Lucifer Vol. 8 - The Wolf Beneath the Tree

Lucifer Vol. 8 - The Wolf Beneath the Tree
By Mike Carey, Peter Gross, & Ryan Kelly

God is gone, gone, gone, so Fenris, the wolf of Norse mythology, decides now is a good time to end the world. Such is the core story of the eighth volume of Mike Carey's epic Sandman spinoff, Lucifer. This volume also features two one-shot stories.

'is all right, though it felt kind of like a retread of the last arc. Monsters from mythology see an opening in God's absence and try to take advantage of it. Lucifer, for reasons that are his own, forms an uneasy alliance with the angels (in this case his brother archangel, Michael), and races to stop them. Big Event happens at the end, one I'm sure will impact the last three volumes of this book. The end.

There is also a weird and off-putting subplot about a schizo who bludgeons his wife and young son to death with a hammer. It's part of the main story, but it feels forced, it doesn't quite fit, and it's kind of ugly.

However, the opening story, a standalone called "Lilith," is pretty damn good. It's a double-sized for the book's 50th issue and serves as an origin of sorts for both Lilth and Lucifer. Fantastic stuff.

The other standalone story is moody and interesting, but pointless. It's about ... ahhh, who cares what it's about? When you're this deep into a series-long saga, tossing in one-shots is risky unless you've got Neil Gaimain-like short story chops. Carey is good -- at times really damn good -- but I feel like this energy would have been better spent getting the core series in order.

At this point I'm looking forward to finishing this series, not because I'm eating it up, but because I'd like to see how things resolve and get it behind me.

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

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