“Demon Child” was Alex Nino’s chance to really do a good Mythos monster piece. It appeared in The House of Mystery #253 (July-August 1977), one of DC’s “Dollar Comics”. The script was by Doug Moench. The influence of H. P. Lovecraft‘s “The Dunwich Horror” (Weird Tales, April 1929) is obvious but so is a little of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967). Film versions of both of those stories were out by 1977, so Moench may never have read them. “Demon Child” must have been the best of the eight comic stories because it received a Neal Adams cover.
Melissa Stribling comes to the Dunlop’s to babysit. The Dunlops tell her to leave the baby sleep. An ordinary enough scenario. Only Mel’s got a secret agenda.
She’s brought her copy of The Necronomicon with her. (How she acquired it and is able to read it we will not address. It appears to be the Time-Life version.) Using the eldritch volume, she casts a spell using the innocent baby as a sacrificial victim. The spell does not seem to work. Later she hears an adult voice coming from the baby’s room. Her first thought is kidnappers but she soon sees this is no ordinary baby.
The babe is possessed by some terrible, demonic force. Melissa goes into damage control and reverses the spell. The baby is back to normal and the demon is released in the room. Mel manages to send it back to hell.
The parents rush home, sensing something is amiss. They aren’t happy. Not because the baby was possessed, but because she has murdered their offspring. They turn into demons themselves and devour her while a perfectly normal human baby watches.
Ultimately, the story could have been done without the Necronomicon. (Once again the author feels the need to add a subtitle and lessen the reference. Harry Harrison did the same in “The Black Arts” twenty-five years earlier.) None of Lovecraft’s entities are mentioned, though “Gorath” might be Moench’s own Mythos entity. It’s got the “ath”. Like most House of Mystery stories, this six-pager has a simple ironic twist. We can’t really feel bad for a teenager (I assume she is a teenager– she mentions living at home) who was willing to use a couple’s baby as a sacrifice for her own spells. She ends up as demon chow for her troubles.
For me this comic is really about Alex Nino. His iconic style is perfect for the weird demonic creature. It is too bad he never got to do any real Lovecraft comics. (If you know of any, let me know!)
