Damn Them All #9: Form and Function

Entities of the supernatural are often portrayed in literature as unknowable, distorted beings. By depicting them as such, an author can sell how cold and alien they are, and how that relates to their thematic or narrative relevance. They are typically bound by rules or a motif of some kind, but that consistency in characterization unnerves even more. In a book like Damn Them All, which is concerned with a range of demonic entities, developing different modes of entity is a vital part of the book. 

Damn Them All #9 – written by Simon Spurrier with art by Charlie Adlard, colors from Sofie Dodgson and assists by Daniel Silva De Carvalho, and lettering from Jim Campbell – drags readers deeper into the mind of the demons, as Glas narrates the events following El and Cillian’s night of passion. The issue’s plot splits between the demon’s perspective and Dora’s search for information after her encounter with the angels. 

The issue takes time to continue diving into where El and Cillian’s paths diverged and reveals the next big threat for the book. Beleth is a demonic network that creates a community through willing possession, unwinding itself over and over to bond with a legion of hosts. Cillian is using this bond to try and change the world, justifying possessions as part of the necessary evil in a world full of systems. 

Spurrier’s script for the issue thrives thanks to the shift to Glas’s perspective, which works double time to establish a cascading sense of exposition and create a compelling character profile. The demon loses some of its mystery, trading it for confused understanding as Glas starts to form a tie with El. In keeping a balance, Glas also reveals information about the demonic view of magic and natural phenomena through expressions of math. For the demons, these occurrences are less a warped view of reality and more a variation in the arithmetic of life. 

The scripting makes a meal of the exposition in these beats, creating a lyrical rhythm to the explanations, which serves to draw in the reader’s interest. Spurrier’s diction and narration could make the phone book read as compelling, and even the intricacies of mathematics become spellbinding. In the other plotline featuring Dora and Pruflas, the owl-knight demon, the conversation between the two is the primary driver of tension, as an immovable object clashes against an unstoppable force. Spurrier uses this interaction to create a verbal tit-for-tat to draw the reader in and then reveal more about the former cop’s shift in personality. 

Adlard’s art matches the stylistic choices Spurrier indulges in, with heavy use of the nine-panel grid to create a compelling conversation page. The layout structure in the Dora/Pruflas sequence creates a tense, steady rhythm as the two try to outplay the other. Even when the demon gets thrown off balance, the use of the grids keeps the emotion and plot in check. An overtly formal visual representation matches the discussion of mathematics and sociology. 

Alongside those very constrained visuals, the book also moves into more interpretive images with its depictions of Beleth’s form. The visage echoes some of the earlier demon appearances, with looser, waiver lines that read as fuzzy or out of phase. When showing the connection of the various possessed figures, the visual representation comes off as a series of golden threads woven together, resembling Chris Samnee’s interpretation of Daredevil’s radar sense. It’s an excellent way to differentiate between the other demons seen thus far, as the powers and composition of Beleth stand apart from the other demons. 

The book’s coloring moves in lock-step with the illustration of the difference in depictions, widening the gap between demons. The golden lights and strings of threading make for a sharp contrast to the washed-out or faded backgrounds on the page. That dichotomy reflects the split between the illusion of perfection that Cillian ascribes to Beleth, while the standard palette reflects the grimy world of London. In some places, the golden threads overwhelm the page, pushing the reader away from focusing on anything else, while other instances feature a healthy mixture of the golden and typical background hues. That switch creates a dynamic colorscape that bends around these powerful creatures, and how they influence the humans around them.