ACW #639 – Demon

Action Comics Weekly #639 (Demon)
“Witches”
Writer – Alan Grant
Pencils – Mark Pacella
Inks – Bill Wray
Letters – John Costanza
Colors – Tatjana Wood
Editor – Dan Raspler

Happy Halloween, everybody!  How fortunate for us that Halloween just happened to fall on Demon Day here at Action Comics Daily… it’s not quite the return of #boohauntedblog, but we might get something Spooky (Wookey) out of it nonetheless!


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We open with Glenda still peering into the Philosopher’s Stone.  What she sees inside is… the Witch in the Wookey Hole.  Wookey Hole, it turns out is an actual place in England… whodathunkit?  Anyhoo, Randu suggests she just ignore the lure of the Witch… and is, quite frankly, the only one talking sense in this whole feature.  Naturally, Glenda insists they head to da Hole.  They rent a car, and the car rental guy doesn’t seem to have the foggiest idea where or what a Wookey Hole is.  Oh well.  The Gremlin/Goblin/Demon/Bad Guy who has been holding Merlin captive is watching the whole thing unfold… and seems pretty cool with it.

We meet up with Jason Blood, as his ride drops him off at Tintagel Castle.  Being the cultureless doof that I am, I never know when things are references to the real world or not.  Looks like Tintagel is now a sort of tourist trap.  Jason walks through, and sees the statue of Morgan LeFay… only, he knows it’s not just a statue… but the real deal, just turned to stone.  He mentions that Glenda locked her away, and Etrigan bit off her hand.  Meanwhile, G-n-R arrive at the Hole.

Glenda and Randu continue into the Hole and through the caves within, until they come across the stone figure she saw in her vision… it’s calling to her, and Glenda ain’t offering much in the way of resistance.

At that very moment (I think), there are some worshipers dancing around Morgan LeFay’s stone figure… and chanting.  Suddenly, she’s brought back to life!

Mogan’s back… in the flesh, only… ya know, still missing a hand.  This, as you might imagine, peeves her quite a bit… and so, she takes it out on her followers.  We wrap up with the revelation that Etrigan has watched this whole event unfold.

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The funnest part of this entire bit is the way that it’s facilitated my typing “Wookey Hole” over and over again.  Other than that… I probably could do without this one.


I think I’ve made this same complaint/observation about this one before, but… if this is following up or building upon a past story, why aren’t there any editorial footnotes?  What harm would they do?  You claim these stories happened before, and yet… no actual points of reference are provided!  Not that I’d read any of them… nor would this story inspire me to, but still… they could have only helped.


We get some weird time progression here.  We go from Jason Blood touring Tintagel during daytime, to a summoning circle at night.  I mean, night obviously follows day… but it could’ve been clearer.


Overall… ehh.


Tomorrow: The Gal in the Icebox