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[Punchy]

A strong issue which takes a break from epic warfare, and flashes back in an attempt to explain the relationship between Madame Xanadu and Jason Blood/The Demon. Which one does she truly love? The man or the monster? We are treated to a lengthy flashback from Xanadu’s POV which would seem to indicate that it’s Jason she loves and that she only sleeps with the Demon to pacify him. But then at the end the waters are muddied by the Demon’s own recollections, which tell us the opposite, that Xanadu really does want to shag a demon. I don’t think it really matters which is true in the end, it gives a nice sense of mystery to the Xanadu character, we don’t know what to expect from her. I was also interested in the concept introduced in this issue of there being many different Camelots, is this a meta-textual quantum theory thing? Or is it just that Merlin has founded many Camelots as his appearance at the end in Alba Sarum would seem to suggest? Speaking of Merlin, his killer looked like a Daemonite to me. We’ve seen references to the Demon Knights in Stormwatch already, so this development is interesting, showing just how long have the Daemonites been present on Earth. The art in this issue was very good too, Diogenes Neves does his usual excellent job in the framing sequences, and Bernard Chang delivers some great stuff in the flashbacks, he’s an underrated artist I think, he needs a big title to help him break out.