The Demon #1 finally hauls Etrigan out of event-cameo purgatory and into a full-blooded horror relaunch, positioning Jack Kirby’s hellspawn as a flagship monster in DC’s Next Level line rather than a quirky backup player. The new series, written and drawn by James Harren with colors by Dave Stewart and letters by Clayton Cowles, arrives October 7, 2026 and is being billed as a fresh, ongoing vision of Jason Blood and his rhyming alter ego after more than three decades without a Demon ongoing on DC’s schedule.
For longtime readers, the mere fact that “The Demon” is back in single-issue rotation is a big deal. Jack Kirby introduced Jason Blood and Etrigan in the early 1970s, binding a sophisticated immortal sorcerer to a snarling demon from Hell at the whim of Morgaine Le Fey and giving DC one of its earliest mash-ups of superheroics, sword-and-sorcery, and occult horror. Over the years the pair headlined several short-lived solo titles, including a 1990s run that leaned into Hell’s internal politics, but Etrigan mostly lived on the fringes of the universe, popping up in events, Justice League Dark stories, and crossover arcs instead of carrying a marquee book of his own.
The new #1 lands at a moment when DC is consciously mining its back catalog and classic concepts, extending supernatural books like Deadman and Fury of Firestorm beyond their initial miniseries plans and using the Next Level initiative to put a modern horror sheen on legacy characters. The Demon was formally unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 as one of several Next Level titles aimed at giving familiar names like Jonah Hex and other supernatural staples a sharper, creator-driven identity, with Harren’s book specifically pitched as the line’s purest plunge into monster horror.
DC’s solicitation makes clear this is not another “Jason hosts a Hell-of-the-week” series so much as a full reframe of the character: the world is quietly overrun by invisible beasts that feed on humanity’s souls, hollowing people out while leaving no obvious mark, and only Jason Blood can see them and cast them back to Hell. Instead of the usual suave occult fixer, Harren’s Jason is a broken wanderer with a “shattered mind and a split soul,” trailing the mute visage of a dead wizard and hounded by Etrigan’s voice inside his skull as the demon demands to be let out. ComicBook.com’s review highlights how Harren uses Jason’s lost memories as a narrative reset button, letting the series explain the basics of the Blood/Etrigan bond, Morgaine Le Fey’s role, and the rules of DC’s magical ecosystem without getting bogged down in decades of continuity.
Visually and tonally, The Demon #1 leans hard into the kind of dense, grotesque monster work Harren honed on creator-owned books like Ultramega and Rumble, making the title feel more like a prestige horror comic than a traditional capes-and-tights relaunch. Preview pages show twisted Hell-beasts clinging to unsuspecting civilians, Jason shambling through grimy cityscapes like a demon-hunting hobo, and Etrigan framed less as a wisecracking antihero and more as the dangerous nuclear option lurking inside Jason’s psyche. According to early coverage, Harren even plays with one of Etrigan’s defining quirks—his rhyming dialogue—dialing it back in key scenes to underline just how off-balance and unpredictable this incarnation of the demon really is, a choice that dovetails with the book’s emphasis on psychological horror.
The creative team and DC’s marketing copy both position The Demon as a gateway book: accessible enough for readers who only know Etrigan from cameos, but weird and intense enough to satisfy fans of indie horror comics who might not usually pick up a DC title. The ComicBook.com review backs that up with a 4-out-of-5 score, praising Harren’s ability to catch new readers up on why Jason Blood and Etrigan matter while still delivering a genuinely new angle that reimagines Jason as a desperate, possibly unreliable protagonist rather than a confident mage. Framed alongside other Next Level launches and the broader push to spotlight DC’s magical side—complementing books like Zatanna and Deadman rather than duplicating them—The Demon #1 feels less like a nostalgic curiosity and more like a statement piece: if this horror-forward take on Kirby’s most underrated creation sticks the landing, Etrigan might finally claw his way out of C-list limbo and into the core of DC’s supernatural lineup.
