#marvel essentials

-The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #1

The Essentials series from Marvel are large volumes of black and white reprints for a reasonable price, similar to (and preceding) DC's Showcase Presents titles. This particular series of Essentials seems to be dedicated to Marvel's horror themed series that didn't last long enough to qualify for their own volumes. Satan was big in the Seventies. I mean, really big. Possibly the biggest he's been since the Middle Ages. He was all over the place. Movies, books, musicals, and of course comic books. Specifically, Son of Satan, and Satana, daughter of Satan. Daimon Hellstrom first appeared as a guest in Ghost Rider #1, hauling Johnny Blaze's butt out of the netherworld after old Skull-Face made the mistake of surrendering to Satan. Mind, this wasn't exactly out of the goodness of Daimon's heart. Seems that the Son of Satan had this split personality thing. His human side wanted to be good, so fought the forces of evil. His demonic side wanted to overthrow Satan and take Hell for himself. At first, this was a day/night thing, with Daimon's evil side surfacing at sunset. But to make plots easier, Satan gave his son a birthday present that made both sides present at all times. Since Daimon's supernatural powers mostly came from his demonic heritage, this meant he had to call on his "Darksoul" to do battle, with the danger that it would overwhelm his better judgement. He had a decent run in Marvel Spotlight, mostly set in and around St. Louis, Missouri. When he finally got his own title, the action shifted to Washington, D.C. (Though sadly the series didn't get around to the political satire you'd have expected from the setting.) The last Son of Satan issue in this volume, #8, is a Christmas story of sorts, with a crucifixion scene that the Comics Code Authority ordered altered on the grounds that it was a little too blasphemous. Which brings up a curious thing about this series--For all the demonic names and Daimon's scary appearance, it's really pretty much a standard Marvel superhero setup. There was only so evil he or his opponents were allowed to be. The rest of the volume is devoted to Daimon's sister, Satana. Satan got custody of her when he and Mrs. Hellstrom broke up, and she was much closer to her demonic heritage. She also was appearing in Marvel's black-and-white horror magazines, which had looser censorship. So Satana could be a bit more actively evil, and quite a bit more openly sexual. Not surprisingly, she was a succubus, who drained the life force of men and devoured/crushed their souls. By the end of her main series, though, it turned out that all the grief she'd been put through involving an attempt to overthrow Satan as ruler of Hell was in fact orchestrated by El Diablo himself as a test of her worthiness to be his heir. Unsurprisingly, Satana was kind of upset about this, and converted to the side of antiheroism. Satana also had her own superpowered evil side, the "Basilisk". This was basically her "I win" button, but each time she used it, the Basilisk got stronger, and if used once too often would burst free and bring about the end of the world. The last story in her section is Marvel Team-Up #81, which featured Satana's first death, sacrificing her life to cure Doctor Strange of lycanthropy. Later retcons "revealed" that the Satan of these stories was not, in fact, the Satan, but one of a number of demon lords that used the name in order to impress gullible mortals. Which kind of trivializes much of the siblings' angst, but does explain why "Satan" was so vulnerable to overthrow attempts by other demons/evil sorcerers. Some great art, adequate writing.

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Essential Web of Spider-Man Vol. 1

It’s just a very different vibe for one collection, is all.