"The End" Week: The Demon #16!

I was going to say it was weird that John Byrne's Blood of the Demon ran longer than Jack Kirby's original series. But Alan Grant and Garth Ennis both had longer runs with the character (39 and 18 issues respectively, or thereabouts.) and since there was a zero issue, Paul Cornell tied Kirby on the recently departed Demon Knights. And I don't think Kirby had that many long runs on his DC characters anyway, unless you count all the New Gods stuff as one long series. He only stayed on Mister Miracle until #18...

But, back to the book at hand: the Demon #16, "Immortal Enemy!" Edited, written and drawn by Jack Kirby, with letters and inks by Mike Royer. While fighting the lower-case demon Kafir in Gotham City, Etrigan is gassed and captured by Morgaine Le Fey. She puts the "ritual mark" on the Demon's head, making him her slave. Meanwhile, Jason Blood's love interest Glenda has discovered the power of the mysterious Philosopher's Stone, and is brought to Morgaine by her old henchman Warly. Morgaine is having Etrigan beaten, to soften him up for her control, and turns him back into Jason Blood, revealing his secret to Glenda at last.

Although Morgaine's wary of the Stone, she tries to extort it away from Glenda; but it's grabbed by Warly. Instead of passing it to his mistress, he turns on Morgaine, using the Stone to turn her into a mummy. (Complete with sarcophagus!) Morgaine had spells in place for such a betrayal, though; and as a tentacled monster grabs Warly, he tries to use "nether-flame" to stop it. Jason, released from the power of the mark with Morgaine's mummification, saves himself and Glenda from the fire, and now has to explain the Demon to her...

Even though he's been cancelled many times--it looks worse if you count the miniseries he's had, too--the Demon always turns up again like the proverbial bad penny. Good. He's my favorite of Kirby's DC creations, and I suspect he's a lot of other people's favorite as well.