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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good beginning to a series that gets better as it goes, January 7, 2006
It takes some arrogance, worthy of the Prince of Lies himself, to claim, as this book does, that the book is based on characters created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg. I would think that, at the very least, John Milton might have some prior claim on the creation of Lucifer, the fallen angel, but in the legal shenanigans of the comic world, what that claim is actually revealing is that this graphic novel is a spin-off from Gaiman's incredibly popular Sandman series. As such, it shares a lot in common with Gaiman's re-envisioning of mythology. In Sandman: Seasons of Mist, Lucifer resigned from his post in Hell, had his wings cut off by Dream, and "retired" to host a nightclub called Lux in a distorted reflection of Rick's from Casablanca, although in Lux, Lucifer plays his own piano. This book and series picks up where that left off, opening with a visit from an angel of the host to Lucifer to offer him a job for whatever price Lucifer will name. Thus begins the wheels-within-wheels that is the hallmark of this series.
In his introduction, Gaiman states that whenever another comic writer would ask him what he thought should spin-off from Sandman, he always told them "Lucifer," which is likely not what any of them wanted to hear, instead hoping for dream assignments (pun intentional) like Death, Desire or Destiny. But, as in most things relating to his comic, Gaiman was spot on. He had already covered the possibilities with the Endless, while Lucifer was the perfect protagonist: extremely flawed yet ultimately intriguing, charming and deadly, full of pride but also hubris. Lucifer is the character you don't want to like, but you can't help yourself from doing so because, unlike the throne of Heaven, Lucifer is much more like us. The Bible may say that man was created in God's image, but our personalities were grafted from Lucifer.
This collection has three main story arcs: "The Morningstar Option," where Lucifer fulfills a job for Heaven, and shows that he's a right bastard to any who doubted; "A Six Card Spread," in which Lucifer attempts to discover if his payment from Heaven has any strings attached that he wasn't aware of; and "Born with the DEAD," which seems ancilliary to the ongoing story, as it's about a young girl who tries to figure out how and why her best friend died with Lucifer showing up near the denounement to provide a favor which will put the girl in debt to him. There's a thread of story that weaves through these three, but, as in Gaiman's Sandman, it will take at least another three or four collections before you start to see the resulting weave that begins here.
Each arc has a different team of artists. I appreciated Scott Hampton's work on "The Morningstar Option" the most, because his art is both exact and yet abstract, almost dreamlike in its openness. The art by Weston and Hodgkins for "A Six Card Spread" is too realistic for a horror/fantasy comic, which works in this case by making some of the uglier parts of the story even uglier. "Born with the DEAD's" Pleece and Ormston ply a middle ground between realistic representation and a Marc Hempel-style abstraction. Their's is the kind of art that I don't like for its own sake, but works extremely well with the story.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excuse me if I fawn, April 13, 2003
By A Customer
I thought it was great, just great.Carey functions within Gaimen's world, yet he goes way beyond stale imitation. Weaving together eclectic mythological influences, he makes a series that is very much uniquely his own. This series contains many elements I don't think many authors could make work. How do you build up, ehem, sympathy for the Devil? With a main character of such incredible skill and power, how do you put him in suspenceful situations. Similarly, how do you get him out of those situations without it looking like a silly Deus Ex Machina? I've only read this first trade paperback of the series. Sure, there a lot of open questions, but that's the way it should be. This is, on the whole, a darker series than Sandman, it's mostly about despair and imprisonment, whereas Sandman conveyed a fair bit of hope and freedom. But you have to consider the main character. Overall, the only comic to make me want to stick with the Sandman Universe.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You have to read the next two trades to apreciate this one., January 26, 2004
Well I am a huge Sandman and HellBlazer fan and the Morningstar was definitely one of my favourite supporting characters.I did not have much trouble jumping into this trade with all my background knowledge from Sandman and my reading of mythology. Readers new to the Vertigo line of comics may find this series at first confusing. So please bear in mind that things are really explained in the next two trades. After careful readings "Lucifer: The Divine Comedy", "Lucifer: Children and Monsters" and "Lucifer: Inferno" you really appreciate the intricate weavings of the story. Going back to this first trade, I found myself going, "oh that is what he was talking about". After all, Lucifer has an almost cosmic awareness and it is an interesting twist that he sees and hears more than even the reader.
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