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Could the fourth time be the charm?

Review by David Allen Jones

This is DC’s fourth attempt to do a Mexican-themed supernatural Western character named El Diablo, and the third in the last 20 years; the first, created by Bob Kanigher and Gray Morrow, was an Indian magic-aided crusader in the old West. He had a decent run in fringe DC titles such as All-Star Western for a number of years, but when interest in Western comics dried up in the early 80’s, the character went into limbo, until he was revived in recent issues of the Graymiotti Jonah Hex with a rejiggered backstory. In 1989, Gerard Jones and the late Mike Parobeck did a non-supernatural modern-day version in the late 80’s; it had a brief 16 issue run. That character popped up once or twice in Justice League-related titles in the following decade, but now seems to be mostly forgotten. There was also a Brian Azzarello/Danijel Zezelj early Aughts miniseries for the Vertigo imprint that had nothing to do with either mainstream DCU character, as is that imprint’s wont; it came and went without leaving much of an impression.

But someone somewhere decided we need yet another El Diablo, so here we go again. This one’s set in contemporary Los Angeles, and we’re introduced to one Chato Santana, a Latino gang leader who’s supposed to be some sort of drug-dealing Robin Hood (we don’t really see a lot of stealing-from-the-rich-and-giving-to-the-poor, though- maybe that will come later) that has the whole city’s traffic under his control, or so we’re told. This Robin Hood gets betrayed by his Little John named Jorge, who leaves him holding the bag when a deal to buy some tech weaponry from DC’s all-purpose bad guy weapons supplier the H.I.V.E. goes sour, and our Chato gets shot, crippled, and arrested for suspected terrorism, among other things. The L.A. cops (led by an Department of Justice agent named Aaron, an amusing retort to the Scalped writer of the same name’s own badguy FBI agent Nitz) put him in a hospital room with an old man who appears to be in a coma (apparently all his other roommates have dies mysteriously- it’s supposed to spook him), trying to get him to turn states’ evidence , and when he refuses announces that he turned it anyway, which makes him a target for the other crime bosses he’s dealt with. True to form, a contract is put out and a gang breaks in to kill him almost immediately, and while he’s being assaulted his consciousness is transported to another place where he’s met by a black-clad rider, who informs him that he is actually the old man in the hospital room, Lazarus Long to be precise- the original El Diablo, every bit of 170 years old. He tells him that he can give him the powers and mantle of El Diablo, enabling him to walk again and making him a supernatural agent of vengeance. Chato agrees, then magically transforms into a powerful, invulnerable fearsome-looking figure with a flaming whip and El Día de los Muertos makeup, who makes short work of his attackers and discovers that his blazing six-guns won’t harm the innocent. Also, to up the ante, it seems that murdered ghosts keep appearing to him, imploring that he avenge them. Long, now awake and ambulatory, deadpans somewhat humorously “That’s all they say, even after you’ve helped ‘em.”. He whistles for his big black demonic horse, the two of them break out of the hospital, and we’re off and running.

I wish I could tell you that this is a fresh, radical, breathtakingly new take on the old character but I can’t really. This revamp is just to reminiscent of too many other comics characters, films and TV shows that we’ve all seen over the years. El Diablo himself, to name just one, borrows liberally from both Ghost Rider and the Spectre in his look and mission. But that doesn’t mean that this is worthless; writer Jai Nitz does mix his ingredients in such a fashion that it’s not dull, and while we don’t really get to know the lead all that well, I for one am at least curious to know what will happen to him next. I suppose that’s mission accomplished. A big plus, and as far as I’m concerned the main reason why this cliché soufflé doesn’t fall flat, is the art of Phil Hester and Ande Parks. They’ve been at this long enough to know how to goose a script along and keep it from being dull, and they have a dynamic, somewhat distinctive style together- all sharp edges and pointy corners and expressionistic, haunted glares...they’re pretty much perfect for this material. Guy Major’s colors help too; they’re dark in tone, but display a range wide enough to keep it from looking monotonous.

You have to hand it to DC sometimes- they display a stubborn sort of persistence, apparently unafraid to keep throwing stuff at the wall, just to see if anything will stick. For over a decade now, they’ve been tossing character revamp after character revamp at us, trying very hard to diversify the roster and hoping that we’ll embrace one of them like we did James Robinson’s Starman or Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, but so far none of them (All-New Atom, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., Manhunter, and Blue Beetle just to name a few) have been anything more than marginally-selling cult favorites. I know they have their reasons for continuing to do so, perhaps with an eye towards future movies or television properties (this would make a nifty movie, I’d think, although the Ghost Rider comparisons would be a problem) and while I deplore the glum tone of most of the rank-and-file line, many of these doomed endeavors often turn out to be very entertaining at worst and often brilliant at best. El Diablo falls somewhere in between, at least based on the evidence of only one issue- I think there’s a lot of potential here, and believe it will only get better. If you’re looking for something new to read, and especially if you’re predisposed to like supernatural adventurers like Ghost Rider and the Spectre (even the less-than-thrilling Crispus Allen version, one revamp I wish they’d declined to proceed with), you could do worse than to check it out.

El Diablo #1 (of 6)
“The Handshake”
Written by: Jai Nitz
Drawn by: Phil Hester (pencils), Ande Parks (inks)
Colored by: Guy Major

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