The Necromancer is a six-issue comic book limited series published by Image Comics under their Top Cow imprint from September 2005 to July 2006. The comic was written by science fiction author and comic writer Joshua Ortega, with art on the first series by Francis Manapul. It has been described by some as a "dark version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Abigail van Alstine lives a perfect life. She is a cheerleader and the most popular girl in school until she experiments with magic spells and accidentally kills her friends and family. Only her new mentor Locke can now help her.
Abigail is thrust into the world of magic and soon ensnared in a larger conflict between the Church of Mali, an ancient demon, the Dark Agents, and the mysterious Hierarchy.
The Necromancer provides examples of:
- Dead Person Conversation: Abby can reanimate corpses and talk to them.
- Demonic Possession: It's eventually revealed that Mali hid himself inside of Abby after killing her family and friends with the intent to eventually make her his plaything. However, he gets expelled from Abby's body when she touches a magical blade designed to separate demons from their hosts and is fought off by the combined strengths of Abby and Sara Pezzini.
- Driven to Suicide: The demon Berzelius lives off of suicides and misery and convinces Curtis Elliott, one of Abby's new friends on her first day at her new school, to hang himself in the classroom by preying on his insecurities.
- In Medias Res: The story begins with Abby being forced to relive her traumatic memories by the demon Berzelius in his dimension, which then serves as the Framing Device until it catches up to the present in the final issue.
- Language of Magic: Locke casts spells in a language he calls "the mage's tongue".
- Mind Rape: The demon Berzelius subjects both Abby and her friend Janice to horrifying visions and traumatic memories in an attempt to convince them to commit suicide.
- Necromancer: Abigail can reanimate corpses to some degree and talk to them.
- Power Incontinence: When Abby's innate ability to access magic first manifests, she is not able to properly wield the incredible amounts of magical energy that she has. With no formal training, she summons a demon, sets her house ablaze, destroys a police car, a bullet that's about to strike her, and incinerates two police officers.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: After arriving in Los Angeles, Abby changes into her current, darker outfit and switches her dyed blonde hair to its natural red with highlights to indicate that she's changed, remarking that the Cheerleader Abby had died in the fire.
- Unexpectedly Real Magic: The entire plot of the story is kicked off by Abby bringing a spellbook called the Necrenegrum to her bible study. Abby's natural magical abilities manifest as she reads the book and she inadvertently summons a demon named Mali, who proceeds to kill her parents and friends and sets the house ablaze.
