There are two fairly obvious reasons for me to review Demo, quite apart from the comic itself.

One is that it's written by Brian Wood, who wrote Generation X for the last year or so of its life.  The other is that Wood was the writer initially approached by Marvel to write NYX.  Wood's version of NYX never saw the light of day but was fairly far advanced by the time it publicly imploded amid much acrimony.  This is the reason why the solicitations for Demo felt able to describe Wood as the original NYX writer, although it might be argued that that's stretching the point somewhat.

Regardless, it's been suggested that Demo at least draws on some of the ideas that Wood would have used in NYX given the chance.  It's not the same comic with different names, but it gives some indication of what Brian Wood's NYX might have been like. 

Brian Wood isn't a writer usually associated with superheroes.  As he points out in this issue's editorial, the conventional superhero genre isn't of much interest to him, but some of the underlying ideas are.  What we have here is a story about a girl with powers, but without any of the other genre trappings.  (As with the published version of NYX, of course.)

Marie is a teenage girl who's been kept on drugs for years to prevent her telekinetic powers from emerging.  She runs away to New York with her boyfriend Mike.  The first issue is basically setting up their relationship as they make their way into the city, while Mike does his best to tend to her during her withdrawal symptoms. 

So far as the relationship goes, it works pretty well.  On the other hand, the book does get a little heavyhanded about "city good, suburbs bad"; not to mention that Marie's mother is a one-dimensional character.  Then again, this is a story from the perspective of Marie and Mike, so possibly future issues will redress the balance somewhat.

Becky Cloonan provides the art, having previously collaborated with Wood on a Channel Zero project.  Judging from the preview art in this issue and on her website, she seems to be shifting styles for each story.  To be honest, I much prefer the preview art for issue #2 (which is much less scratchy and makes extensive use of zipatone) to the art on the first issue's story, which is somewhat patchy.  No doubt there's some reason why covering the kitchen scene in diagonal lines seemed like a good idea at the time, for example, but it doesn't work - it ends up making the wall look like a tarpaulin, for one thing.  On the other hand, the big climax where Marie's powers finally emerge in a telekinetic explosion looks fantastic, with lines disappearing off the panel and turning into abstract design.

Personally, I found the suburbs/city side of things, and the portrayal of Marie's mother, a bit too heavy handed for my tastes.  There is some excellent art in the book, though, and the second issue does look much more to my taste.

Rating: B

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