Demon Knights #3 Annotations

Issue #4 comes out tomorrow, so let's get this out there.

Previously...

The Questing Queen and her Horde have been trying to get past the town of Little Spring, but her outriders (and their "dragons") have been defeated by the Demon Knights (and the dragons eaten by Vandal Savage). As the queen continues more attacks on the village, Madame Xanadu makes a sacrifice to erect a magical barrier around Little Spring.

Page 1, Panel 1

Xanadu began her sacrifice last issue by slicing open her palms. Now we see the blood turn into magical energy.

Page 2

Here, we see the Questing Queen's pterosaur-mounted cavalry (who began attacking Little Spring last issue) engulfed in flames as Mordru's fireballs (which also started to launch last issue) are propelled back at them by Xanadu's shield.

Page 3, Panel 1

Al Jabr is with Father Theod. When last we saw them, they had been about to use Theod's pigeon to send a message to Alba Sarum, the capital city, when Theod's church was destroyed by one of Mordru's fireballs.

Page 4, Panel 1

"Louse" is the actually singular form of "lice", although it also means a contempible person.

Page 6, Panel 1

This is the first time we've seen thought captions in this series. All the the captions we've seen in previous issues have been off-panel speakers.

Panel 2

Note the style of the word balloon here. Is Horsewoman communicating telepathically with her horse Breaker?

Page 9, Panel 3

Recall from last issue that Vandal Savage was once a general in the Horde, thus explaining the Questing Queen's recognition of him.

Panel 4

We saw Xanadu's Camelot origins in the first issue. Recall that she jumped from a boat after Excalibur.

"Xanadu" is the name of a now-ruined Chinese city. However, it wasn't built until the 13th century.

Page 11, Panel 1

We met the blonde girl carying logs with Ex and Ystin briefly last issue, when she commented that Ex dressed like a tart. We'll see that she plays a pretty important role this issue.

Page 12, Panel 1

Al Jabr is will Alaric, the headman of Little Spring, and Osric, a leader of the trade guilds, both of whom we met last issue.

Page 13, Panel 1

The town's church appeared to be destroyed last issue. Perhaps there were two, or some of it was left intact?

Father Theod appears to be praying with a rosary. Tradition is that rosaries were introduced by St. Dominic, who wouldn't be alive until the 12th and 13th centuries. However, prayer beads of some form had been used by Christians since at least the 3rd century.

Page 14, Panel 1

Note that the passage of time is being represented by the coloring. The last scene clearly took place in the day, but now it is dusk. This has given Savage a few hours at least to try and train an army, as well as Ystin, Ex, and friend to build the portion of the wall we see in the background. Time is important in this issue, because Xanadu's barrier will eventually fail.

Panel 2

Recall that Vandal Savage is an immortal caveman. Different Google results say that he is either a Neanderthal or a Cro-Magnon. Since Cro-Magnons were the first modern humans, I'd say his comment here about his father not being entirely human seems to indicate that he is a Neanderthal.

Page 15, Panel 1

Recall that Ystin often speaks in Welsh.

Panel 2

Horsewoman is referring to Ystin's horse Vanguard, who was exposed to a fireball back on page 4. This gives more evidence that Horsewoman can speak telepathically to horses.

Panel 3

You may recall that common internet speculation is that Ex is an Amazon, like Wonder Woman.

Page 18, Panel 1

I find it interesting that Ystin talks about her teammates her almost in the terms of classes from a role-playing game. "Mages" and "engineer". And where is Al Jabr? We haven't seen him since Theod's death scene.

Panel 2

This is no doubt foreshadowing next issue, which will supposedly deal with Ystin and his/her quest.

Page 20

Oops. I'm interested to see what effect this will have on Ex in the future.

"Merlin Watched the Storm"? Interesting...