Doctor Faustus

The Furious Doctor Faustus (Issue 1);

Early 1900’s, a boy is squirreled away in the corners of a dreary orphanage reading a book. Two bigger, rougher looking kids exchanged smirks, and walk over with the intentions of roughing the kid up for what pocket change he could have. The kid looks up from the book, it’s a book on child psychology. The two bullies start to push him around and bad mouth the smart kid, then he starts to psycho analyze them stopping them in their tracks. They exchange bewildered looks… then beat the crap out of the kid for talking about their absent mamma issues. 

The narrator cuts in, he’s Faustus, he explains he had humble beginnings, shows himself pursuing a life of knowledge in progressively more fancy and elevated schools where he earns his Doctorate and finds a pretty woman to hitch up to, his “Angel.”. She’s a lady of enlightenment, was never babtized. (She dies shortly after in some tragic accident - the priest says she’s gone to hell). By now Faustus re-dedicates himself to the search of knowledge his two attendants the grown up bullies. They delve into the dreary shadowy underworlds of the slums and such until he discovers a means of summoning and binding demons in some auspiciously named book. 

He ends up biting off more than he can chew, narrating how he traded 24 years of life, arcane knowledge and a demonic butler for his soul after the 24 years are up. The first time he cuts his arm to sign the dela in blood it heals over, words in Latin spelling out “Run, fool!” over the cut. He sears it open again, forsaking every warning and sign from above to delve into the arcane. Spends his remaining years exploring the world, the far east, the Indies, Asia, the temples of South America, ect. After every trip he returns back to his workshop - he seems to waste his life after the deal in study and research.

The 24 years wind up and Mephistophilis the butler tells him it’s time, quietly escorts Doctor Faustus to hell. Once he sets foot past the gates of hell, Doctor Faustus stops, and smiles. Mephistophilis looks back, confused - he should be cowed, suffering, begging for his life. He never once asked for redemption. It was all part of his plan. He spend his life researching demons and hell, and weapons, and ways to bind such things to his soul so he’d have claws to fight once he ended up in hell - the fruits of his 24 years of science and arcane research pound into the steaming hell dirt around him, great steampunk cannons infused with glowing runes of power and Doctor Faustus checks his watch. He had 9 circles of hell to cut, kill, and blast his way through to find his fallen Angel, and the devil himself wouldn’t stop him. (Queue 4 more comics of Doctor Faustus Kill Billing his way through demons and Satan to get back his woman).

((Just an idea I had this morning while chatting with folks in IRC that sounded kinda neat to me - a retelling of Faust where the real story picks up once he ends up in hell. If it was a movie and I were a rich person I’d hire Keanu Reeves to play the guy, if it were a comic maybe a 5 issue thing))