The Devil on My Shoulder #1 Review

Dark Horse Comics just dropped a heater with The Devil on My Shoulder #1, and fam… this one ain’t for the soft spoken or the light stomached. This issue comes in swinging like it owes somebody money. Kyle Starks and Piotr Kowalski straight-up decided, “Yo, let’s take revenge stories, hit the turbo button, and leave readers sweating like they just ran up a Brooklyn train station staircase with no elevator.” And boy, they delivered.

We follow Tee, a humble, hard working woman pulling the kind of late shift that deserves a medalor at least some decent overtime pay. Instead, she steps into the darkest alleyway energy imaginable. Five dudes corner her, snatch her up, and drag her into a month long nightmare that would make a horror director say, “Hey chill.” It’s raw, disturbing, and messy. Nothing glamorized. Nothing held back. A full on descent into cruelty that makes you shift in your seat wondering how humans can be this trash.

But Tee? Tee is built different. They try to break herphysically, mentally, spiritually. They literally set her on fire and toss her into a river like she’s supposed to just disappear from the narrative. Joke’s on them. Tee survives, escapes the hospital, and ends up in a church like fate said, “Not yet.” And then the story hits that Fast Forward buttonfour years later, her attackers are chilling at a bar like life is sweet. Drinks, laughs, dumb inside jokes. Meanwhile, someone is watching from the shadows. Someone very familiar. Someone who didn’t die when they tried to erase her. Someone ready to flip the script.

The violence in this issue? Heavy. Necessary? Depends who you ask. But what it does do is build a rage so powerful in the reader that by the time Tee steps back into the frame, you’re ready to hand her a cape and say, “Handle your business.” This is revenge in its purest, rawest form no sugar coating, no cinematic filters, just humanity at its ugliest and recovery at its most relentless.

Kowalski’s art is grimy in the best wayshadows that lurk like secrets, eyes empty enough to haunt you, environments drenched in menace. Brad Simpson’s colors give the whole book this sickly, uneasy atmosphere that sticks in your brain long after you close the issue. Joshua Reed’s lettering keeps the emotional punches hitting exactly where they need to land. This is visual storytelling that doesn’t wink or apologizeit just hits.

By the end you’re not just reading Tee’s story… you’re rooting for her like she’s your cousin’s best friend who got wronged and now needs to run that getback tour. You want justice. You want revenge. You want to see what monsters get born from traumaand what monsters get hunted because of it.

If issue #1 is the spark, we’re about to witness the whole inferno. Tee is coming. And karma is clocking in for overtime.

SCORE:
4/5

Written by Kyle Starks
Art by Piotr Kowalski
Colors by Brad Simpson
Letters by Joshua Reed
Publisher: Dark HorseComics

Author Profile

Al Mega

I'm Al Mega the CEO of Comic Crusaders, CEO of the Undercover Capes Podcast Network, CEO of Geekery Magazine & Owner of Splintered Press (coming soon). I'm a fan of comics, cartoons and old school video games. Make sure to check out our podcasts/vidcasts and more!