Lucifer

Lucifer 29-41

I’m going to focus on the done-in-one issues today.  Mike Carey is a little more successful in telling emotionally engaging stories with those, in contrast to the plot-first mindset of his longer story arcs.  

Issue 33 recounts a day in the life of Sabah Al-Dabagh, a humble grocery store proprietor.  It’s a not a particularly good day - He’s just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and his shop’s being robbed at gunpoint.  He’s always tried to do the right thing, because that’s how he’s been raised, but he’s starting to wonder about the point of it all when bad things keep happening to him.  Fortunately for him, the robbery is interrupted through the intervention of one of his regular customers, who just happens to be a creature from the Pain Realms. Ironically, after a lifetime of prayer, it’s a demon that proves to be his salvation.  And when she asks for something in return, it’s not the stereotypical soul that she’s after. She wants something dark, something sinister. Criteria that Sabah’s tumor fits perfectly.

And so his harrowing day comes to an end.  He’s now cancer-free and home in the arms of his wife.  “His heart swelled with love for her. With the sudden dizzying lightness that comes when you put a burden down after carrying it a great way.  And the sun came up. And the world began again.”

Does it trouble him that he owes his extended life to a creature of “evil”?  Does he care that Zim’et saved his life where God did not? Or perhaps this was God’s way of rewarding Sabah for his faithful devoutness?

I loved the inversion of the standard ‘deal with a devil.’  Sabah didn’t set out to haggle for his life. He made all of his actions with the welfare of other foremost in his mind.  And he ended up rewarded. Except it was by a demon. So many twists to appreciate.

Issue 41 wraps up the arcs of Elaine Belloc and her best friend Mona.  They realize that they have no place as living girls on Earth, and Lucifer dubs them the guardian angels of his world - Mona as the God of Hedgehogs, Elaine as the God of Everything Except Hedgehogs.  It’s a surprisingly light moment in a very straitlaced title. (Well, apart from Gaudium and Spera.)

Their juvenile sniping cracks me up.

A couple of other comments:

I love Carey’s depiction of Remiel as the perfect middle manager.  Remiel’s that guy who thinks way more highly of himself and his purpose than anyone else does.  Everyone is openly contemptuous of him, and takes every opportunity they can to get their digs in.  I have to imagine that, one day, that facade of self-importance is going to shatter, and the fragile ego behind it is going to do something desperate to stay intact.  Man, what a putz.

I like this visual sequence by Peter Gross:

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice (Pretty good for issue 33)