Customer Reviews

Lucifer Vol. 1: Devil in the Gateway

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

It's been over a decade since Sandman #23, in which Lucifer closed up Hell, had his wings cut off, and (as we later learned) opened a night spot in L.A. Now he stars in his own saga, under a new team of writer and illustrators. The result is the most successful to date of the various attempts to keep the Sandman franchise going since the climactic events of Sandman #69. As is usually the case with compilations from an on-going series, "Lucifer: Devil in the Gateway" leaves too many loose ends to entirely succeed as a stand-alone graphic novel. Nevertheless, the cast of characters and original stories are very much worthy of its progenitor. The stories in this collection aren't really dependent on familiarity with the Sandman series to understand what's going on. Still, Gaiman's Sandman is a classic and the keystone of DC's Vertigo line to which "Lucifer" belongs, so I would recommend reading at least the collections "Preludes and Nocturnes" and "Season of Mists" first. Those who have done so are very likely to enjoy following these new tales of Lucifer.

Mike Carey had the daring task of following Neil Gaiman's portrayal of Lucifer (from the Sandman series)and he has passed the test with flying colors! Carey's Lucifer,IMHO,actually surpasses Gaiman's and that is a very difficult thing to do. Even though he is devious and shrewd, you can't help but like the guy! This book contains the three issue "The Morningstar Option" from Sandman Presents and the first four issues of the regular series which has been nominated for five Eisners. Read this book and give the devil his due!

Positive reviews makes me curious about any comic book and I picked this one up with high expectations, after I finished I was a bit dissapointed because it didn't filled up all my expectations.
Lucifer series is a bit slow moving and vague for my taste but I heard that it gets better and I'm looking forward to read the next issues.Carey's writing is stylish and erudite and his main caracther is well developed.The art of Chris Weston is very good ;unfortunately he left off after issue 3 and was replaced by Peter Gross(Books of Magic).
In some parts Lucifer lacks narrative drive and demands attention because Carey loves cryptic sentences.Overall a good comic book but a little overated too.

I've been reading mostly manga over the past two years, so what surprised me most about this comic (aside from the most obvious differences, ie., color, dialogue-heavy, etc.) was that the illustrators in American comics appear to be disposable, exactly opposite from the Japanese system.

The first story in this comic is illustrated by Scott Hampton who draws a beautiful, lucid version of a Mephistophelean-type, world-weary Satan bored by the absurdity & impermanence of this universe. His beauty is matched by his exquisite courtesy.

The second story is drawn by Chris Weston (I guess...it is not always clear who is responsible for character design amid all the pencillers, inkers, and colorists listed) who draws Lucifer as a thug with the expression of someone who has bitten into something really sour or is, alternatively, in need of a really good laxative.

I found Lucifer's expression jarring enough but then he has been graced with a hairstyle reminiscent of Barbie's Ken. I mean, I know Japanese illustrators are far more concerned with a character's hair than their American counterpart, but come on people, do you really think even the ex-King of Hell would settle for hair that looks like a plastic bottlecap?

Apart from these quibbles about the graphic part of the graphic novel, the story is excellent. The plot is involved but precise and never insults the reader's intelligence. I've only read this first book, but there is obviously much more to come & I'm looking forward to Lucifer's struggle with the angels & whoever else comes up. I plant to read the whole series.

In Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series, Lucifer Morningstar - the devil - was a fairly minor character. During the "Sandman" series Lucifer lost his wings, resigned from hell and went on to pursue other unknown activities. In "Devil in the Gateway" we finally learn what happened to him - that he started running a nightclub in LA. "Devil in the Gateway" contains three stories.

The first one tells us how Lucifer is being contracted - by none other than God almighty himself - to eliminate some ancient competition: terminate some
primordial gods. I think this was an interesting story, but it didn't have Neil Gaiman's "magic". It just didn't have "it".

The second story tells about Lucifer's encounter with an angel - an encounter which gives strange superpowers to a mortal. Again, this was an OK story, but I didn't find it to be particularly good.

The third - and the shortest - story tells about a young girl who has magical powers. Lucifer barely

appears in this story. Nevertheless this one was my favorite story - it was a definite improvement over the previous two.

All of these stories tie in together - but this pretty much happens in the next graphic novel. Overall, the stories were good, but felt unfocused, vague - and sometimes just plain cryptic. Even though this is Neil Gaiman's world, Mike Carey did not capture its spirit successfully. I was hesitating
whether to continue with the series, but (as I later found out) it is totally worth it. I recommend this graphic novel mainly because the sequel is much better!

Mike Carey, Lucifer: Devil in the Gateway (Vertigo, 2001)

Lucifer was always one of the more interesting characters in the Sandman universe, though he didn't get much screen time. Enter Mike Carey (John Constantine: Hellblazer), who takes the threads Gaiman left in Sandman and runs with them. Lucifer, having abdicated his throne, is now the owner of a small bar/club in Los Angeles, playing the piano and mingling with the natives with his longtime companion Mazikeen. That, however, does not stop him from messing in mortal affairs every once in a while. But there's more to it than that-- it seems Heaven will, with distaste, use Lucifer as a hitman when it doesn't wish to get its own hands dirty. And thus we meet Amenadiel, an angel with a mission: to hire the Lightbringer. Wheels within wheels within wheels; the Gaiman legacy is in good hands.

As much as I enjoyed the all-too-brief Death spinoff, the stories never held the complexity that was both Gaiman's atmosphere and his greatest strength. Carey, on the other hand, is a perfect channel for it. I admit I like this book a great deal more now, having read volumes 2 and 3, than I did when I first read it; so much of this is setup that it doesn't feel like a great deal actually happens. Rest assured, though, the series takes off quickly just after this. *** ½

Lucifer resigned as ruler of Hell, got Morpheus to cut off his wings, and moved to Los Angeles to open an upscale piano bar called Lux in the pages of Neil Gaiman's Sandman in the early 1990's. Then Vertigo Comics decided to bring him back in 1999, with then up-and-coming writer Mike Carey at the helm.

Lucifer being Lucifer, the piano bar business seems to have become a bit boring. So when an angel comes calling with a mission from God, Lucifer accepts. Primal, prehistorical gods threaten to undermine Creation, so off Lucifer goes, at a price, to save the world.
After that, the Lightbringer heads off to Hamburg to get a divination. As the magical colony organism that is the world's first Tarot deck has escaped its prison, things get pretty hairy there, too.

As Lucifer is a manipulative, scheming creature whose saving grace is that he never lies, a lot of the weight of interest in these stories falls on the supporting characters, human and otherwise, whom we meet along the way. Lucifer's loyal servant Mazikeen returns from Sandman, while a host of one-off and recurring characters also appear. Lucifer, tricky as ever, has an audacious plan that will ultimately unfold over the book's seven-year run.

Carey already shows a deft hand for weirdness and drama amidst supernatural beings and humans, one that would only grow greater as his career progressed. The series gets off to a dandy start, reminiscent of Sandman at times but nonetheless possessed of its own nasty, metaphysically probing edge.