Phantom Stranger #1 - I can help

[perletwo]

Since it's a) come up in the comments to my Teen Titans post below and b) doesn't seem to have been posted from before if the tags are to be believed, here are four pages from Phantom Stranger #1, in which PS "helps" on-the-run escapee from Hell Rachel Roth.



The issue opens with the Stranger spooking a little boy playing soccer; the ball strays into the road and Billy goes chasing after it, with all too predictable results.



Rachel flees into an alley and calls out whoever's following her. "I'm not afraid of shadows!"





I'd like to take a moment here to say that while Raven has not always got the pick of the litter in terms of art, Rachel looks absolutely beautiful here - she looks young-teen'ish but not oversexualized, she's dressed in the "don't notice me" kind of clothes I could see a depressed semi-gothy girl on the run choosing, and her body language here is wonderfully expressive. I'm not acquainted with Brent Anderson's work, but based on this ish I'd say he's a very good choice for the Dark section of the DCnU titles.

Anyway. PS takes her to a diner where they discuss her troubled life further, and Rachel gradually senses a growing evil around them. Trigon's followers, the Church of Blood, have found her! (I missed Raven's resurrection into the Rachel Roth body the first time around - have Trigon and Brother Blood been so explicitly linked in the past?)

The Stranger pfoofs her away to safety, and she's horrified to realize he's brought her to Stonehenge - the spot she first emerged onto Earth when she escaped Trigon's hell-dimension, which Rachel says is a Trigon-conquered Azarath. "Do you realize what you've done? He'll know I'm here, he'll sense it!"

But it's too late. Trigon emerges from a sky-portal in a wondrous splash page (which I can add to this post if anybody'd like a good look at Trigon's current design). (BTW, icon_uk, there's a good close-up of Trigon's face in this ish that clearly shows 3 pairs of eyes, getting closer together as they go up Trigon's forehead.)



The demons drag her back to Hell, and Trigon and PS stand and chitchat for a page or two. The Powers told him to deliver Rachel to him, but not as a peace offering, PS says. Trigon says he was just about to unleash all his demon hordes onto Earth to find her, and perhaps the Powers were willing to trade one girl for millions of lives. Whatever, the Stranger says, he's sure the Powers had it happen this way to make it work out for the best in the end.

Comments

[captainbellman]

I'd add *cough*Old-Testament-God*cough*

"Dammit, I should not have let my sons mate with these early developing people, now they're all evil. Better flood the place and start again." (Genesis 6:1-7)

"Moses is having a tough time convincing that Pharaoh to let my chosen people go! Lucky I hardened Pharaoh's heart, otherwise it'd have been just sooo easy. Besides, Azrael's been wanting to go on a Firstborn-Son spree for ages." (Exodus 10:1)


"For Me's sake, Moses turns his back for five minutes to have a chat with me and they're worshipping a Golden Calf! Well, I know I can rely on Moses to respond rationally...no, wait, he just had the Levites slaughter three thousand of them. Welp, that's what I get for making an ex-murderer the leader." (Exodus 32: 19-29)

"They're worshipping BAAL now? With that weirdo ceremony where one of them pretends to be the woman-god and one of them pretends to be the man-god and they do it? Interesting to watch, I admit, but I've gotta put a stop to it...better tell 'em to put it in Leviticus. 'No pretending to be a woman and doing it to worship another God, that's just gross'. Hmm...too complex...better ask them to simplify it. What could go wrong?" (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13)

[skemono]

Or God tells Moses to return to Egypt because everyone who wanted him dead was gone, and then tries to kill Moses himself.

(Okay, I just wanted to link to the Brick Testament.)

[espanolbot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMnEpOsGH4o

[theflames]

this is good fun.