Friday, October 29, 2010

Demon Hunter!


Here is a real Bronze Age treasure. This is the original artwork for the one and only issue of Atlas-Seaboard's Demon Hunter. Rich Buckler, fresh from his success at Marvel with Deathlok, arrived at Atlas-Seaboard in the second wave of talent and took on a number of books that others left after promises of great remuneration were not kept. Typical of his approach, he was a workhorse for the company and was even given the shot to develop one of his creations with the help of David Anthony Kraft's scripting. So was born Gideon Cross a man who hunts demons.




















The book was gone after this single issue, and the company was gone soon thereafter. But Gideon Cross survived, showing up at Marvel as Devil-Slayer, appeared as a guest-star with Deathlok and with The Defenders where the "Xenogenesis" storyline begun at Atlas-Seaboard was finished,sort of though minus Buckler but with the scripts of Kraft.





Another version of the character appeared in Buckler's magazine Galaxia under the name of Bloodwing, both written and drawn by Buckler himself.


Here's a link to the published version of the Demon Hunter story.

Whether called Bloodwing, Devil-Slayer, or Demon Hunter, the character has proven to be a potent one indeed.

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2 comments:

  1. Great seeing the original black & white art on this one!

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  2. That one-and-only issue of Demon Hunter was one of the high points of the Atlas line. Thanks for posting!

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