Time was that 'Am I Evil?' was an obscure song known primarily to fans of NWOBHM, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which launched the careers of bands like Iron Maiden and Def Leppard back at the beginning of the eighties. It was on the stunning debut album from Diamond Head, released on a minor label in 1980 in a run of only a thousand copies without cover, title or track listing, like it was a white label release. Each copy was instead signed by one of the band members. It's one of the greatest metal albums of the era, perhaps of all time, and, while Diamond Head quickly fell apart, a new generation took their style and built on it to create something new.

Most obvious from that new generation were Metallica, whose debut album sounded like Diamond Head on speed. In 1984, they dedicated the B-side of the 'Creeping Death' single to what they called 'Garage Days Revisited', an ongoing series of covers that explored their pivotal influences; the first song covered on that first B-side was 'Am I Evil?' By 1998, when the 'Garage Inc.' compilation put all these covers onto one record and added more, Metallica were the biggest metal band in the world and they'd covered four of the seven songs from Diamond Head's debut. A tradition had grown that whenever any combination of the Big Four of Thrash play on the same stage, they end that night by joining forces on a cover of 'Am I Evil?'

In short, millions of people around the world who have never heard of Brian Tatler and Sean Harris, or probably even of Diamond Head, know the iconic riff to 'Am I Evil?' and sing along with its vibrant lyrics like it's the latest hit single: "My mother was a witch. She was burned alive." Jack Mangan, an Arizona writer, critic and podcaster best known for his work with Metal Asylum and the Metal Hall of Fame, saw the potential for those lyrics to be adapted into a visual story, so he talked with Tatler and Harris, licensed the rights to turn it into a comic, wrote the script and hired artists to bring the result to life. One Kickstarter funded the project and saw release as an e-comic. A second is working to bring the project into print form.

Jack kindly delivered a promo copy of this book into my hands for review and I was eager to see how he had interpreted the story. I've been listening to this song and the album it sprang from for close to forty years now, because Diamond Head are one of my favourite bands of all time, and I share an appreciation for how visual the lyrics are. They outline a revenge story, the witch's son forced to see her burn, presumably as a warning, but her death only spawned a hatred in his heart that grew to a palpable need for vengeance, to kill everyone involved in taking her life.

What that boils down to is that it was never going to be the hardest song to adapt, but Mangan did more with it than I ever expected. Initially, it's predictable, starting with the burning but adding an array of details. It's happening on Bones Isle, on the shore of the Lake of Silence, across a stretch of icy water from Goode Village, so that Goode can vanquish evil. The time is four hundred years ago, during the coldest winter in living memory. The narration follows the lyrics exactly, while characters add dialogue as background texture. It's all done well, with striking art by Kyle Burles, but it's what any fan of the song visualised the first time they heard it.

Well, mostly. Beyond clever little touches like one panel shaped like an omega, the last letter in the Greek alphabet that symbolises endings, Mangan sneaks in a string of clever references, not just to 'Am I Evil?' but to other songs on that album, 'Lightning to the Nations', 'It's Electric' and 'Helpless' in the first four pages alone. A couple more and it's hinting at later Diamond Head tracks, like 'The Coffin Train', my favourite song from the past five years. The lyrics to 'Am I Evil?' shift into dialogue, without ever seeming manipulative. Of course the title is there too, a question by Vandr, the son of Lilith the witch, who plans revenge and wonders if he's evil because of it. Of course, fans of the song know the answer to that question already.

As the book runs on and Mangan's story develops far beyond what's detailed in the song's lyrics, he expands his references further, acknowledging the part that Metallica played in bringing Diamond Head's song to so many millions by slipping in nods to their songs too. It's fair to say that, the more you know about Diamond Head and Metallica, the more you'll get out of this comic book. There are characters called Tatler, Cliff and the Prince, each of which has specific meaning for fans. Tatler is a clear nod to Brian Tatler, Diamond Head's guitarist, up there with Tony Iommi as the best writer of riffs in metal history. Cliff is an homage to Cliff Burton, late bass player with Metallica. The Prince, who becomes a pivotal character here, is another Diamond Head song. No prizes for guessing what he calls the enchanted sword that comes into play late in the story.

Once I realised what Mangan was doing and how far he was going with it, I was especially happy to see him reference 'No Remorse', because, a couple of years ago, that closed a satisfying loop. It's a Metallica song, taken from their debut album, so written in quintessential Diamond Head style but before they acknowledged that debt with covers. In 2021, Diamond Head, newly reformed and at a new peak in their career with 'The Coffin Train' album, covered 'No Remorse', sounding exquisitely  like Diamond Head covering Metallica covering Diamond Head. It's the musical circle of life and it much the same thing as Mangan does here, tying all these elements together into a single story, a coherent story with a beginning and an end and a whole lot of magic and blood in between.

Will it have the same draw to comic book fans who have somehow never encountered the song at its heart? Surely not, because they won't recognise any of these references, but Mangan extrapolated the story well enough that it ought to stand on its own two feet. To these readers, this will play out as a fantasy story about witchcraft, in which they might wonder why so many of these characters of a prior century kind of look like European heavy metal musicians.

So, whether you're a fan of the song or not, I heartily recommend this comic book. It's already out in e-comic form and, if you want a print copy, there's an ongoing Kickstarter to back in order to get that into place. Do your bit for indie creators, especially here in Arizona, and support it. You won't regret it. ~~ Hal C F Astell