“The Devilers” #2 picks up with our team of multi-cultural super friends descending into the pits of hell to confront you-know-who. This book spares no ink and utilizes every square inch of page real estate; sometimes to wonderfully grotesque effect, often to overwhelming confusion. This issue makes some strides to develop the group of characters that had been thrust upon Malcolm in issue one, and continues the high energy pace and visual spectacle of the first issue with an added reveal about the truth behind Malcolm’s power.
WRITTEN BY: Joshua Hale Fialkov
ART BY: Matt Triano
PUBLISHER: Dynamite
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: August 13, 2014
Reviewed By Epic Switzer
“The Devilers” is in my wheelhouse. The macabre, the occult, and especially the agency of heaven in hell is my bread and butter. I eat that shit up. That being said, I find “Devilers” to be a bit of an overcrowded mess. Though I appreciate the attention to detail, each page in so dense with insanity that it may induce headaches. Everything is red and covered in blood and has two heads and ten legs and while I love it conceptually, it is a little confusing to look at.
Again, I really like the idea of “The Devilers” and I’m enjoying discovering every one’s powers and their histories while Malcolm tries to get a grip on what makes him special and how he fits in. The art certainly isn’t bad: the characters are expressive and the use of perspective is effective and the beasts are imaginative, but it can be too much to look at sometimes, and it is a little jarring when one panel is the grand hulking beast in beautiful detail and the next is a floating head with a solid red background. I don’t know if deadlines were an issue or if it was deliberate but it doesn’t really work for me.
I think “Devilers” will end up being effective as a mini-series and for that reason I will continue to read it. If this was an ongoing, however, this would probably be the last issue I read. It is a spectacle to be sure, but I don’t find it special enough in any one way to justify it in my ever growing stack of books. If the pages were cleaner, or the dialogue tighter, or the characters more dynamic, I could find something to love about this book. I really want to like it, but it just isn’t doing it for me.
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Epic Switzer AKA Eric is an aspiring filmmaker and screenplay writer living in Los Angeles. His work tends to focus on the lighter side of entropy, dystopic futures, and man’s innate struggle with his own mortality. He can be found on twitter @epicswitzer or reached via email at ericswitzerfilm@gmail.com.