(Wonderworld Comics 008, 1939)
As part of Yarko the Great's second encounter with Death, he and the hapless Madame Punai journeyed to a sort of pastiche underworld (e.g., their journey took them through the Biblical Valley of Death but also involved this unnamed boatman ferrying them across the River Styx). And as with any good underworld pastiche there are some allegorical foes to get past before their goal is reached - the Harbingers of Death!
Like I said, these guys are allegorical demon guardians, so there isn't much more to them than the expression of their allegory. First Pain, aka Burning Pain, appears to crush Yarko to his burning body. Good allegory! Pain can overwhelm you - though in a more in-depth work perhaps Yarko would be left with a burn or other lingering reminder of this battle rather than walking away unscathed after hurling pain into the abyss.
Fear appears next, and I really appreciate that he himself is a fearful creature rather than the more common monstrous fear-beasts that inflict fear by being big and spiky. Like Pain, Fear cannot stand up to Yarko's overwhelming machismo and slinks back into the shadows from whence it came.
Finally, Horror is a master of the jump scare and as someone who is particularly vulnerable to that tool of the filmmaker's art I really appreciate seeing him (them?) be flung off a cliff, probably not to their doom due to being a demon but at the very least to their major inconvenience.
And there you have it: three lil' henchmen, three anthropomorphic personifications, three notches in Yarko the Great's belt.
No comments:
Post a Comment