Friday, September 16, 2016

Review: Lucifer Vol. 1: Cold Heaven (Issues 1-6) by Holly Black


Lucifer, Vol. 1
Series: Lucifer 2015 
Genre: Supernatural Comics
Age Group: Adult
Published: July 2016
Source: Won via Goodreads
Paperback - 144
Add it // Buy it 

Rating: 3/5

As this new series begins, God is dead—and Gabriel has accused Lucifer of His murder. Lucifer had motive and opportunity, but claims he can prove his innocence. If Gabriel finds the killer and takes the culprit into custody, Lucifer's sins will be forgotten, and he'll be welcomed back to the Silver City. So, despite the fact that Lucifer just opened a new nightclub on Earth and is hiding a mysterious wound, the two brothers set off to solve their Father's murder. Their investigation will span Heaven, Hell, Earth, and beyond in this antagonistic buddy-cop noir with an angelic flare.

When I won this volume from Goodreads, I was intrigued. Lucifer and Gabriel are pulled into investigating the death of God. Sounds interesting right? I got some of what I was expecting with an angel and devil working side by side to solve this mystery.

Unfortunately, several factors lessened my enjoyment of this series thus far. The first is I simply didn't know enough going in. This graphic novel series apparently is in the middle of something much larger. There was at least one previous Lucifer series and the story originates from Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Cue confusion. While I could follow the story, I knew things were going over my head and I was only getting a surface level understanding. The main storyline was interesting and engaging but I wish I had grasped more of it.

I'll be honest. I didn't do a lot of research when this arrived on my doorstep, but that was my error and I could mostly put that aside. The art style is grisly and dark. The level of dark and grim reminded me a little of the Locke and Key Series by Joe Hill, which I really liked, although the styles are very different.

But the story wanders a lot. The are several detours through the series that led up to a seriously anti-climactic reveal. (that was the most disappointing part) Overall these installments were missing tension and I wasn’t very attached to the two main characters. Instead I felt like there were all side stories up until the last issue or two.

I'm not sure I'll continue on with this series. If you know more about this universe, I expect you will enjoy it a lot more.

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