather poo. It's the main reason I didn't get the regular series when it started coming out. I looked through a couple of trades that came into the libraries I worked at and that was what convinced me it was worth the time.

11:19 / 21.11.06

I'm going to post here simply to agree with others, it doesn't start very well as a series and certainly takes a while to warm up, but I found it incredibly compulsive after it comes into it's own. As everyone else has said, Elaine Belloc is the most interesting character, the issue(s) with her feeling out her new powers later in the series are excellent, but Makizeen's arc sucked me in as well. I'm most critical when it comes to your standard superhero comics, while I tend to cut anything a bit more left of centre more slack, so perhaps I'm not the best person's opinion to listen to but I found the entire series well worth reading.