Scott Snyder’s Journey Into Horror, Part 1: "We Have Demons"!

Having been a big fan of horror comics, I’ve developed an appreciation of just how difficult it can be to write one. Since comics sit somewhere between conventional literature and film, it lacks the fundamental advantages of both media that help them in maintaining atmosphere and tension. The still visuals can often limit the audience’s interpretation, contrary to the openness of novels, and they also lack the audio and visual motion that makes film so effective. Despite these difficulties, there are some great horror comics out there, though it can feel like an often up-tapped genre.

This will be the first part in exploring Scott Snyder’s new horror-themed releases in the Comixology Originals, his first instalment being We Have Demons #1. Though Scott has a significant and long-standing reputation in comics (mostly with Batman and American Vampire), this beginning issue has him falling for a lot of the easy pitfalls and it honestly feels like he would rather write about superheroes.

The story of We Have Demons is about Lam, the daughter of a small town preacher in Florida. When her father dies she must take up the responsibility of being a demon-hunter. This first issue is your standard origin story business, though it has the hallmarks of a superhero origin rather than a horror character. The significant difference between the two is a superhero’s origin will largely revolve around a power fantasy. For example, even though Batman and Spiderman have tragic lost parents and trauma their audience is still expected to fantasize about having their powers, money, training, and/or capabilities. With a heroic horror protagonist, they are often forced into the role, and if they do have powers they are usually cursed or involve some sort of price that force the character to balance the benefit and detriment every time they use them.

Lam is very much the former. She has the basic trauma of a main character by having both her parents dead, and then also having had an arm amputated as a child. Amputating the arm is really just a plot device to give her the superpower of a special cybernetic arm that her father made to help when she took over his work as a demon-hunter. If this wasn’t insipid and clichéd enough, the loss of her arm is attributed to a snake bite on her middle finger, which precipitates as a symbol through her childhood and her father’s preaching (in the vein of flipping-off the devil), and finally relates directly to her operating her special prosthetic. So in short, her super heroic gesture is to flip the ‘bird’ at demons. To top this off Snyder’s characterization of Lam is painfully generic, being the unflappable smart-arse, who more often just comes off as annoying rather than relatable or endearing.

The demons featured in this first issue are also rather uninspiring. There is the standard convention for a demon-hunter story, that they pose as humans and the hero has to find ways to uncover them. For the first issue we are only told it is done with special weapons glowing in their presence, which I dearly hope they expand on and add some complexity and difficulty to. Otherwise it will just be another boring trope that borders on completely unnecessary. The design of the demons, when they are exposed, may have some interesting elements, however there is little distinction between them individually and my first thought was that they all looked like rejects from Spawn. This impression was less surprising when I realized that the artist was Greg Capullo, who worked on the Spawn comic for the better part of a decade. Additionally, to add to the crass middle-finger business, all the demons talk like an angry 10 year old that has obsessively memorized curse words from the dictionary and peppers them through every sentence like a poorly used comma.

The artwork in general is very much what you should expect from Capullo. Everything is nicely detailed, with plenty of little touches and decorations to fill out the scenes. The arrangement flows well, but unfortunately as competent as it is, it is almost too conventional especially in scenes that should have heightened tension. They’ve laid all the frames for the action and suspense scenes in the same standard formats as the rest of the story, so there is no sense that the pace and tension has changed. Granted any attempt to break the format can be a risk, where you might confuse or frustrate the reader, but both Snyder and Capullo are so experienced it is a shame when they play it so safe.

Speaking of playing it safe, their character design also begs for variety since every human (including the main character) all appear to be cut from the same basic moulds. All the women are slim and beautiful, and all the men are toned and handsome (the only exception being the people who are demons in disguise, who were either chubby, pregnant or old), though since there wasn’t exactly a bursting cast of humans through this single issue, I’ll just have to see if they mix it up later on.

As I mentioned before, it is such a shame that this whole, shallow, clichéd display was made by people who I feel should be doing better. Both have experience with various Batman comics, which have had all sorts of clever horror/superhero mixes. Snyder had done work with The Batman Who Laughs, while Capullo was the artist for Death In The Family. Both of these have distinct horror and tension that are highly praised among fans. Snyder’s signature series American Vampire should be a benchmark for his capacity with dramatic horror. Yet it looks like none of their talents are really on show. I can only hope future issues expand on the mythology, play with the demon design and maybe have some more likeable supporting characters. What is ultimately frustrating is there is a lot of potential here, both in their setup and the talent of the creators. I just have to hope that the first issue isn’t too indicative of the rest of the series.

This sort of comic is the popcorn of the industry, nice enough for a snack in the moment and quickly consumed, but if you come back to it, it will only be irritating like husks in your teeth.

Rating: 4/10

Where to read: Comixology