Up until now, the ensemble-cast action of Demon Knights hasn’t zeroed in on any one character too closely. This is usually a fantasy-movie trick to disguise how one-dimensional characters are; imagine how much less fun Hawk the Slayer would have been if we stopped to examine, say, the wisecracking dwarf or the stoic elf. But by pausing the story on Shining Knight, Paul Cornell shows us that he can give depth as well as breadth to his cast of characters, and that makes me want to stick around a lot longer. Merlin is back in this issue, and apparently he’s a T.H. White, Once and Future King type of Merlin who lives outside of time and space. He’s the one who made Shining Knight immortal with the Holy Grail, and now he’s sending her on a quest to get it back. Mike Choi’s art in the vision scene is spot-on. We really get inside not only Shining Knight’s head, but Merlin’s, in a lot of tight closeups with great character acting. (I chuckled a bit that he chose to draw two Grails, one plain and one ornate, just like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)