World Comic Book Review

25th March 2024

Satire predicts politics – Allusions to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in DC Comics’ The Demon #26-29 (1992)

“The Demon” #26, 27, 28, 29
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Artist: Val Semeiks
DC Comics, 1992
Review by Max Yezpitelok

One highly peculiar and clearly satirical 1992 storyline contained in the pages of an obscure comic book called “The Demon”, published by American comic book company DC Comics, where a rhyming demon runs for president of the United States is amongst the oddest of all US mainstream comic book stories. But from the perspective of a very cynical reader in 2016 the story has some uncanny similarities to the current presidential election.

1

“The Demon” is an anti-hero created by acclaimed writer Jack Kirby in 1972. The character has yellow skin, blazing red eyes, and horns. There is an underlying sense of Jekyll and Hyde schizophrenia to the character, premised on the idea that an evil demon of hell named Etrigan is harboured within a well-meaning human named Jason Blood. Etrigan breathes fire and is just as likely to incinerate other characters within storylines as to assist them. As such, the character is difficult to define within the genre of superhero comics and but for being part of its famous creator’s legacy to that genre, would more properly sit within the realm of horror. Etrigan is magically summoned by the incantation, “Gone, gone, form of man, arise the demon, Etrigan!”

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