Reign in Hell

by Keith Giffen, Tom Derenick (Illustrator), Bill Sienkiewicz (Illustrator)

A power struggle in Hell brings good guys and bad into the fold as everybody looks to carve out a place for themselves in the underworld!

When the demon Neron faces off with the hellacious siblings known as Lord Satanus and Blaze for control of hell, a group of heroes ventures forth to make sure the bad guys come out on top! This rip-roaring thriller features appearances by nearly every magical being in the DC Universe including former JLA members Zatanna and Blue Devil as well as long-time DC mainstays like the Demon, Etrigan!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Fiction, Horror

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Keith Ian Giffen was an American comic book illustrator and writer. He is possibly best-known for his long runs illustrating, and later writing the Legion of Super-Heroes title in the 1980s and 1990s. He also created the alien mercenary character Lobo (with Roger Slifer), and the irreverent "want-to-be" hero, Ambush Bug. Giffen is known for having an unorthodox writing style, often using characters in ways not seen before. His dialogue is usually characterized by a biting wit that is seen as much less zany than dialogue provided by longtime collaborators DeMatteis and Robert Loren Fleming. That approach has brought him both criticism and admiration, as perhaps best illustrated by the mixed (although commercially successful) response to his work in DC Comics' Justice League International (1987-1992). He also plotted and was breakdown artist for an Aquaman limited series and one-shot special in 1989 with writer Robert Loren Fleming and artist Curt Swan for DC Comics.

Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher (to be re-released in a collected edition by Boom! Studios)., T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law. For Valiant Comics, Giffen wrote XO-Manowar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, Punx and the final issue of Solar, Man of the Atom.

He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy.

He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series. He also wrote the Star-Lord mini-series for the follow-up story Annihilation: Conquest. He currently writes Doom Patrol for DC, and is also completing an abandoned Grant Morrison plot in The Authority: the Lost Year for Wildstorm.

Reviews

[Ανδρέας Μιχαηλίδης · Rating 3 out of 5]

An all around decent supernatural adventure in Hell, but as with many things in DC's New 52, it's a bit all over the place.

One of the worst decisions DC ever made was shutting down its Vertigo imprint and shuffling the characters into (or in some cases back into) the mainstream superhero universe. DC's occult characters do not work well within its larger unified universe, and this is no exception.

So you have the Shadowpact, Dr. Occult, Zatanna, Sargon, Dr. Fate, Black Alice, Ibis, Zauriel and even Zatara (Zatanna's father) getting mixed up in this whole plot by the children of Shazam (the wizard who gave the Marvel Family their powers), Satanus and Blaze, to take over Hell from Neron. Confused yet?

The premise for getting the characters involved is pretty thin. Lilith recalls all her children back to Hell, which means that all infernal-based powers and creatures are cleansed from the Earth. That ostensibly gives the characters various motives for wanting to get involved in the war, curry favors from the future rulers of Hell etc.

After the bit where they all end up in Hell, the various plots are actually pretty interesting, if somewhat painful for anyone who knew the characters in their Vertigo incarnations. The depictions of Hell are also interesting, although they borrow A LOT from other creators (I cannot place the original provenance of all these concepts, but they are definitely older than this comic), such as the currency of Hell from Edward Lee's City Infernal, the evolution of Hell alongside the mortal realm from the same, as well as the rendering and use of souls as raw material from Wraith: the Oblivion, to mention the most glaring ones.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

And then you realize that the most powerful creature imprisoned in Hell (that is to say, locked away from the rest of Hell, in order to keep Hell safe), evoking terror even in its rulers or prospective rulers... is Lobo. That is where things rapidly devolve into superhero silliness, and then you just go along until the ride's end. Probably the most terrible idea is how Satanus vanquishes Neron, using the equivalent of a "weaponized magical virus" and then the Shazam word for some reason.

Actually scratch that, there is no rhyme or reason to it.

Still, for all that, the series is a fun read, beautifully drawn and even more beautifully inked for the most part. The covers (and I imagine some designs) from Justiniano, once upon a time of Chaos! Comics, are a nice touch, further accentuated by Lady Blaze ending up as the spitting image of the late company's Purgatory.

[Hugh Pfabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this (and expected to), but it just felt disjointed, cobbled together, and poorly edited.

The cast of characters here is fantastic. So many of the magic or magic-adjacent DC characters that I love are in this one. In fact, Dr. Occult, perhaps the most underrated of all DC characters (at least based on his historical role for DC, superheroes, and mystic detectives across media) has his own backup story for much of the book.
***
(intermission)
Blue Devil, in typical fashion for this era (Day of Judgment, all Shadowpact/Sentinels appearances) is an important character who gets surprisingly little page time, dialogue, or characterization.
(back to your regularly scheduled review)
***
Great cast... who barely get introduced. We should care about Sargon Jr.? Why?
Wait, there's a Sargon Jr.?

The storyline looks, in brief, interesting, but in execution is confusion (not complicated, just poorly presented) and disjointed.

There were at least a dozen occasions while reading this where I went back and looked to see if I had missed a page or two, or even missed an entire issue, because the story jumped and seemed to skip this that were either integral to what was going on or, at a bare minimum, would've made for more interesting storytelling if they had been presented.

Is it Giffen's fault? I don't know. I loved his work with J.M. DeMatteis, though my reading of his solo writing is, admittedly, limited. I wonder if it's more a factor of when this came out. Giffen's run on Larfleeze, around the same time, was similarly both a slog and seemed to skip important storytelling beats.

I think it might be both Giffen and the editing, which is surprising because the editorial team has a ton of experience, and has done excellent work in the past.
Characters seem very out of character in some instances (yay Supergirl... wait, she's acting like what? Yay Dr. Occult... wait, he's acting like what...), but the editors should have really picked up on not only that, but, more importantly, the story skipping important things, not referencing things where they should have, and just doing more as editors than looking for spelling errors.


Overall, sadly, I think this is more for completists. I love this side of the DC universe, I love that this book actually exists, I love seeing these characters, but the product is just really, really disjointed and unsatisfying.

[Aurimas V. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Satanus and Blaze, who ruled Purgatory, decided to rile-up some lost souls in order to invade Hell and overthrow the demon Neron... The premise was interesting, but the execution left a lot to be desired. For the most part, the dialogue is dry and boring. Too many characters to keep track of or to care about (especially, if you don't read Shadow Pact). Overall, does not hold a candle to Vertigo works on the topic of esoteric...

[Brannigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The books as two of my favorite C list superheroes Ragman and Dr Occult. Even with them the story is a mess. The art is chaotic and muddies you the page. There’s too many characters running around and story points so you never become invested in any of it.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because it goes at the end of Shadowpact...but the story completely failed to grab my interest.

[Baal Of · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this volume up because it was marked for clearance at Dragon's Lair. I remember liking a run of Doctor Fate way back in the earlier 90's, I think, and I've read some of the Etrigan stories, and Lobo as well. With Bill Sienkiewicz doing inks, this seemed like it was worth taking a shot on. The art lived up to my expectation, having sufficient complexity to make me happy, while not suffering from the horrible trends in more modern comic books of making panels that are so "zoomed in" on the action as to convey no actual information. The writing suffers a bit from the syndrome of having characters, especially villains, and in this cases demons of various sorts, speak of themselves in third person. When you have 3 or 4 of them talking in the same stilted language, it becomes rather awkward reading. The storyline itself was kind of entertaining, but it became a bit incoherent, as the author struggled to introduce profound concepts, that weren't really well presented, but this has always been a problem with esoteric comics, so either one allows for it and just enjoys the ride, or throws the thing away in bafflement. There was also a lot of back story on characters, which was assumed knowledge, and not explained to the reader. Again, fairly typical in comics. It wasn't so bad as to remove all enjoyment for me. All told, a middling story, with lovely art, but nothing to set the world on fire, and not something I'll be pushing on my friends. Really about a 2.5

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very odd story. It basically amounts to a lot of characters going to Hell in order to stop a civil war, but spending 8 issues running around, not really accomplishing anything, and then trying to get home. The infernal politics of Hell are interesting, and I enjoyed the way that all of the storylines dovetailed together at the end, especially the back-up story. The artwork varies, with scratchy lines that sometimes make it difficult for the reader to know who certain characters are without speech bubbles. Overall, Reign In Hell wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but it's not as bad as other reviews would have you believe.

[Colton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I apparently didn't hate this as much as everyone else. Sure, Reign in Hell has it's problems. The artwork is too sketchy (for some reason DC keeps hiring artists producing content like this despite audience reaction), there a number of obscure second-rate characters whose stories are not explained, and the treatment of the Creeper doesn't make any sense. However, the writing feels cinematic, something I love in a book of any form, and the magical elements are used well. Perhaps it's my weakness for the Shadowpact, but I liked this one.

[David Palazzolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keith Giffen tries here what he helped do over on Marvel's space-bound titles, but it didn't quite work out. The repercussions and fallout from this mini-series was minimal, then completely ignored when the "The New 52" company wide reboot hit just two years later. A shame, because on the whole it's not a bad story, but it's worst failure is not giving enough background info on our cast of characters. If we had that, this story might have lived up to its potential.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extremely well-plotted book featuring about a dozen or so minor super-characters that straddle the lines between superhero and supernatural. It would be a stretch to call it a very good graphic novel, but on a purely mechanic level, it's quite well done, and offers a better, more complete story than one usually finds in superhero crossover books of its size and scope.

[Jakub Górecki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reign In Hell is not that bad book. But it's clearly not a book for somebody who's not familiar with most of the characters. You can feel typical Giffen flow, like in his cosmic-war stories, but with oime minor changes, no starships, just hellfire.

[John Yelverton · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was complete and utter trash and completely not worth your time to read.

[Russell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pure drek.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

It should have been a great story, but instead it was mindless fighting and heroes wandering around without doing much of anything.

[Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ouch. This was not good. It felt like a Shadowpact limited series placed in Hell.

Art in the backup was better than in the main part (that was really sub-par).

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good art and storyline make this a nice read. Recommended

[Rhys Causon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange story and awful art for half of it.