This is the thread in which I will discuss Mike Carey's Sandman spinoff, Lucifer.



I've only ever read three issues -- loved them -- so this will be a fresh read for me. I have all 11 trade paperbacks on my nightstand ready to be read.

I expect to finish the first one a few days from now.

I just finished reading the last five or so books. Really glad I got them. Carey did a nice job, and is now on my short list of writers to seek out other work by.

If only he wasn't writing X-Men . . . .

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1563897334/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 1 - Devil in the Gateway

Two arcs (one from a mini) and a single issue make up this opening trade in the 11-volume Lucifer series, a spinoff from Neil Gaiman's landmark Sandman. Are they any good?

Yes. They are good. Not great, but good.

In the opening arc, Lucifer, who abandoned hell in the pages of Sandman, is given a task to do. From God. The big guy has a problem -- elder gods mucking with humanity in a bad way -- and goes to Lucifer to solve it. Neat!

The watercoloured art in this first arc is great. The concepts are interesting, if vague, and the dialogue largely rings true. The resolution falls a bit flat, however, though it does feel as if it sets up future events. (I don't know if that's the case, but I assume so.) A solid start.

The second arc sort of picks up where the first left off, and involves a desk of cards filled with ... I dunno, spirits or something. Writer Mike Carey obviously had some neat ideas he wanted to play around with, but I felt like this arc was a bit unrefined and unfocused. You could see where Carey wanted to go, the themes with which he wanted to play and the ideas he wanted to seed, but it didn't quite click. A noble effort, not bad, but clearly too early for Carey to start hitting his stride.

Not a bad start. I look forward to Vol. 2, in which (I'm pretty sure) the series' regular artist comes on board.

I couldn't get into this series. That and The Dreaming just felt lacking to me.

I heard a discussion today about when Lucifer rebelled. The consensus among theologians is that he must have been about 15.

I've been lax. Finished this a few weeks ago.



http://www.amazon.com/dp/1563898004/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 2 - Children and Monsters

Again, two arcs (2.5?) in one volume. They pick up where the first left off. Lucifer, as a reward for completing a task for God, had been given a gateway to an untouched void; a brand new realm in which there is nothingness; a place outside of creation.

This, I guess, is a big, big deal, because EVERYONE wants it. Including the angels of Heaven, who are ready to mass an attack on Lucifer in order to get control of the gateway.

First we get Lucifer trying to regain his wings, which were torn off at his request in the pages of Sandman. This chapter has a nice Asian influence, cracking art and some good twists. It feels like a divergence, but it's an important step in building Lucifer back to the character he was before he left Hell.

Later we get some muddy stuff about an immortal girl and some such, a tangent that had me back tracking once or twice to be sure I was following the story. Uh-huh. Sure.

And finally, the angels' attack on Lucifer's LA club, Lux, an attack that manages to take all that came prior (including the first volume) and bring it full circle. Nifty stuff, and ultimately some very smart storytelling by Carey. He uses lots of elements that came before, including some that seemed throwaway, and brings them forward here.

Carey's writing is very good, at times excellent, and his plots are relatively strong. I still have an issue with clarity, though. Maybe it's just me, but I at times find myself flipping back to double check on details from earlier stories or reminding myself who and what certain characters are. The art is fine, nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done.

Is this up to Sandman's level? Not after the first two volumes, no, not really.

But then, what is? If the series improves for the third volume, it will be well on its way to excellence.

Hated it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1563898926/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 3 -- A Dalliance with the Damned

Spotty and uneven. Missed opportunities. Flashes of excellence.

For this volume to have a story as strong as interesting as the one in which Lucifer creates his own Garden of Eden and his own Adam and Eve is a shame, because the rest of it just doesn't rise to that story's high level. Very inconsistent.

A three-parter set in hell feels like a space-filling diversion. Sure, the idea of a demon of hell taking a fancy to one of the damned is interesting, but we really don't care about the human character, and we certainly don't care about the political drama of the demons. It's a great big WHO CARES? When Lucifer finally shows up, it's bland. About the only redeeming quality of this tale is that the human character may end up being interesting when all is said and done. Time will tell.

A few semi-standalones, such as the aforementioned Eden story, open up the volume, and they are, as noted, uneven at best. When they are good, they're great, and when they're not they are entirely forgettable. (I can't even remember them now, and I only read them a few days ago.)

The final story is ... eh. What the hell was the point of the two human characters introduced here? Is it so we could see that Lucifer is a bastard? So that we don't get to like him too much? Whatever.

At least it ended on a good note, a nice cliffhanger that will hopefully set up some decent stories.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1401200095/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 4 - The Divine Comedy

Outstanding.

Carey's grand epic about the fallen angel Lucifer finally lives up to its potential, delivering a gripping story about Lucifer's Creation, a bold attempt to take it from him, and another Fall.

What's not to like about this ? The art is sharp, the storytelling crisp and clear, and the story itself is dynamite.

Carey uses the conceit of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy in reverse, opening with the three-part Paradiso, which depicts the grandness of Lucifer's rebellious creation, then steering into the three-part Purgatorio, during which Lucifer's own folly comes back to haunt him and he is cut off from that which he created. Standalone stories bridge the gaps each section. (Inferno gets its own volume in Vol. 5 of this series.) Much of what groundwork previous laid explodes in this set of arcs, including stuff going way back to the first few issues. Major supporting characters see some major action here, some of them changed in very, very big ways.

But most impressive here is how much Carey's writing -- the raw prose -- has improved from the first volume or two. Finally he's able to tangle with Neil Gaiman, from whose Sandman series Lucifer leapt. The writing is rich, at times beautiful, but never shows off. It's always in the right voice, depending on viewpoint, and very well done.

This is the stuff that made me want to read this series.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1401202101/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 5 - Inferno

This rise and fall in quality, it gets frustrating. It does. Just when you think Carey is hitting his stride, you get a mixed bag of great ideas and adequate execution. Such is the case with this volume, which seems to slap together the end of Vol. 4 and the start of Vol. 6. By all rights, it shouldn't exist as a standalone graphic novel.

Inferno picks up where The Divine Comedy left off, plunging Lucifer into Hell so he can confront a rival angel. It's a fine enough four-part story with some solid plot surprises, but the pacing stinks and the art is pretty bland. What is it about Vertigo fill-in artists that makes them so often wrong? Sad that the fantastic tale started in the previous volume ends like this.

(The pacing is a repeated issue in this series. When it's good, it's fine, but sometimes Carey gets into spurts where he is changing scenes on every page, but he can't quite nail down a satisfying flow thing.)

A one-shot sits in the middle of this volume, and it, is, outstanding. Absolutely outstanding. One of the best issues of the series. Dean Ormston does the art, and it rocks. Carey tells a nifty side story, and it rocks. The whole thing rocks.

Then it's into a two-party that is really just a prologue to Vol. 6. The art is back up to speed, there is some very clever stuff happening, and Carey picks up a few storylines set aside prior to this volume. By the look of things, the next volume will be great, delving into Norse mythology and bringing the full supporting cast together for an epic journey.

But that's next volume. Too bad this one was such a mixed bag.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1401202497/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 6 - Mansions of the Silence

Mansions of the Silence is a volume-long story that is pretty much one big epic journey through strange and bizarre sights in, like, an epic and strange and bizarre dimension. It's writer Mike Carey's chance to pull out a dozen odd ideas and toss them out on the page. There are no rules, just do anything. Show anything. Make it a wild and crazy trip.

Well, it was a wild and crazy trip. Did the story work? For the most part. At the core of the quest is an effort to bring back a character we grew to like in earlier volumes, so that at least helps draw us in. I wanted to see her come back. You will, too.

On the other hand, this whole volume is almost all supporting cast and not so much lead, meaning the titular fallen angel is not the driving force of the story. He's busy with other stuff. You know, bugging angels and whatever. What a bastard.

It all wraps up with a I Have No Idea What Just Happened, which is frustrating because the ship on the cover? Cool. Some of what happens to our VERY awesome supporting cast? Cool. But the villains? Don't know, don't care. And the resolution? Don't know, don't care.

This story serves as a bridge between the initial major arc, concerning the Basanos, and the second major arc, concerning God's abandonment of heaven. It's the halfway point of the series and if the link between the first half (a saga of its own) and the second half (a saga of its own). So yeah, you kind of have to get through it.

Decent enough stuff, but certainly not a high point in the series.

Taft, I had the same problem as you. I would read a handful of issues and not be able to remember what I had just read. I finally gave up on this series, I think partway through the last volume you reviewed.

It's problematic, Stanley. Carey has good ideas and at times his prose can really sing, but I feel like he's not very good at telling a story. This series has been plagued by pacing problems and the events we see are often ambiguous as hell. At times stuff seems to just be happening, and it's hard to tell why or what it all means. I've had this problem since the start of the series.

I almost stopped reading right around here, too, but since I paid money for all those trades (and since I started an I Am Reading thread) I figure I ought to read them all.

Technically I'm two more ahead of the last review, just haven't gotten around to writing them up yet.

I have found that Carey's other books suffer from the same tendencies. His HELLBLAZER and X-MEN were also impenetrable at times.

I didn't read his Hellblazer, with me hating his writing and all. But Stanley is correct, his X-Men is coated in titanium steel and surrounded by repulsor blast technology force field. Which is how I like my X-Men, incidentally.

He actually drove me away from HELLBLAZER. I haven't read the ongoing series since. In fairness, it's hard to compete with Delano and Ennis, who did some of their very best work on that title.

I liked Azzarello's. He was a good fit for the book.

Some of his stuff was okay.

Mostly absolutely brilliant.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1401204910/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 7 - Exodus

By now, it’s clear to me that Mike Carey’s critically-acclaimed Lucifer series is something of an uneven experience. When it’s a good, it’s quite good and surely worthy of praise. And when it’s not, it’s a well-intentioned mess.

Exodus, at least, falls into the former category. It’s a fairly focused work with a clear tale to tell – two, actually – and a clear arc that doesn’t leave you scratching your head.

So that’s good.

Exodus is actually two stories, though they’re connected in theme. God, you see, has left heaven. We don’t know where the hell he went. He’s God. I guess he can go wherever the heck he wants. But anyway, he’s gone, and that’s Bad, because it means that his creation (as in the whole damn universe and everything connected to it) will slowly start to fall apart and die. Lucifer doesn’t want this to happen. Why? He has his reasons.

In the first story, some ancient immortal creatures steal God’s power and try to take the throne of heaven. They can’t handle all that power, of course, giving Lucifer an opportunity to join ranks with the angles and stop them. For reasons that are his own.

It’s a decent little tale especially fun for the uneasy tension between the always arrogant Lucifer and the even more arrogant angels.

In the second story, Lucifer decides that all immortal beings need to get the heck out of the realm he created (which won’t be affected when God’s realm dies, natch). He gathers up some of his allies, the folks who went on that magic boat ride, and instructs them to kick folks out. This arc is presented like a series of quirky fairy tales, at first seemingly unrelated but eventually coming around and linking up. There are some really swell high points here, especially the Puppet Show Of Gruesome Evil (my title). Essential to the overall narrative? Maybe not. But very enjoyable nonetheless.

This series continues to baffle the hell out of me. It has moments of pure excellence, then stretches of directionless blah.

Yet I keep reading.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/140120502X/?tag=imwan-20

Lucifer Vol. 8 - The Wolf Beneath the Tree

God is gone, gone, gone, so Fenris, the wolf of Norse mythology, decides now is a good time to end the world. Such is the core story of the eighth volume of Carey's series, which also contains two shorter stories.

'is all right, though it felt kind of like a retread of the last tale. Monsters from mythology see an opening in God's absence and try to take advantage of it. Lucifer, for reasons that are his own, forms an uneasy alliance with the angels (in this case his brother archangel Michael), and races to stop them. Big Event happens at the end, one I'm sure will impact the last three volumes of this book.

There is a weird and off-putting subplot about a schizo guy who bludgeons his wife and young son to death with a hammer. It's part of the main story, but it feels forced, it doesn't quite fit, and it's kind of ugly.

Mediocre.

However, the opening story, Lilith, is pretty damn good. It's a double-sized for the book's 50th issue and serves as an origin of sorts for both Lilth and Lucifer. Fantastic stuff. (This comment will contradict what I'm about to say below.

The other standalone story is moody and interesting, but pointless. It's about ... ahhh, who cares what it's about? When you're this deep into a series-long saga, tossing in one-shots is risky unless you've got Gaimain-like short story chops. Carey is good -- at times damn good -- but I feel like this energy would have been better spent getting the core series in order.

i'm looking forward to finishing this series, not because I'm eating it up, but because I'd like to get it behind me.

That is one of the reasons I disliked this book. All the short stories oscillate between dreary dull and remarkably forgettable wastes of time.