Troubled twenty-something Travis was orphaned as a kid and bounced around foster homes. But when his foster brother claims to have found Travis’ biological father, he’s stabbed to death. Travis’ father was Satanic cult leader David Daly who sired numerous kids before his early death when the Feds raided his Manson Family-esque base in 1989. Today, David has somehow returned and decided to reunite with his children – a bloody union intended to bring the Devil to the mortal world!
Sons of the Devil is a pretty damned good horror comic! Writer Brian Buccellato jumps between 1989 and the present day with ease, the two parts complementing each other well as this twisted story unfolds. Travis isn’t the easiest guy to like but his story is compelling, as is Wade Pope’s from 1989, a cop who’s trying to get his daughter out of the cult.
Comparisons to Helter Skelter and Rosemary’s Baby are unavoidable though I’d also say the story has shades of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Survivor, about a surviving member of a death cult being hunted by his twin brother, the only other survivor. The influences hardly mark out Sons of the Devil as original but Buccellato makes the material enough of his own for it not to matter, even with hokey references like Travis as “The Chosen One” and demonic kids’ different coloured eyes.
Toni Infante’s art is a little too scratchy for my taste but it’s not bad and Lee Loughridge’s colours are as awesome and luminescent as they are in Deadly Class. The one part I really didn’t like was Travis and his girlfriend Melissa’s storyline – the two are bickering most of the time and Melissa’s passive-aggressiveness was so irritating. The two shouldn’t be a couple, they’re just bad to each other! The melodrama that plays out between them is very trying to endure.
The first volume of Sons of the Devil is far from horrible horror! It’s not breaking new ground but it’s a compelling horror story about how sometimes not knowing who your real dad is might be preferable to the truth – y’know, in case your dad’s the Devil himself!
Sons of the Devil, Volume 1
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