Wes’s Guide to Gargoyles: Gargoyles Quest #1

Welcome everyone to Gargoyles Quest. We open our comic with Jade and Turquesa of the Mayan clan. It’s been a minute since our original Gargoyles retrospective, so in case you don’t know, these two were part of a clan of Gargoyles that made their home in a pyramid in the Guatemalan rainforest whom Goliath met during the World Tour in an episode called The Green, an okay episode with a fairly clumsy environmental message. At the end of the episode, Jade and Turquesa took some of the plant life of their rainforest home to the mystical island of Avalon so at least some of it would be forever preserved. Well it seems since then Avalon has been sending them on a world tour of their own. It’s never explicitly stated where they are, but since everyone is speaking Spanish, I’m guessing we’re somewhere in Latin America.

What’s actually important here is that our Mayan Gargoyle friends observe Dominique Destine, Demona’s human alter ego, stepping out of a limousine. (The Mayan clan used magic pendants to keep from turning to stone, which is how they’re able to be out while the sun is out). In any case, Demona is here to meet with a woman named Dona Aguilar, the owner a vast collection of rare artifacts and antiquities that once belonged to her late husband. Demona is specifically here for an item known as the lancehead of Gugnir, the broken off tip of Odin’s spear. Okay, side note: We the audience know that Odin is very real in this Universe and between this and the eye, someone needs to have a conversation with him about leaving his shit all over the place. Dude’s palace must be more of a disorganized mess than my apartment, and that’s saying something. Anywho, Demona is smart enough to realize that there’s no way in hell that Aguilar is going to sell this priceless artifact, so she declares she’s taking it by force. Aguilar orders her body guards to advance, but the sun goes down and Demona takes her true form and presumably slaughters everyone in the room.

We cut back to Manhattan, for the Gathering of The Gargoyles Guild, an obvious reference to The Gathering, a real life Gargoyles convention. The purpose of this event is a meet and greet with Goliath. Goliath isn’t sure about all this, but it makes a certain amount of sense. After the big trial, Goliath is now a public figure actively working with the NYPD, and giving the public a chance to meet him and see he’s not the monster everyone thinks he is could do a lot in improving human/Gargoyle relations. Attending the convention is Antionette Dracon, but only because she lives in the penthouse suite of the same building. Elisa confronts her just to say she doesn’t trust her and will be keeping an eye on her, a smart strategy when dealing with a  Dracon.

Back at the castle, Gnash laments that he’s always left behind on patrol because he’s small, Hudson watches over Brooklyn and Katana’s unhatched egg and said how for the first time in a long time, he has hope for the future of his clan and Broadway and Angela are going over the guest list for their upcoming commitment ceremony. Things seem to be going okay, until Angela brings up Demona. I understand why Angela would want to have Demona there. After all, she is her mother. Then again, she’s also a genocidal psychopath who once tried to unleash a super virus to wipe out the human race, and the last time she was invited to a wedding, she helped Xanatos create a time paradox that turned him into a billionaire and got her ass kicked by her younger self. Naturally, the rest of the clan are a bit hesitant about sending her an invitation.

Speaking of Demona, we see her meeting with our pal Thailog, who greets her by threatening her with a bazooka. They used to date you see. However, Demona isn’t here to fight, and even if she was, Demona is immortal, so that bazooka isn’t going to anything other than give Thailog a slightly strained shoulder, so a resigned Thailog decides to hear her out. Seems that Demona is willing to give Thailog controlling interest in Nightstone Unlimited in exchange for acquiring something for the Illuminati (Thailog apparently joined their ranks during the SLG run). Thailog agrees, but begrudgingly admits that what Demona’s asking will take time.

Back at the convention, Goliath gives a panel on the importance of human Gargoyle relations and accepting one another for their difference, all that great stuff. After the speech, Goliath is approached by the second to last person I expected to see in this comic, the first, of course, being, Mr. Careless Jones. If you’re new to Gargoyles, allow me to introduce you to our friend, Vincent Grigori, or Vinnie for short. Vinnie was the unfortunate victim of several of the Gargoyles antics in the early episodes which ended up costing him two jobs and his beloved motorcycle. Vinnie took his revenge by throwing a pie in Goliath’s face (Yes Really) and later joined Jon Castaway’s knockoff Friends of Humanity before realizing they were a bunch of losers and saving Goliath from them, the two ultimately parting ways on good terms. Vinnie apparently has a new boss who has sent his employee to Goliath with a proposition. However, before Vinnie has an opportunity to elaborate, a violent protestor storms the building guns blazing and tries to shoot Goliath. Fortunately he’s placed under arrest by Elisa before he can do any serious damage, causing the crowd to cheer. And after all that, our comic ends where it began, with Jade and Turquesa arriving in Manhattan.

Well, after all that set up in the last arc, Demona is finally making her big move, and there are a lot of pieces in play and many questions to be answered. Just what are these new keys to power and what is Demona’s big plan for them. What role will Jade and Turquesa play in the events to come and most intriguing to yours truly, who is Vinnie working for and what is his big proposal for Goliath. I guess we’ll find out next issue. Until then.