Haunt of Horror - Gabriel Devil Hunter!

[Calenture]

Haunt of Horror 3, September 1974

Cover painting by JAD

The slew of Marvel black-and-white monthlies that appeared on the stands in the mid-'Seventies coincided with Exorcist mania. Marvel's answer was Gabriel - Devil-Hunter. With his eyepatch, firm jaw and no-nonsense way of dealing with sticky situations, Gabe had more than a little in common with Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and there's another subject just begging for a comic post at Tomb of Dracula. I seem to remember that Nick, drawn by Jim Steranko, is a favourite of our Ade, destined for greatness himself in the field. But I digress...

The problem with Haunt of Horror was that once you'd got past the scantily clad females and nauseating nasties on the cover, the comics inside tended to derive most of their inspiration from current cinema images, which themselves had quickly become pretty lacking in originality.

Having so many artists working on this particular story probably didn't help either. Scripted by Doug Moench, the artists were: Billy Graham, Pablo Marcos, Frank Giacoia and Mike Esposito.

In this story Gabe deals with a possessed woman in customary manner, threatening her (or the demon) with a dagger. Exit demon to take revenge on his companion by sliming her...

Not one of my favourite comics, but the cover has been begging for an excuse to post it for months. ;D

To see the art in more detail, click on an image, then click on the image and the "all sizes" buttons above them at Flickr.

[nekken]

If anyones interested re Gabriel devil hunter. Marvel are releasing a second volume of horror in their Essential line of books. Included in this one, are all the Gabriel stories. As mentioned previously, there aren't that many, about five or six, I believe. Long after his series ended, he turned up in Fantastic Four in 1980 and then in the short lived Son of Satan revival, called Hellstorm, in 1993. To my knoweledge, that was his last appearance to date.