The 70's saw Marvel putting out a lot of books with monsters and monsterous heroes.

The MSHRPG has put up stats for Man Thing, Ghost Rider, WereWolf By Night and Morbius the Living Vampire, but I can't find Son of Satan.

SoS was a pretty cool character. He had a trident made of Netheranium, a metal from Hell, that projected Soul Fire and could call up a chariot, drawn by demonic horses.

The only thing that held his comics back a bit was he almost exclusively fought demons and monsters, with very little super hero/villain crossovers. Even though he worked with the Defenders and the Avengers, SoS is a pretty obscure character.

So I can't find a write up on him. I looked in all the books including updates 89-92 and here, but no profile. Anybody know if one exists?

Ask and ye shall receive:

Hellstrom was never given an official write up in the old TSR products or any of the periodicals (Dragon, Dungeon, Polyhedron) that occasionally published Marvel game stuff, but here's some unofficial attention for the Son of Satan.

[classicmarvelforever.com]

Nice - so just out of curiosity, if you were employed by Marvel to bring this guy into the modern age, what would you do with him?

Eureka. Thanks for the stats.



J Bone, I would bring him back in a four issue mini, fighting with his sister Satana, re-introducing them. Maybe a guest appearance in Dr. Strange.



Then I'd do a movie. In a perfect world without film companies and their legal departments, I could put Hellstrom together with Blade or Ghost Rider or both.The original Ghost Rider teamed with him a number of times and this would be that one last chance to do him correctly.

In any case, I'd do a heroic horror film and keep the character true to the comic. A half man half demon, who struggles for his humanity and fights the demonic creatures that invade the 616 dimension. That has to be the central part, or you don't have Son of Satan. And the Son of Satan would have the trident for sure but I can see giving him a shirt. The origin would be seven minutes long, a woman is knocked up by the Devil, she has two children, separated at birth , one good , one evil. Cut to Our guy as an adult, studying in a university. He is shown digging up the trident in some desert, later it is in a glass case. Later he discovers his powers while something horrible is trying to kill him, that pitchfork shoots tons of hellfire and suddenly a whole lot of stuff makes perfect sense. And he runs with it, instead of being a reluctant hero, he just struggles to avoid becoming what he is fighting against, enter his sister, trying to do horrible things. You know the fight scene in Twilight? Me neither. I'm talking 1974 Texas Chainsaw meets Ben Hur meets the Exorcist.

Eventually Mephisto (or Satanish or whom ever the rights are available for) is revealed as the mastermind of all this ruin and rancor.. Satana has the option of fighting with or against her brother. Big fight in the end, really bad stuff happens. None of these folks can really die forever, so the sequel: Son of Satan and the Six Fingered Hand comes out in September.


Something like that. I sure wouldn't do it the way they screwed up Man-Thing, by not having Man-Thing in the movie.

Nice! I'd see that film!

Good point at the end reminding me about the disaster that was the Man-Thing movie... what the heck!!!!

Apparently they were already to do Man-Thing when the money got cut, the script went out the window and they tried to make a generic horror film. That was a monumental crash and burn.

At least Ted Sallis' wife made it into Iron Man 3 as an AIM killer.

It's funny they never wanted to print the words "The Son of Satan", but Marvel and TSR sure gave his sister Satana her own columns.

Hellstrom was a member of the Defenders for a while. You might look there for a better ideas of his powers.

If Hellstrom could get a return he would work well as a good rebirth for some Midnight Sons stories.
He would also fit nicely as an agent for Dr. Strange, going around and dealing out an exorcism or two.

I liked his story featured in Marvel Team-up where he and Luke Cage broke up a cult trying to bring Satannish into the world. Good Stuff.

Yeah, should've seen a guy that goes by the name "Necromancer" being a Son of Satan fan.

Adrian Wrote:
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> Yeah, should've seen a guy that goes by the name
> "Necromancer" being a Son of Satan fan.
--------------------------------------------------------
I happen to be a fan of a great many things that originated within, around and among the Kirby Universe. Did you have a point you wanted to make? or a question for myself?

Necromancer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Adrian Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yeah, should've seen a guy that goes by the
> name
> > "Necromancer" being a Son of Satan fan.
> --------------------------------------------------
> ------
> I happen to be a fan of a great many things that
> originated within, around and among the Kirby
> Universe. Did you have a point you wanted to
> make? or a question for myself?

You mention the Kirby Universe and it raises a question I have for people who I assume are of a certain age on these boards (late 30s and beyond). How did you guys first react to Kirby art style (maybe Silver Age in general) and has it changed?

The reason I ask is because my own personal experience coming to comics around 1980 was to reject Kirby as a youth. I didn't care for his blocky sorta style from later stuff (Eternals) and weird costumes. I was much more attracted to Byrne's art as an exemplar of form with others like Michael Golden and Art Adams as well. Now however I've been going back and revisiting some older titles and find myself absolutely loving Kirby's style. Post Spidey Dikto is still something I have trouble engagings with.

Thoughts?

I have to admit, I didn't even notice the art at first. I was attracted to Marvel mainly because of the writing that was taking place in their titles. When I first entered into comics I was picking up DC and Marvel titles randomly, but over my first 6-8 months or so, I came to the realization that Marvel (at the time) was far superior to DC in that department. It was a monthly experience with Marvel to read a story arc that would make you question something metaphysical, spiritual or the state of the world. In comparison, I think I only read 3 or 4 DC stories in my entire life that gave pause to ponder what could be or why things are the way they are. (Something comics need more of today, I think.) Also, Marvel had things like Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, all the monster titles really, so that helped to shape my decision.

I must have accepted somewhere along the line that Jack Kirby's art was Marvel. It was the style that Marvel even pushed their artists to learn so that they could blend their creations into the Marvel Universe of the day. I never gave it much thought....until the 1990's came along and art direction just began to plummet at Marvel. When the art began to look like cartoon figures, and the heroes began having muscles in places where no human body has muscles, or their mid sections looked like they were exploding with some sort of cancerous growths, it was then I realized how truly great Jack Kirby's art really was.

Jack was known for being able to create a fairly accurate representation of a human body, I think the block style was the evolution of his own personal style that let him turn out the amount of work he was pumping out. I saw this one Jack Kirby video talking about artists in comic books on YouTube, and I learned something amazing. They stated that even the most prolific and sought after comic book artists work on maybe 3 titles in a one month period (most only do 1 title), at his height, Jack Kirby was doing at one time something like 12 titles......12 TITLES!!!!! in a single period. Stan "The Man" would dub him Jack "King" Kirby, should have dubbed him "God of Comics" or something. Jack was drawing it, writing it and editing it. He also had a big hand in creating things at DC comics as well. Back in the day, he even did some work on Fawcett's Captain Marvel. (What a resume!)

Someone may or may not like his art, one thing for sure, one can't deny Jack Kirby was the standard for the entire industry. I don't think there will ever be anyone that will reach his level, not in the past or in the future at this point.




Facts about Jack Kirby

Nope- just making a joke!

J Bone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You mention the Kirby Universe and it raises a
> question I have for people who I assume are of a
> certain age on these boards (late 30s and beyond).
> How did you guys first react to Kirby art style
> (maybe Silver Age in general) and has it changed?


I was a fan for stories, but the art seemed a just a little blah to me.

J Bone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Necromancer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Adrian Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Yeah, should've seen a guy that goes by the
> > name
> > > "Necromancer" being a Son of Satan fan.
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > ------
> > I happen to be a fan of a great many things
> that
> > originated within, around and among the Kirby
> > Universe. Did you have a point you wanted to
> > make? or a question for myself?
>
> You mention the Kirby Universe and it raises a
> question I have for people who I assume are of a
> certain age on these boards (late 30s and beyond).
> How did you guys first react to Kirby art style
> (maybe Silver Age in general) and has it changed?
>
> The reason I ask is because my own personal
> experience coming to comics around 1980 was to
> reject Kirby as a youth. I didn't care for his
> blocky sorta style from later stuff (Eternals) and
> weird costumes. I was much more attracted to
> Byrne's art as an exemplar of form with others
> like Michael Golden and Art Adams as well. Now
> however I've been going back and revisiting some
> older titles and find myself absolutely loving
> Kirby's style. Post Spidey Dikto is still
> something I have trouble engagings with.
>
> Thoughts?

I loved Kirby's style myself, I can still remember some of the older comics I read that he'd done the artwork for. It was simply epic in ways modern art styles just don't seem to match up. It's just too bad he didn't manage to do as well as Stan Lee did (which I hear was in part because he was a bitter and abrasive person from an artist who'd actually met him, contrary to Stan who's very friendly and personable and apparently was also a better businessman given things like the deal he cut for movie profits and his cameo options).

I like stylised art - as all comic art is to a greater or lesser extent.

I have some Kirby art work on my living room wall. Up close it's even more impressive. Can't stand half of the image guys. Lee is great, the others, well not so much.

BWS, Starlin in his early days, Byrne before he got lazy, steranko, ezquerra, möbius(?). Stan Sakai is a new favourite.

Yeah Kirby's art is amazing. I love looking at some of his backgrounds as it still resonates in the look of modern comics. The massive machines, space full of planets, the Kirby crackle are all things I love. One of the things I really enjoy about the Thor films, the second one in particular is how they also draw their art direction from Kirby. The sets in Asgard look like a love letter to the King.

SunWuKong you mention some great artists there. I would also toss in Neil Adams into the mix. I recently reread his short run on the X-Men (just before the comic was canceled and sent into repeats) and its some beautiful work. Also nothing screams Marvel to me more than John Romita on Spidey.

Of the 90s artists I am a fan of just about all of them. I even like Leifeld even though i know thats an unpopular opinion. But my case would be, if we accept that comics are not meant to be photorealistic but more interpretive and following a heroic ideal, then I can get over his weird issue with proportionality. But the way he drew fight scenes was highly dynamic and exciting. Erik Larson was great, Lee amazing and McFarlane's Spidey rivals my Romita love on that title.

JBone absolutely agree with you on Adams. I didn't want to over egg the pudding.

I thought his work on the Beast (pre blue hair) falling through the double page spread (can't remember which issue, but showing my age no doubt) was the first time I'd seem articles bleed between and across adjacent panels. At the time it was mind blowing.

As to Kirby my favourite artifice of his is the Kirby spot / dot / crackle