Everywhere

Gargoyles #7 by David Nakayama

"Everywhere" is the seventh issue of the Gargoyles comic by Dynamite Entertainment. It was released on July 5th, 2023. [1]

• Writer/Creator: Greg Weisman
• Pencil Artist: George Kambadais
• Color Artists: Giulia Giacomino & Giovanna La Pietra
• Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry
• Editor: Nate Cosby
• Main Cover Artist: David Nakayama

Solicitation

Demona is back!! Launching a new and exciting storyline, Gargoyles #7 is the perfect jumping-on point for new readers. Goliath is in prison! Dino Dracon is on the rampage! And Demona returns to Manhattan, determined to gather the three new keys to power! Do Brooklyn and the Clan have a prayer of stopping her without Goliath?! Um...probably not.

The Story

A sleek, red corvette speeds through Gramercy Park as its driver, Dominique Destine, muses that while she finds her current situation distasteful, it does have advantages: such as driving right up to her home in broad daylight as she comes to a stop outside her townhouse. She enters the mansion and turns on the television, undressing as Travis Marshall reports about the continuing gang wars between the crime syndicates. As Travis is about to take a statement from Elisa Maza, Dominique turns off the television. She then dons her nighttime clothes as the Sun sets and she transforms into a gargoyle, declaring that she is not Dominique, is never Dominique... but always Demona. Using the last remaining spell from the Grimorum Arcanorum along with blood samples from the Manhattan Clan taken from the Micro-Electric Mosquitos, she chants in Latin for almost four hours before pulling up magical windows wreathed in flame that allow her to observe her "once and future clan".

First, she checks in on Broadway and Lexington as they protect Izaak Slaughter from a small armada of stolen cybots. Lex manages to destroy one and tears it apart, hoping to track the signal it is receiving back to whomever is controlling it by remote.

Demona then turns her attention to Rikers Island where Goliath is approached in his cell by Tobe Crest, who introduces himself as the attorney hired to represent him at his upcoming hearing. Goliath is already aware that this hearing will be held to determine whether he is capable of sentience, deserving of rights, or whether he is nothing more than a beast. He asks if he will be allowed to testify on his own behalf, and Crest warns him that demonstrating the ability to speak will not be enough; that the human race barely tolerates its own diversity and humans fear what they don't understand – something that Goliath is all too aware of.

Demona returns her attention to Harlem as Broadway and Slaughter take out more cybots, all the while Slaughter comments that none of this will help his reputation. As this happens, Lexington traces the remote control of the cybots to Glasses' RECAP visor and attacks their car before Pal Joey can retreat. While Lex succeeds in stealing the visor from them, the two gangsters manage to escape. Glasses is worried about how Dino Dracon will react, but Glasses assures him that Dino planned for this. Slaughter tells the two gargoyles that he owes them, but Broadway doesn't want the criminal owing them anything. Demona finishes watching, wondering if this test was too easy – or maybe the clan no longer needs Goliath.

Meeting Tobe Crest

Back at Rikers, Crest and Goliath both discuss character witnesses. The gargoyle suggests Halcyon Renard and Crest agrees. Goliath next suggests David Xanatos but quickly decides against it, which Crest also agrees is the best idea. Crest then suggests, after seeing her name on the visitor logs, Elisa Maza (mispronouncing her name as Eliza) but Goliath is adamant that she not be called. Not only does the gargoyle not want to tie Elisa's fortunes to his so publicly, but he also corrects Crest on her name, too. Goliath then asks Crest who is paying him, but Crest says he's not at liberty to reveal that information. As she finishes observing, Demona muses who Goliath's savior could be and what will they claim in return.

Demona then observes events transpiring back at the Eyrie Building, where a furious Brooklyn is livid that Broadway and Lexington disobeyed his orders by leaving the castle. Amused at Brooklyn's struggles with leadership, Demona decides she's seen enough.

Now that's she's caught up on what the Manhattan Clan is up to, Demona uses the spell again to look backwards into time to locate the Grimorum Arcanorum, the Eye of Odin, and the Phoenix Gate. She discovers that the book was devoured by the Archmage who was then consumed by its power. Then she learns that the Eye was reclaimed by Odin himself, and that the Gate dissolved unleashing the phoenix into the timestream (which, she notes, explains many mysteries across her long life). Knowing nature abhors a vacuum, Demona's research suggests that there must now be Three New Keys to Power. She then resolves to identify them, locate them, gather them, possess them, and use them to conquer the human world once and for all.

Review

Demona is back – and serves as narrator of this issue.

Demona was one of the most memorable antagonists – one of the most memorable characters, in fact – of Gargoyles, and lives up to her reputation here. While she doesn't directly affect the events in this issue – she only watches them from afar – we get once more a sense of her ruthlessness and scheming. (And also her hatred for Elisa – in perhaps the funniest moment of the issue, the detective's appearance on the news is enough to prompt Demona to switch the television set off before she can even speak.)

Demona spies on the clan through one last spell from the Grimorum Arcanorum – in Gaelic this time, rather than Latin (a good way of reminding us of the gargoyles' Scottish background). Through her eyes, we witness Broadway and Lexington defeating the cybots sent by Glasses after Slaughter in the previous issue, thanks particularly to some quick thinking from Lex (and a good handling of the gargoyles' reluctant rescue of a gang leader), and an indignant Brooklyn confronting them back at the castle; it's clear that Brooklyn is feeling even less able to handle the reins of leadership in Goliath's absence. But the most interesting scene of all is Goliath's meeting with his lawyer, Tobe Crest, in jail. Tobe Crest continues to present himself as an intriguing mystery; he's meeting Goliath for the first time, yet already seemed familiar with the gargoyle and his ways (even his reading tastes) in past issues; how did he acquire this knowledge? Someone is paying him to represent Goliath in court, but we do not know whom as yet – and two of the candidates previously proposed by fans (Renard and Xanatos) seem less likely to be Crest's employer after this scene. I look forward to finding out more about this attorney and his cause in succeeding issues. (We also learn that, despite Glasses' failure to dispose of Slaughter, Dino has a contingency plan; what will it be?)

To top it off, we learn that three new "Keys to Power" have emerged since the passing of the Grimorum Arcanorum, Eye of Odin, and Phoenix Gate, with the indication that they came about to fill the vacuum left when the original three Keys were removed. What these new Keys are, we do not yet know, but as the issue ends, Demona vows to find them and use them in a new attack on the human race.... Let us hope that we find out more about this subject as the series continues (though, with everything else happening in this arc, they might not surface by the end of #12; one more reason to hope that the comic will continue past the end of "Here in Manhattan"....)

Featured Characters

Gargoyles	Humans	Oberon's Children	Others
Demona Goliath Brooklyn Angela Hudson Bronx Egwardo Broadway Lexington	Dominique Destine Travis Marshall Elisa Maza (No Lines) Izaak Slaughter Halcyon Renard (Mentioned Only) Tobe Crest Renqvist Pal Joey Glasses Dino Dracon (Mentioned Only) David Xanatos (Mentioned Only) Archmage (No Lines)	Odin (No Lines)	Micro-Electric Mosquito Cybots Phoenix

Magic	Miscellaneous
Tracking Spell	Dominique's Car

Tidbits

• Greg Weisman has previously hinted at Demona possessing one last page of the Grimorum Arcanorum as early as 2000. [2]
• Goliath corrects Tobe Crest when he calls Elisa Maza "Eliza", this is an in-joke based on many people who have watched the show's continued inability to say her name correctly.
• The issue includes a tribute to the late Michael Reaves on the last page.
• Adding more parallel to the Shakespearean Lady Macbeth Demona almost quotes her with "what is done is done".

Cover Gallery

Links

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