The Big Picture: The Devil You Know - Part II

[Robot-Jesus]

I was hoping for a more in depth explication of the comic book devil analogs.

And no Pacino? If one factors in the drop in violent crime, infant mortality, and even divorce since the 90's the movie if oddly prophetic; he WAS peaking here.

 

[twaddle]

surprisingly, one of my favorite depictions of the Satan was as Sam from Supernatural. It seemed a lot more plausible because he seemed more a complex being with moral, albeit a huge God complex( no pun intended). His mere existence and why he turned seemed to be more in the shades of gray rather than black and white.

 

[Falseprophet]

Was always partial to Viggo Mortensen's Satan from The Prophecy:


His exchange with Christopher Walken's Gabriel later in the film is even better.

I also liked the Devil from the short-lived series Brimstone [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA_DHFQ588g&t=7m30s].

 

[Scarim Coral]

That is the first time I had a good look at "Darkness" from Legend and bloody hell, his horns are HUGE! I mean my vision of satan does not have huge horns! As for my favourite portaryal of Satan, I guess that could be from South Park or Doctor Who and runner up would be the film This is the End and Tenacious D song Tribute.

 

[Sylocat]

This was awesome.

Now, do one of these for Loki.

 

[Realitycrash]

Finally some cred for Lucifer (DC Vertigo's Lucifer, that is)!
Yeah, I'm a fan, and even though the series isn't published any longer (which I am fine with) it always brightens my day when he gets at least a mention.

 

[Kargathia]

This is the best devil IMO.
[spoiler = image]

[/spoiler]

So slimy and so much fun also.

Yup, I pretty much came in here to mention this guy. He's kind of how you'd expect the devil to be after hosting hell and damnation in his backyard for an eternity or two.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

Aw man, no Devilman or Prince of Darkness?

 

[hermes]

The reason why pop culture has less of a problem with the devil than with other elements was because it was used a lot more as a personal demon than as THE devil. Some of the examples listed (like Tom & Jerry) does not depict that devil as THE one and only king of darkness, but as the mischievous side of the character, or as the "personal hell" version.

It is similar to the cliche trope of depicting an angelic and a devilish copy of the character sitting on each shoulder when he faces a moral dilemma. That trope became so ingrained in pop culture that, even then, no one associated it with the catholic representation.

Good choice, by the way. I totally forgot about Devil Flanders when thinking about my favorites, but he is up there... Although my personal favorite is still Al Pacino.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Next time you got time on your hands how about do death?

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Damn you Bob! You used that image of Dave Grohl from Tenacious D so many times, yet you didn't even bother to mention him, despite it being one of the most explicit and funny depictions of the character.

Spoiler: I mean how often do you see Satan himself performing a metal musical number?

FUCK YEAH!

 

[Remus]

The Big D actually has appeared in Marvel Comics recently, in a Wolverine storyline in which he died and went to hell.

Comics being what they are, Logan met some family, a few other faces you wouldn't expect (Puck), suffered a lot, then climbed his way out of the flaming pit and got better. Meanwhile his body was possessed by demons and was giving hell to everyone he cared about. Now in another book, him and a few X-Men have gone the other direction and are fighting for heaven against Nightcrawler's deadbeat dad Azazel.

 

[Pseudonym2]

Actually Satan (aka First of the Fallen) and Lucifer were two different entities in the Vertigo universe. There was also and the 2nd and 3rd of the fallen but they didn't have any names. Beelzebub also occasionally shows up.

 

[Skaven252]

Remember Al Pacino's speech in Devil's Advocate?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jARp24AJWLk

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Well that was... anticlimactic. After all the historic build up in the first episode, I kinda thought Bob was going to... you know, GO somewhere with it. Instead this was just a list of devil characters in weird places. Which is... okay, I guess, but it just doesn't seem like much payoff after all that set up.

In retrospect, the first episode kinda feels like a massive disclaimer so that Bob could safely ramble about his favorite devil characters. What I was hoping for was a deeper discussion of the modern history of his depictions or how those depictions have continued to shape modern conceptions of the character.

Oh, and Bob, if you're reading this - I'd love to see you actually do an episode on the bolded text above. Maybe call it "The Devil you Don't Know"? Just an idea. ^^

 

[tangoprime]

Wait... though I think Peter Stormare's is probably the best I can think of, nobody's going to mention "Randall Flagg" from The Stand!?

That Devil had an interesting style going on. Especially the seducer/bargainer thing, and people seeing him as a crow early on. Oh, and Denim. Lots of Denim, and a mullet.

 

[Pseudonym2]

The Big D actually has appeared in Marvel Comics recently, in a Wolverine storyline in which he died and went to hell.

Spoiler

Comics being what they are, Logan met some family, a few other faces you wouldn't expect (Puck), suffered a lot, then climbed his way out of the flaming pit and got better. Meanwhile his body was possessed by demons and was giving hell to everyone he cared about. Now in another book, him and a few X-Men have gone the other direction and are fighting for heaven against Nightcrawler's deadbeat dad Azazel.

Ghost Rider originally fought Satan and various Satanists before it was retconned that he made a deal with Mephisto. (and then retconned a few more times but I stopped paying attention)

Some of the 70's Ghost rider stuff holds up pretty well.

 

[Blueruler182]

The Big D actually has appeared in Marvel Comics recently, in a Wolverine storyline in which he died and went to hell.

Comics being what they are, Logan met some family, a few other faces you wouldn't expect (Puck), suffered a lot, then climbed his way out of the flaming pit and got better. Meanwhile his body was possessed by demons and was giving hell to everyone he cared about. Now in another book, him and a few X-Men have gone the other direction and are fighting for heaven against Nightcrawler's deadbeat dad Azazel.

Ghost Rider originally fought Satan and various Satanists before it was retconned that he made a deal with Mephisto. (and then retconned a few more times but I stopped paying attention)

Some of the 70's Ghost rider stuff holds up pretty well.

To correct both of you... Recently in Journey into Mystery (A year or so ago) the devil in the above picture showed up in a meeting of the many marvel Satan's (Mephisto and such) and they explained the nature of the devils in the Marvel Universe. It's essentially a bunch of hells trying to gain enough power to take Satan's empty throne. The reason nobody does is because, unless they're powerful enough, if anyone takes Satan's seat they'd be torn apart by the other Satans pretty much immediately. But if someone is strong enough to hold that seat they'd have the allegiances of all hells, and enough power to take the earth.

The Satan above was described as "One of THOSE demons. The "I'm Satan, really I am!" types." They even named him, but I don't have the book handy.

 

[Gyron]

My favourite was Shin Megami Tensei's Satan/Lucifer where they were split and came from their Judaic origins. Lucifer embodied Chaos while YHVH (One of God's names) embodied Order and Satan was YHVH's prison warden essentially. Still ran Hell but at God's behest, not as punishment.

 

[Parasondox]

As cartoons go, didn't PowerPuff Girls have "Him" who was the depictions of the devil?

That "thing" would creep the heck out of me back then which I think did it's job well as the most memorable "devil" depiction in a cartoon. I also remember Cow & Chicken too MovieBob, when Cartoon Network was great.