Welcome back, I am continuing on with the discussions about the first few issues of the IDW Published title “Eternal Descent” and since I had been out of the regular collecting mode for a few years l was not as up on this as I would have liked to be. The premise of the comic is that of an “Urban Gothic Fantasy” and it’s the brainchild of musician/writer Llexi Leon. Leon is the founder of a label called Incendiary Records and he has created the virtual band Eternal Descent to tell his stories. Over time he realized that music would not be able to deliver the stories in the same fashion as the comics and here we are. It’s an epic fantasy and mystery that pits good against evil and does so with some of the Metal world’s biggest stars as guest characters along the way. I got my hands on the first three issues of the title and offer up some overview on each of them along with some cover art. This is the summary of the second issue. Enjoy.

Issue #2: Picking up immediately where we left off in issue #1, we find out that Lyra is also something special and appears to be “demon-like” but scared and confused about this being the case. She escapes and now Sirian must track her down and get her the help she requires. We also learn that she is the missing singer of a very popular Metal band and that she was supposed to be headlining over a God Forbid show. Their cancellation makes the GF guys headline and soon the demons take over and start up their usual monkey business by turning the audience members into zombies or monsters or whatever they were supposed to be. Guitarist Doc Coyle gets possessed until he is rescued by Sirian and then together the pair dispatches the demons with a vengeance. Through it all Sirian tells Doc that he is dreaming. The concert portion of the story also makes use of the God Forbid lyrics from the tune “Into The Wasteland”.

Thoughts: The second issue closes out with an interview with God Forbid’s Doc Coyle and I felt that this was a cool addition based on the overall premise of the series and how it incorporated the musicians into the storyline. When I first learned of this idea I felt that they were only going to resemble the talented Metal players out there but instead the band is actually being represented and integrated into the storyline. They even made mention of the Heavy Metal website Blabbermouth. It was okay as a read and the whole music making the audience controlled by evil forces reminded me of the finale of “KISS meets the Phantom of the Park” when the crowd was sparked to riot. At worst let’s hope the audience is growing for the comic and that it’s adding of these Metal bands is helping to spark more interest in them and help sell their recordings and tour merchandise.

I’ll be back before you know it with a summary about the third issue and while I noticed that a few more are available in the series, I’ve only got the third issue to go. I saw a graphic of #4 and Wayne Static is on the cover. As closed with before, I will repeat myself and say how I would love to see this succeed as it’s got some difference from the conventional hero in tights with super powers framework but it really needs to have a little more depth and answer more of the questions now that three issues are out of the way.

Official Websites:
IDW Publishing: http://www.idwpublishing.com
Eternal Descent: https://www.facebook.com/EternalDescent/
Eternal Descent Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Descent