Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Today's post is not only a Black and White masterpiece, but a Famous First, as well! Check it out! Marvel's last ongoing b&w horror mag was the short lived Haunt of Horror (not to be confused with the pulp-style mag with the same title) which ran five issues during 1974. The first issue had no regular features, but with the second issue (May 1974), Marvel moved Satana over from Vampire Tales and added their Exorcist-inspired new hero, Gabriel the Devil Hunter. Written by Doug Moench and drawn (only in his first appearance, sadly) by Billy Graham, Gabriel is a very different and quite far-out character, once you get past the fact that he sports Nick Fury's eye-patch and Jason Blood's hairdo, that is. His origin hits all the right cool and creepy notes. Dig it!
Fans dug him enough that Gabe appeared in all the rest of the issues in HoH's run, an issue of Monsters Unleashed (#11). After that he pretty much hunted devils in obscurity until he made a guest appearance in the Fantastic Four #'s 222-223 in the summer of 1980. In the early 90s, during Marvel's "Midnight Sons" phase, Gabe was a semi-regular character in their Hellstorm comic.
Crucifix spitting demonic possession? Yep.
ReplyDeleteTwo-fisted, one-eyed, tortured man of the cloth? Absolutely.
Leather-clad female assistant seething with sexual tension? Oh, hell, yeah.
If Doug had sat down specifically to come up with a comic strip to appeal directly to me personally, he couldn't've done a better job.