The morning star rises once more even as he falls farther than he ever has before. It is the last of the original Sandman Universe titles, finishing on its own terms, in only the way the devil could. With pomp. With circumstance. With so much destruction.
Cover by Tiffany TurrillWritten by Dan Watters
Illustrated by Max Fiumara, Brian Level, & Sebastian Fiumara
Colored by Dave McCaig & Dee Cunniffe
Lettered by Steve WandsLucifer reaches its conclusion in these climactic tales from the Sandman Universe that are presented for the first time anywhere in this collection! At long last, the Devil returns to Hell. Lucifer trespasses into the garden of Destiny of the Endless, but for what nefarious purpose? Nothing less than tearing a page from the Book of Destiny itself. Originally intended for Lucifer #20-24, these stories bring the tale of Lucifer to a dramatic close.
Of all the titles that got punted to digital/OGN to conclude their runs, “Lucifer” was the saddest, as it worked so damn well in singles. Never shall the varied, haunting, Bosch-like Tiffany Turrill covers grace a comics shelf and never shall the ‘I Am The King of Cats’ story stand alone. Rejoice, however, that we get another whole trade of Watters & the Fiumaras’ tale of The Devil and his struggles.
And what a trade it is. Watters captured, better than anyone else at the start in my opinion, the storyteller aspect of “The Sandman” and what allowed it to last for as long as it did with the quality that it had. Single issue stories stand alone with thematic resonance but can, and do, have their events picked up on in novel ways farther down the line. This is the purpose served by the issues illustrated by Brian Level: ‘An Unfortunate Bargain’ and the aforementioned ‘I Am The King of Cats.’ Both primarily feature a cautionary tale tied to the devil with that tale informing Lucifer’s attempts to erase himself from reality and the extended cast of Watters’ run, such as my new favorite character, Beverly Walsh.
These are not the only issues with standalone stories but Level’s presence makes them feel special. The narrative is in a transitional space with his art, far cleaner than the Fiumaras’ but no less intense, no less haunting. This is helped by Wands providing a through-line with his lettering and Cunniffe & McCaig working off each other so well, I forgot the issues were colored by different people. Level’s paneling is more free form than the Fiumaras’, signifying this transition as well as coding each story as a story being told, drawing from layouts reminiscent of Javier Fernandez over in “The Dreaming: Waking Hours,” allowing the mythic and the mundane to crash into each other, transporting the reader to a liminal realm of stories, where the mind’s eye is so engrossed in the pictures being painted that all else melts away.
Watters’ words do just that but this is a comic, and were it not for Level, Cunniffe, & Wands’ talents, such a feat could not have been accomplished, as we would be constantly reminded that we are reading and not there with the survivors of Lucifer.
The Fiumaras’ take a more restrained approach to their paneling but it is no less informative. When, in ‘A Man of Many Talents,’ Beverly, The Cat & Sam, Michael, Remiel, and Biyu are talking in the Devil’s house, the panels remain fixed, as if we are gazing through his tall windows, even as the events themselves bleed out into multiple panes. When on the beach with Maizkeen, the gutter spaces all but dissipate, while in the past they go from white on top of full page landscapes, to charcoal on a white void, smudged beyond the clean, fuzzy lines from before. There is a rhythm to the panels, sometimes perceptible, sometimes not, and so when it is broken, the discord is noticeable.
I think the strongest example of this is at the end of ‘A Man of Many Talents,’ where a horde of angels descends on Mazikeen on the beach, filling the page with their presence, distant and faceless, funneling towards a small but stern Mazikeen. On the bottom of the page are three panels. Small, square like the windows. The first has Mazikeen looking up while the second is the subject of her gaze, the marble face of an angel, who looks down upon her, before, in the third, we close in to see the angel utter two words, “Help us,” a look of worry and true beseechment upon it.
The majesty of this moment is made by the gutters. There is none between the angels’ panels but there is one between the first and second. It is a sizable gutter and is indicative of not only the time and the distance between the two figures but the immensity of a small moment. It is hard to do a pregnant pause in comics. TV. Movies. Anything with sound or movement, it is easy, but comics it is hard. Here, Watters and Fiumara create that pause naturally and subconsciously. It is a masterful moment in a book full of masterful moments.
While one could argue the comic ends too soon, which, make no mistake, it does, rather than leaving a bitter taste in ones’ mouth over what could have been, it leaves me satisfied with the wish for more. The ending does not feel rushed or sudden, nor do the events of this volume feel condensed. “Lucifer” Vol. 4 went out exactly how it wanted to, with measured chaos and elegant horror, with tales left to tell and complications left to explore, and with full knowledge that you can never really keep a good devil down.
