By Jonathan Edwards

The first issue of this book left me of two minds. Primarily, I quite enjoyed it. Even the story beats did get somewhat by-the-book, they're at least used to build an interesting world and characters. Alternatively, the story has a fairly strong overtone of social commentary, but it's not entirely evident what that commentary is. With all of the hatred of demons shown by the human characters, you'd think the main issue would be racism. However, the use of the Islamic term "Shaitan" for the demons, describing them as being made up of energy (which one could argue is the real-world equivalent of "smokeless fire"), and someone literally criticizing Muslims on the first page, makes Islamophobia just as likely, if not more, to be the intended target. Of course, it could just as easily be both and then some, rather than one or the other. But, it could also be neither, as the Shaitan are portrayed as not particularly trustworthy and/or benevolent beings. I only bring this up at the beginning of the review because it was still rolling around the back of my mind when I started reading this issue.