Lucifer Vol. 7 - Exodus

Lucifer Vol. 7 - Exodus
By Mike Carey, Peter Gross, & Ryan Kelly

By now, it’s clear to me that Mike Carey’s critically-acclaimed Lucifer series is something of an uneven experience. When it’s a good, it’s quite good indeed and surely worthy of praise. And when it’s not, it’s a well-intentioned mess.

Exodus, at least, falls into the former category. It’s a fairly focused work with a clear tale to tell – two, actually – and a clear arc that doesn’t leave you scratching your head.

So that’s good.

Though Exodus is made up of two separate stories, they’re connected in theme. God, you see, has left heaven. We don’t know where he went. He’s God. I guess he can go wherever the hell he wants. But anyway, he’s gone, and that’s Bad, because it means that his creation (as in the whole damn universe and everything connected to it) will slowly start to fall apart and die. Lucifer doesn’t want this to happen. Why? He has his reasons.

In the first story, ancient immortal creatures steal God’s power and try to take the throne of heaven. They can’t handle all that power, of course, giving Lucifer an opportunity to join ranks with the angles and stop them. For reasons that are his own.

It’s a decent little tale, especially fun for the uneasy tension between the always arrogant Lucifer and the even more arrogant angels.

In the second story, Lucifer decides that all immortal beings need to get the heck out of the realm he created (which won’t be affected when God’s realm dies, natch). He gathers up the folks who went on that magic boat ride from Mansions of the Silence, and instructs them to start kicking folks out. This arc is presented as a series of quirky fairy tales, seemingly unrelated at first but eventually merging into a larger story. There are some really swell high points here, especially the Puppet Show Of Gruesome Evil (my title). Essential to the overall narrative? Maybe not. But very enjoyable nonetheless.

This series continues to baffle the hell out of me. It has moments of pure excellence, then stretches of directionless blah, and then comes back to brilliant.

Yet I keep reading.

An earlier version of this review was originally posted at IMWAN.com.

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