Well I mean Disruptor simply tells Al in King Spawn #14 that Gaia agrees to hand over the body but a) its Jason Wynn who will tell Al what he wants to hear and he specifically states to Al that Al needs to bring Wanda's soul first which is locked behind a Dead Zone which is the main goal of the Court to get those opened and b) its was established in issue #9 that Azrael has the rights to Wanda's body since he brought Wanda to the Greenworld so how Disruptor gets around that or its BS on Disruptor's part that he was able to negotiate we'll have to wait and see.

The shadow man is certainly Clown at this point, but who this new King is will be interesting to see. I hope its not Malebolgia, but wouldn't be surprised if it is. I would say towards the latter half of Satan Saga Wars, Al was playing everyone but before that during the short-lived Jenkins run that was certainly not the case and for sure after that it wasn't the case after Satan Saga Wars with the apartment stuff with Savage Dragon/Ant crossover that didn't go anywhere, the war on drugs and the intro to Soul Crusher that didn't go anywhere and mostly just pushed Al to protect Cyan elsewhere, and the Dark Horror arc where Al basically had his plan on protecting Cyan blow up in his face and now Cyan is who knows where with her power as Misery if that will ever be revisited now 4 years after the fact. That 283 - 300/301 stint definitely felt like a sustained and concentrated effort by Al to control everyone and where he wants them to be to the point that he admits to Marc and Jessica in that he was supposed to die in the symbiote explosion though in a small way he didn't foresee them having the ability to shut down his powers with the skull mask they put on him. Touch and go is more or less what it is especially now.