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DC Finest: The Demon: Birth of the Demon
DC Finest: The Demon - Birth of the Demon collects the earliest and most essential tales of Etrigan the Demon, from his explosive debut by Jack Kirby to his mystical evolution in the Bronze Age. This omnibus includes stories from The Demon #1-16 (1972-1973), classic team-ups from The Brave and the Bold, and key appearances in Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, and more. Featuring writing by Len Wein and Gerry Conway, and art by Steve Ditko and others, this volume explores the cursed bond between Jason Blood and the demon Etrigan across centuries of dark magic, betrayal, and vengeance.
536 pages, Paperback
First published February 24, 2026
About the author
Jack Kirby
2,827 books479 followersJack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg) was one of the most influential, recognizable, and prolific artists in American comic books, and the co-creator of such enduring characters and popular culture icons as the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Captain America, and hundreds of others stretching back to the earliest days of the medium. He was also a comic book writer and editor. His most common nickname is "The King."
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 26, 2026
I was always intrigued by this sorta heroic character. Interesting backstory and character personality. Great to get the stories in one set and you can't beat the classic Kirby art. Recommended
April 2, 2026
I have wanted the collection of Jack Kirby's The Demon for a long time and finally getting a copy was so exciting. As always Kirby's imagination was on fire with this tale, but it took him a few issues to get Jason Blood/Etrigan on track. Jason Blood is at first introduced as a Demonologist. Following creatures from beyond and unsure of why he keeps crossing paths with a demon named Etrigan. Jason Blood lives in Gotham city and is a man of great means and background. His apartment is like a museum, and he has painting of his great ancestors who all look a lot like him, because they are! At first, he seems to be in the dark that he is bonded to Etrigan but discovers this with the help of three people that are very opened minded and his friends. It's clear from a writing standpoint Kirby was unsure how to use his amazing creation. The first issues struggle to find footing but the second story arc he tackles is my favorite. Jason Blood travels to a remote European town to track down a howler. Or a werewolf. Great story. But soon the stories move from just remote creatures to minions of evil. I would have preferred the whole adventure, and seeker approach to Etrigan but Kirby unleashes good and evil on his pages with artwork that is fun to look at and read.
It should be noted this volume has other stories of Etrigan/Jason Blood written by other writers, but I really did not like the way the other writers handled Jack's creation. Some added a few interesting back tid bits but mostly it was just bad. I did like the Brave and the Bold issue that has Batman and Etrigan teaming up but the part where Etrigan is turned into a fly was a little odd and how he manages to change back was silly. As always poor Kirby was pulled off this book too soon, or maybe he ran out of ideas, but I doubt that. I really wish he had used Merlin more in his stories. This book is a MUST have for any Jack Kirby fan. Just be prepared for the start to be a tad bumpy.
It should be noted this volume has other stories of Etrigan/Jason Blood written by other writers, but I really did not like the way the other writers handled Jack's creation. Some added a few interesting back tid bits but mostly it was just bad. I did like the Brave and the Bold issue that has Batman and Etrigan teaming up but the part where Etrigan is turned into a fly was a little odd and how he manages to change back was silly. As always poor Kirby was pulled off this book too soon, or maybe he ran out of ideas, but I doubt that. I really wish he had used Merlin more in his stories. This book is a MUST have for any Jack Kirby fan. Just be prepared for the start to be a tad bumpy.
June 17, 2026
"HAHAHAH!! We're LINKED together, you and I! Bound as BROTHERS, Jason Blood!!"
Sorry for that, but I just love me that Jack Kirby dialogue. It may not be subtle, but it gets the point across. He's no slouch in the art department, either.
The Demon was a creation of Jack Kirby's from his 1970s run at DC Comics. The comic books starring the The Demon, aka Etrigan, aka Jason Blood, were edited, written and drawn Kirby. While at Marvel Kirby's work was constrained by editor and co-writer Stan Lee. DC gave us Kirby Unleashed. Some may find Kirby untethered to be a little too much--that his fertile imagination and gifted penciling needed some reining in. Not me.
I love his work at DC during this period exactly because it's so unrestrained. You can just feel the excitement and energy bursting off of each page. A great comic book creator at the peak of his creativity.
As suggested in the dialogue quoted above, Etrigan was the alter ego of demonologist Jason Blood. Created by Merlin at the fall of Camelot, Etrigan and Blood have lived down through the centuries. Jason turns into the Demon by speaking the words of the mystic spell, "Gone! Gone! The form of man--rise the Demon, Etrigan."
Jason and the Demon are not exactly on the best of terms--Jason would prefer to just be Jason all of the time and Etrigan would prefer to be Etrigan all of the time. But that's how it goes when two beings share one existence.
The stories themselves involve horrors straight out of the Universal Pictures playbook--variations on the Phantom of the Opera and Frankenstein, among others. The most intriguing of Etrigan's adversaries are Klarion the witch-boy and Morgaine Le Fay. Klarion engages in all sorts of mischief, aided by his cat familiar, Teekl. Le Fay holds a grudge against Etrigan and dresses far more provocatively in modern times than she likely did during King Arthur's days.
The artwork in the Demon stories is prime Kirby, and almost every one of the Kirby written/illustrated stories features a poster-worthy double page spread.
The DC Finest edition also includes several Demon stories by other artists and writers, mostly guest appearances in The Brave and the Bold, Batman Family and Wonder Woman. The most successful of these stories are the team-ups with Batman in The Brave and The Bold. The Demon and Batman make a good combination. The least successful is the multipart team-up with Wonder Woman. The two characters just don't mesh well.
But I think that the best of the non-Kirby stories represented here are from Detective Comics # 482-485. Written by Len Wein and illustrated variously by Michael Golden & Dick Giordano and Steve Ditko, they do the best job or capturing the spirit of Kirby's Demon stories.
And it is a special treat seeing Steve Ditko's take on a Kirby creation.
Sorry for that, but I just love me that Jack Kirby dialogue. It may not be subtle, but it gets the point across. He's no slouch in the art department, either.
The Demon was a creation of Jack Kirby's from his 1970s run at DC Comics. The comic books starring the The Demon, aka Etrigan, aka Jason Blood, were edited, written and drawn Kirby. While at Marvel Kirby's work was constrained by editor and co-writer Stan Lee. DC gave us Kirby Unleashed. Some may find Kirby untethered to be a little too much--that his fertile imagination and gifted penciling needed some reining in. Not me.
I love his work at DC during this period exactly because it's so unrestrained. You can just feel the excitement and energy bursting off of each page. A great comic book creator at the peak of his creativity.
As suggested in the dialogue quoted above, Etrigan was the alter ego of demonologist Jason Blood. Created by Merlin at the fall of Camelot, Etrigan and Blood have lived down through the centuries. Jason turns into the Demon by speaking the words of the mystic spell, "Gone! Gone! The form of man--rise the Demon, Etrigan."
Jason and the Demon are not exactly on the best of terms--Jason would prefer to just be Jason all of the time and Etrigan would prefer to be Etrigan all of the time. But that's how it goes when two beings share one existence.
The stories themselves involve horrors straight out of the Universal Pictures playbook--variations on the Phantom of the Opera and Frankenstein, among others. The most intriguing of Etrigan's adversaries are Klarion the witch-boy and Morgaine Le Fay. Klarion engages in all sorts of mischief, aided by his cat familiar, Teekl. Le Fay holds a grudge against Etrigan and dresses far more provocatively in modern times than she likely did during King Arthur's days.
The artwork in the Demon stories is prime Kirby, and almost every one of the Kirby written/illustrated stories features a poster-worthy double page spread.
The DC Finest edition also includes several Demon stories by other artists and writers, mostly guest appearances in The Brave and the Bold, Batman Family and Wonder Woman. The most successful of these stories are the team-ups with Batman in The Brave and The Bold. The Demon and Batman make a good combination. The least successful is the multipart team-up with Wonder Woman. The two characters just don't mesh well.
But I think that the best of the non-Kirby stories represented here are from Detective Comics # 482-485. Written by Len Wein and illustrated variously by Michael Golden & Dick Giordano and Steve Ditko, they do the best job or capturing the spirit of Kirby's Demon stories.
And it is a special treat seeing Steve Ditko's take on a Kirby creation.
June 4, 2026
The Kirby issues are fantastic of course, all hail the King.
The other stories are a little more hit and miss. The Wein/Ditko story is by far the highlight of the non-Kirby material
The other stories are a little more hit and miss. The Wein/Ditko story is by far the highlight of the non-Kirby material
March 8, 2026
I've already read the original 16-issue series in another volume, so I'll only review the extra material here. This basically collects all Pre-Crisis appearances of Etrigan (except, inexplicably, for his appearance in DC Comics Presents #66, which is better than all the other non-Kirby stories here, so I can't fathom why it's missing). Here, Etrigan has a few teamups with Batman, Man-Bat, and Wonder Woman. Honestly, they're all pretty bad.
The first Batman teamup (in Brave and the Bold #109) is okay, nothing special. I expected more from Batman's first meeting with Etrigan. You know, something moody and gothic. But I'm not sure Bob Haney is capable of such a thing.
The second Batman teamup (in Brave and the Bold #137) is atrocious. It's a weird, orientalist Fu Manchu type story, and I can't really anything nice about it.
Then we have a Man-Bat teamup (in Batman Family #17). It's pretty forgettable, and mostly mired in pre-Crisis Man-Bat continuity during a period when they tried to recast him as a superhero. Ech.
Most shocking is the quartet of Detective Comics stories (#482-485). The first chapter is actually quite nice, with beautiful Michael Golden art. I thought I had found a hidden gem, and wondered why it wasn't better known. Then I got to the second chapter, only to find out Michael Golden is replaced for the remaining three chapters by...Steve Ditko?? No disrespect to Ditko, but this was the biggest downgrade in art I've ever seen in a single comic arc. With Golden being so ahead of the times, and Ditko being so behind them, the two stories genuinely felt like 20 years had passed between them. It totally deflated any atmosphere that had been built up, to frankly comedic effect.
And then there's the Wonder Woman stories (#280-282), which as you would expect from pre-Crisis Wonder Woman, are terrible and not worth mentioning.
Overall, a pretty pointless collection that adds a bunch of dead weight to Kirby's original run, which itself was imperfect to begin with, though enjoyable. The fact that they didn't end the collection with the pretty-decent DC Comics Presents #66, featuring fantastic Joe Kubert art, is quite bizarre. It would've been a good note to end on. Oh well.
The first Batman teamup (in Brave and the Bold #109) is okay, nothing special. I expected more from Batman's first meeting with Etrigan. You know, something moody and gothic. But I'm not sure Bob Haney is capable of such a thing.
The second Batman teamup (in Brave and the Bold #137) is atrocious. It's a weird, orientalist Fu Manchu type story, and I can't really anything nice about it.
Then we have a Man-Bat teamup (in Batman Family #17). It's pretty forgettable, and mostly mired in pre-Crisis Man-Bat continuity during a period when they tried to recast him as a superhero. Ech.
Most shocking is the quartet of Detective Comics stories (#482-485). The first chapter is actually quite nice, with beautiful Michael Golden art. I thought I had found a hidden gem, and wondered why it wasn't better known. Then I got to the second chapter, only to find out Michael Golden is replaced for the remaining three chapters by...Steve Ditko?? No disrespect to Ditko, but this was the biggest downgrade in art I've ever seen in a single comic arc. With Golden being so ahead of the times, and Ditko being so behind them, the two stories genuinely felt like 20 years had passed between them. It totally deflated any atmosphere that had been built up, to frankly comedic effect.
And then there's the Wonder Woman stories (#280-282), which as you would expect from pre-Crisis Wonder Woman, are terrible and not worth mentioning.
Overall, a pretty pointless collection that adds a bunch of dead weight to Kirby's original run, which itself was imperfect to begin with, though enjoyable. The fact that they didn't end the collection with the pretty-decent DC Comics Presents #66, featuring fantastic Joe Kubert art, is quite bizarre. It would've been a good note to end on. Oh well.
February 25, 2026
El plato fuerte, sin ninguna duda, de la recopilación son los 16 números de Kirby para la serie de The Demon. En ellos el autor está en un momento de plenitud artística, con algunas dobles páginas que se encuentran entre lo mejor de su trabajo, pero de cierto agotamiento de la fórmula como guionista. A pesar de que se nos vende que Etrigan es un personaje de lo oculto, de lo fantástico, se nos ofrecen unas historias de superhéroes bastante normalitas y hasta un poco viejas ya en el momento en el que se publicaron. Es imposible no compararlo con lo que se estaba cocinando en Marvel y que acabaría dando lugar a la Tumba de Drácula de Wolfman y Colan. A su lado, The Demon se nota antiguo.
Para completar tenemos otras apariciones del personaje en Brave & The Bold, Detective Comics, The Batman Family y hasta Wonder Woman. Ninguno de estos es muy destacable, aunque merece la pena ver a Ditko encargarse de una creación de Kirby y también aparece un primerizo Michael Golden.
En conjunto, un buen tomo que muestra el final de la estancia de Kirby en DC tras la cancelación de su cuarto mundo, buscando cumplir con un personaje que, quizá, no se ajustaba del todo a sus mejores cualidades. Aún así, el dibujo le muestra desatado y se lee con facilidad pese a que cae en en una construcción de tramas que ya estaba claramente sobrepasada.
Para completar tenemos otras apariciones del personaje en Brave & The Bold, Detective Comics, The Batman Family y hasta Wonder Woman. Ninguno de estos es muy destacable, aunque merece la pena ver a Ditko encargarse de una creación de Kirby y también aparece un primerizo Michael Golden.
En conjunto, un buen tomo que muestra el final de la estancia de Kirby en DC tras la cancelación de su cuarto mundo, buscando cumplir con un personaje que, quizá, no se ajustaba del todo a sus mejores cualidades. Aún así, el dibujo le muestra desatado y se lee con facilidad pese a que cae en en una construcción de tramas que ya estaba claramente sobrepasada.
March 27, 2026
Includes the cheesy but fun original Demon run by Jack Kirby and his other appearances in this time period. Jason Blood is a character with potential and some of it is realized but his constant rhyming isn’t a thing yet which I missed in this. 1972-1981. 8/10
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews