Daemonifuge II
The Lord of Damnation
The Lord of Damnation is the sequel to The Screaming Cage. It follows the further adventures of Ephrael Stern after her encounter with the terrible Screaming Cage, a hideous construct woven by a powerful demon of Slaanesh out of the lives and souls of hundreds of scholars. She carries with her a strange power to harm the forces of Chaos, but she is only just beginning to explore the extent of her abilities.
Led by mystical visions and the words of heretic sooth-sayers, she ends up breaking with the Ecclesiarchy and winds up hunted as a threat to all of humanity. If they can't control her power, they're determined to make sure that she can't use it at all.
This collection is a softbound book, 96 pages of black and white (grayscale, really) comic-book style art. The layout is a little odd; in some places the action runs from the left page across to the right as though every page were a splashpage. So you'll start reading in the upper left, read across the page and then continue reading across the top of the right-hand page... and then go back to the lower part of the left hand page to start the second row of panels. For the most part the layout is fine, although the occasional panel ends up seeming a little crimped because it half of it is on the left-hand page and half on the right, with the gap from the binding running down the middle.
A bit of a recap: Daemonifuge is set in the universe of Warhammer 40K, a setting that combines advanced technology with a very Gothic society. The Warp is the hyperspace-like parallel universe that the human starships travel through in order to go faster than light. Unfortunately, the Warp is inhabited by incredibly powerful mystical beings collectively known as the Gods of Chaos. These creatures desire nothing more than to corrupt and devour all of humanity. The empire's first line of defense is the awesome psychic power of its immortal Emperor, but he has been in suspended animation for a long, long time, with the empire being run by the descendants of his followers. As long as he lives, his power protects humanity, so the forces of Chaos would love nothing better than to destroy him, but he is guarded by many legions of fanatical followers and has become (over the centuries) worshiped as a god.
The Ecclesiarchy is his church, but it's hardly a monolithic body. Instead, it is broken up into innumerable Orders, such as the Adepta Sororitas of which Ephrael Stern is a member. In The Lord of Damnation, we get to see a lot more of the workings of the empire's government, and it's not very flattering. The various Orders often work at cross purposes, engaging in petty power struggles and infighting, all in the Emperor's name. Heresy (defined as any belief that the Ecclesiarchy dismisses, such as the idea that the Emperor might use his mental powers to communicate with anyone besides a high-ranking member of the church) is punishable by death, and the empire isn't much for evidence and trials. Purges and inquisitions are quite common.
Of course, they're often quite justified, too. Chaos works by subverting the weak, and many followers of Chaos masquerade as dutiful followers of the Emperor, all while working against humanity. Only tireless vigilance and constant paranoia keep the system from being subjugated from within. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of violent oppression and a culture where every Order is eternally suspicious of the motivations of every other.
We don't get too many new characters in this volume... or rather, we get to meet most of them very briefly before something kills them. Ephrael is on the run, and she ends up fleeing the human Empire and finds herself in the clutches of the elf-like Dark Eldar. In the end, we get to meet the mysterious Kyganil of the Bloody Tears, a former Harlequin warrior, now an outcast. He's been searching for Ephrael and she for him, both led by supernatural visions. The book also ends on a cliffhanger of sorts, with the sudden introduction of a new major villain. It's clear that they'll need at least one more volume to finish up this plotline.
The creative team is a bit different this time; while Kev Walker and Jim Campbell collaborated on the script of the first book and Walker did the art, now Walker is working with Gordon Rennie on the script and Karl Richardson and Chris Quilliams are doing all of the art. So the book ends up being similar to the first, and yet different. The art is an almost-but-not-quite-the-same style and while it's obviously continuing the original plotline, the dialogue has a new tone and the pacing is different. All in all, I think I liked Kev Walker's art better than the new art team. While they're good, it's not quite as polished.
Still, art-wise, it remains an impressive book. Some of the dialogue is rather cheesy ("I care not for your wants, daemon! I am Seraphim! I am Sororitas! I am the Daemonifuge!") but overall it's good. Just not as nice as the first volume. I particularly liked the scene where an Ordo Malleus inquisitor utters a death sentence by simply saying, "This vessel is unclean. Purify it." You don't really need to know anything about the Warhammer 40K universe to follow the plotline, although I'm sure it would help. And it tries to be true to the setting, even down to Space Marines using a mix of firearms and medieval weaponry.
The story doesn't quite take up the whole book. We get 6 pages of prelimary sketches, which are kind of interesting, but they were probably put in to fill it out to a standard size. A cute bit is that Kyganil and Ephrael are trying to reach the ancient Black Library of the Eldar... which happens to be what their publishing company is named after.
I give it a 4 for style and a 3 for substance. While the first book left me hooked, this one is merely good, not great. Still, at $10.95, it's not any more expensive than a normal comic book collection of this sort would be, although it is black and white, not color.
You can get more information at their website: http://www.games-workshop.com/blacklibrary/daemonifuge/.
