Demon Knights 2: The Avalon Trap

Comic Info

Demon Knights #10

Reprints Demon Knights #0 and 8-12 (June 2012-November 2012).  Merlin is dead but the Knights intend to bring him back.  With a plan to voyage to the remains of Camelot and enter Avalon to retrieve his spirit, the Knights learn that they are facing an unseen enemy who also has plans for Merlin.  Even with the danger growing, the alliance between the Knights is strained as Etrigan might not be honest in his intentions.

Written by Paul Cornell with art by Diogenes Neves, Bernard Chang, and Robson Rocha, Demon Knights Volume 2:  The Avalon Trap is the second volume in the New 52 series.  Following Demon Knights Volume 1:  Seven Against the Dark, the series continued to suffer slipping sales and struggled to find an audience.  The collection contains the “Assault on Avalon” storyline in addition to the flashback month Demon Knights #0 (November 2012).

I have always liked the Seven Soldiers of Victory and I really enjoyed Grant Morrison’s bizarre take on them in recent years.  Demon Knights represents the Seven Soldiers of Victory in a medieval setting and with a more streamlined story…and as a result, it doesn’t quite work.

Demon Knights #12

Fantasy books are a hard sell and by setting the story in the past, it eliminates many of DC’s staple villains.  Granted, the series does contain many current DC characters including Xanadu who has a duel role in Justice League Dark and Vandal Savage who is a perennial DC villain, but it seems obvious that the cast is going to fight Morgaine Le Fay…since any King Arthur storyline ends that way.

I do like the characters, but they get little chance to grow here.  The most known character Etrigan the Demon seems to dominate this book (I know his name is in the title and the issue outlining his relationship with Xanadu was quite good), but it is the supporting cast which seems more interesting and deserved more exploration.  Unfortunately, in this volume you get little of that.

Demon Knights was probably destine for failure.  I admired that the New 52 took some chances with “new” titles and new teams, but hardly any of them managed to survive in the competitive comic book market.  I don’t know that if Cornell and his team wrote Demon Knights even better if it would have mattered…it doesn’t have Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or the Justice League.  It is a sad state of affairs, but every book seems to need some sort of hook like this to survive.  The Knights were damned…figuratively and literally.  Demon Knights 2:  The Avalon Trap was followed by the final volume Demon Knights 3:  The Gathering Storm.

Related Links:

Demon Knights 1:  Seven Against the Dark