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First Look: Dan Watters teases devilish return to form in Lucifer #7
You can bend Satan, but you can never break him. It's a rule that will be proven in Issue #7 of the current Lucifer comic series over at Vertigo by writer Dan Watters and artists Max Fiumara and Sebastian Fiumara. With the latest installment of the Sandman Universe arriving later this week, we've got your exclusive first look at the interiors.
"Lucifer is finally feeling like his old self again," Watters exclusively tells SYFY Wire about Issue #7. "I’ve spent six issues being a horrible bastard to Lucifer, and with issue seven I’m letting him free to be a horrible bastard to others. This is an uplifting book, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Under threat of horrible bastardry."
Since this is part of Neil Gaiman's Sandman mythos, Watters cryptically promises that we'll be seeing a few familiar faces, along with some new ones in the near future.
"I’m a huge Sandman fan, but just presenting a bunch of characters that we remember from Neil’s book and saying, 'Hey remember them?' makes the world feel small," says Watters. "Which is a very long way of saying we’re bringing in a bunch of new characters that I’m very excited for everyone to meet, too ... [This] means navigating a number of different underworlds and their pantheons, some of which Sandman readers may have seen before, some of which they definitely haven’t."
In terms of the book's plot, God is PO'd big time after our titular hero commits a heinous act of sacrilege. With the forces of Heaven no longer protecting him, he's off to the lands of the dead with a major stop at Hell along the way. Even so, much has changed since last he visited his former kingdom... kind of.
"Well, to turn that on its head slightly, Hell doesn’t change. That’s what makes it Hell. If it allowed for change, it would allow for growth and that would allow for a far too real hope to flourish in its stinking pits, which absolutely would not do as far as the proprietors are concerned," adds Watters. "Perhaps then the fact that Lucifer’s experiencing the place differently means that its attitude towards him has changed. Which is not likely to be something that he’s going to be very happy about. But then, he doesn’t tend to be happy about very much in general."
Mix in a motel room cherub and an evil witch queen, and you've got the gist of Issue #7. As Watters says: "I’m really looking forward to people getting their teeth into this story — it’s the Devil very much unleashed, and he’s got something to prove. And he’s going to prove it very loudly, probably while making sure a lot of blood and guts end up on the outsides of peoples’ bodies."
When it comes to the Fiumara's art, Watters isn't worried about having them draw the weird stuff in his comic scripts.
"I know that I can throw pretty much anything at them at this point (a fact I’ve learned by throwing pretty much everything at them), and they’ll deliver in spades and indeed digger-truck loads," the writer continues. "They have a real sense of scale, meaning that the huge moments are massive, and we all clicked over swapping painterly influences at the start of the book. Also their character designs are second to none, which is great as I think I’ve thrown dozens of brand new ones at the poor guys this arc."
Lucifer #7 hits stands (both physical and digital) this Thursday, Apr. 18. Before then, check out six exclusive interior pages in the media gallery below. Dave McCaig serves as a colorist, while Steve Wands handles lettering.
