All of this is why Satan has been such a regular fixture of
tales of comic horror, and Steve Banes compiles a strange variety in IDW’s new
anthology Devil Tales. Like the best
stories of this sort, the ones in this collection are mostly short on
puritanical finger wagging and God referencing and long on strangeness. In his
brief introduction to the volume, Banes points out the most common Devil story
clichés (stories of accidental soul-selling and ones that pivot on the great
big twist “It was the Devil the entire time…gasp, choke!”), and (again mostly) steps around that dung heap of
unoriginality with tales in which Lucifer sparks a gang war or tries to make a
kindly couple fall in love with the hell-spawn he forces them to raise. There’s
even a demonic crossword puzzle! Only occasionally is a tale skip-able, as when
“The Devil’s Pact” drags its cloven feet through soul-selling clichés and
churchy piety.
Culled from an array of titles, such as Adventures Into the Unknown, Tales
of Horror, Web of Mystery, and The Purple Claw, the stories vary in
quality, but often surprise. “Welcome to My School” has snappy, noir-ish
writing stronger and wittier than one might expect from a fifties horror comic.
“The King of Hades” is a wacky hunk of hilarity about a thug who gives Hell a
makeover. Dick Ayer’s artwork for “Ghoul’s Gold” piles on the detail. Kenneth
Landau’s for “Decapitation” is some of the most graphically gruesome I’ve seen
in a tale from the early fifties. The devil appears as a hulking beast out of Fantasia, a withered old woman, a doofus
in red PJs or blue underwear, a wax doll, a puppet, and in two instances, a tattoo.
Best of all, Banes’s choices allow us to enjoy all the severed heads, devil
babies, and candy-apple masters of darkness without feeling as though we have
to spend an excruciating hour in Sunday school to atone for our transgressions.
Hell yeah.
