"I know it all now. I am the last druid, possessed of all their terrible power. The failures are ended. The humiliations are over. I will never be beaten again. Before, I was nothing. Not now — oh, no — I am the last druid. And this world will shake to my touch."
— Dr. Anthony Ludgate, Druid #1
Druid is a 1995 comic book limited series from Marvel Comics. It's written by Warren Ellis with art by Leonardo Manco and color art by D'Israeli.
Set in the shared Marvel Universe, it's the first solo series for one of Marvel's oldest mystical characters, Doctor Druid. Originally introduced as a standalone story in 1961's Amazing Adventures series as "Doctor Droom", the character was later renamed to Doctor Druid and introduced to Marvel's shared world setting.
Since that introduction Druid's been both an Avenger and Defender, but generally portrayed as a tarnished hero with feet of clay. He used his powers to manipulate the other Avengers and was, in turn, manipulated by one of their enemies. And his time in the Secret Defenders ended with Druid fighting against his own teammates after he was possessed and transformed by a demonic foe. The last issue of the Secret Defenders series revealed that he'd actually faked his death, unknown to his comrades, which is where Druid picks up the story.
Many years earlier, when he was the scholar Anthony Ludgate, Druid had been obsessed with Celtic history and druidic magic. That quest took him to the Himalayas and the Ancient One, the world's Sorcerer Supreme, who empowered him and answered some of his questions, but at a price that weakened Ludgate's sanity. Reinventing himself as "Doctor Anthony Druid", he travelled to America and started fighting occult threats in a gaudy costume.
But all of that is over now. He's living in a ramshackle New York house with a collection of would-be acolytes, drop-outs and misfits. There isn't much of his old power left.
When one of his entourage reads the wrong book of magic, inadvertently calling up a lord of hell, Ludgate takes drastic steps to regain the power he needs to oppose it. He's not "Doctor Druid" now, instead he's becoming a true druid - the last true druid - and the magic he wields is both powerful and terrifying.
Ludgate's taken a path that's not going to lead anywhere good. Even if he could turn back now, he may not be willing to. And the consequences for those around him may not be pleasant.
Druid (1995) contains examples of the following tropes:
- Afterlife Welcome: Baby Icon is always accompanied by ghosts that nobody else (except Ludgate) can see. When she's shot dead by a Smoke General, two of those ghostly companions - Andy and Jim - welcome her to the afterlife. It's the only scene in the comic where they're also visible to the reader.
- Back from the Dead: The villainous Nekra, who was killed by the Grim Reaper in West Coast Avengers, is now alive again and leading a cult of Kali. Subverted after the reveal that she's acting on behalf of Daimon Hellstrom, a lord of Hell, and is still actually dead.
- Bad Future: The Dry Academy's leaders, the Smoke Generals, are said to be severed heads sent back from a future where humanity was largely Driven to Suicide by their perception of the true world. Ludgate hears all this from someone he considers an Unreliable Narrator, though.
- Big Bad: Daimon Hellstrom, aka "Satan", is responsible for almost everything that happens. He kills Skurve, prompting Ludgate's transformation. Then he sends Nekra to ensure that Ludgate doesn't do too much damage with his new powers. Even Ludgate's feud with the Dry Academy only begins because Nekra sends him after their splinter group, the Second Assembly, claiming that they've stolen corpses from her cult...
- Bilingual Bonus: Redeyes is fascinated by Voodoo and claims that she's the loa Erzulie-Ge-Rouge - whose name translates as "Red-Eyed Erzulie".
- Driven to Suicide:
- In issue #3, when Ludgate confronts the Second Assembly, his opening speech warns the cult members to make peace with their faith and then kill themselves - because if Ludgate has to kill them, it will be very unpleasant. Much to his surprise, one of them actually obeys and stabs himself to death.
- It's claimed that the Smoke Generals are Time Travelers from a Bad Future where most of humanity committed suicide after perceiving the "true" nature of the world.
- Druid: Ludgate, who'd previously used "Doctor Druid" as his superhero identity, embraces his heritage and finally becomes the last true druid. In doing so, he gains power over the elements - water and earth, wood and fire - as well as a Geas that will doom him if it's ever broken.
- Eat Brain for Memories: The Second Assembly is a cannibal priesthood that believes knowledge can be transferred from the corpses they eat. Nekra, who explains this to Ludgate, doesn't specify whether they believe this knowledge is specifically held in the brain, though.
- Fallen Hero: This series completes Ludgate's downfall into villainy, as his new powers shatter his sanity. He's still defending the world, in his way, but he's a Sociopathic Hero at best - a casually murderous religious fanatic who's becoming a cult leader.
- Flawed Prototype: Ludgate may be an Unreliable Narrator, but when he looks back on his visit to the Ancient One, he believes that he was empowered solely to test the magics that would later be granted to another westerner, Doctor Strange. Unfortunately, the powers that were unlocked also permanently damaged his sanity.
- Geas: As a true druid, Ludgate is now bound by some sort of geis. If he breaks it, he'll lose his power and doom will follow. Unfortunately, he's the last druid, and he doesn't know what his geis is - his own powers can't see it, and druids would normally rely on their fellows to tell them. Ludgate's geis is to love witches. Hellstrom, who seems to be well aware of this, sends Nekra to seduce him and bring about his downfall.
- Genetic Memory: At the start of his career, Ludgate sought out the Ancient One to learn the true history of druidic magic. He discovered that it had always been hidden within him - as their descendent, their power and knowledge was passed down to him by blood.
- Given Name Reveal: As the first issue reveals, Druid's real last name has always been Ludgate - "Doctor Druid" was an identity he adopted to fit in with America's superhumans.
- A God I Am Not: Ludgate is a druid, the sacred interpreter of the word of the gods. He's insistent that he's not a god himself. And he reacts very badly when anyone suggests his powers are godlike, as Hemingway discovers.
- He's Back!:
- In the first issue, Doctor Druid's at his lowest point - until Ludgate rejects that identity and pledges himself to the triple goddess to become the last true druid. The ordeals the goddess puts him through are traumatic, and his sanity seems to be damaged, but at the end of the issue he's back - more powerful and determined than he's ever been.
- By the final issue, Ludgate's been tricked into breaking his geis, and his powers are gone again, leaving him broken and desperate. After offering Hemingway as a Human Sacrifice, he's restored and seemingly more powerful than ever before. It doesn't save him.
- The Hero Dies: Granted, Druid was a Fallen Hero, but the series ends with Hellstorm and Nekra killing him, torching the body, and chucking it into a dumspter.
- Hero Killer: Helstrom and Nekra are the ones who murder Druid.
- Historical Domain Character: Two of Baby Icon's companion ghosts, Andy and Jim, are finally visible to readers in the last issue. In line with previous hints, they're clearly drawn as Andy Warhol and Jim Morrison. A third, unseen, ghost is implied to be Oscar Wilde.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Redeyes identifies herself with the loa Erzulie-Ge-Rouge, lamenting that no man can ever love her enough. She's not actually a sorcerer or voodoo priestess, though. She's a serial killer, murdering the men who prove that they do love her. Seventeen of them so far.
- Human Sacrifice: The triple goddess welcomes the sacrifice of criminals and undesirables. Ludgate's ancestral memories show him the guilty burning inside wicker men, back when the druids were a true power in the land. In modern times, he offers Hemingway as a sacrifice to regain his power - and plans to burn Serial Killer Redeyes alive at some point in the future, as another offering.Ludgate: Take this sacrifice! See me nail this soul's guts to the great oak tree! Forgive me!
- I'm a Humanitarian:
- The third movement of Ludgate's initial transformation ends with the goddesses forcing him to eat the rotten meat of the human offerings made to them. Whether or not it's real, it feels real to him.
- The Second Assembly is a cannibal cult obsessed with human meat. One aspect of this is that they believe that the knowledge of those they eat will become theirs. Given that their other magics are very real, they might be right.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
- One of the Second Assembly blocks Ludgate's approach, standing directly in front of a wooden door. Ludgate uses his new powers to warp the door's wood into a spike, skewering the man through his skull.
- After Ludgate breaks his geis and loses his powers, he offers up Hemingway as a Human Sacrifice, driving a sword through his torso and into the tree behind him.
- I See Dead People: Baby Icon claims she can see ghosts. She's telling the truth - and after Druid revives his powers in the first issue, he can see them too.
- Literal Split Personality: Miss Drugstore uses a mix of drugs and magic to fracture her personality and give each splinter its own body.
- Losing Your Head: The Smoke Generals, leaders of the Dry Academy, are said to be severed heads floating in nanotech clouds.
- Love-Interest Traitor:
- Nekra seduces Ludgate, but she's actually one of Hellstrom's agents, tasked with neutralising his powers. Unlike Ludgate himself, she seems to know that he has a geis against loving witches. Nekra's a witch, so that makes it fairly easy to doom him...
- Hemingway's in a dysfunctional relationship with Redeyes, a believer in Hollywood Voodoo who Self Harms and complains that he doesn't love her enough. What he doesn't know is that she's also a Serial Killer, and once he does prove his love, she's going to murder him. She's already killed seventeen other men that way.
- Making a Splash: Ludgate's druidic powers allow him to manipulate water in some ways, including the water within a human body. He magically reaches out to one opponent to give the water in his body "a good, hard twist", which messily kills him.
- Playing with Fire: Ludgate's new magics allow him to ignite the phosphorus deposits within the human body, essentially causing Spontaneous Human Combustion. His victims are reduced to burning skeletons.
- Plot-Triggering Death: At the start of the first issue, Scurve, one of Druid's crew of followers and hangers-on, calls up Daimon Hellstrom by borrowing one of Druid's books of magic. When Doctor Druid tries to intervene and protect him, Hellstrom delivers a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle and then incinerates Scurve. Everything that follows is prompted by Scurve's death and Druid's realisation that he needs to rebuild his power.
- Portent of Doom: In issue #2, Ludgate sees the Washer Woman at the Ford, the Irish spirit better known as the Banshee, washing blood out of his clothes. He's well aware that she's a portent of unavoidable death. He's slightly consoled by the realisation that this means that nature has accepted him as one of the great powers - lesser beings don't get that sort of warning.
- Seers: Ropemaster Azuma divines the future via the Japanese rope bondage style known as Kinbaku. His methods involve magic and blood dripping on ropes, with the implication that it's non-consensual and probably fatal.
- Self-Harm: Druid's follower Redeyes cuts her arms with a knife, claiming that it's part of her Voodoo. There's no sign that it's linked to any actual magical powers, though.Redeyes: It's sacred. It drips onto my white dress. Becomes pink. And those are my colors. I am Erzulie-Ge-Rouge, and I week because no man can love me enough.
- Serial Killer: Redeyes seems to be a dabbler in Hollywood Voodoo with no real magical powers, a woman who identifies herself with the loa Erzulie-Ge-Rouge and laments that men don't love her enough. She's also a serial killer who's murdered seventeen men who eventually convinced her that they did love her. Hemingway would have been the eighteenth, if he lived that long.
- Sociopathic Hero: As Doctor Druid, Ludgate was always a little bit selfish and manipulative. After his transformation he's something else entirely - his sanity frays, his newfound faith makes him a fanatic with a hair-trigger temper, and he's casually murderous. That said, he's still defending the world from occult horrors - even if he picks battles he hopes to benefit from - and he does try to send Baby Icon away, viewing her as a genuinely nice person who doesn't deserve to be entangled with his schemes.
- Weight Loss Horror: The second movement of Ludgate's initial druidic transformation sets him aflame, as if he was trapped within a wicker man. When the flames subside the previously paunchy Dr. Ludgate is gaunt and lean, fallen to his knees in the centre of a puddle of melted human fat. As with the other phases of the ritual, it's just as traumatic as it sounds.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The three other magicians teased throughout the series - Miss Drugstore, Ropemaster Azuma and the nameless London mage carrying out rituals on mass graves - aren't part of the grand finale and never interact with Ludgate or his adversaries. Miss Drugstore's last scene states that she sees death coming, and is prepared to die, foreshadowing the global effect of Ludgate's disastrous attack on the Dry Academy, but we never see whether or not she survives.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Ludgate's sanity was already damaged, and his new powers (and the ordeal he goes through to claim them) are enough to break it completely.
