Another scary scan for October.This is one of my all-time favorite comics: Demon Hunter #1, published by the short-lived Atlas Comics back in 1975. Created by artist Rich Buckler and scripted by David Anthony Kraft, it told the story of a Mafia hitman who became involved with a demonic cult, ultimately turning against them and determined to foil their plan to bring about xenogenesis – which the comic postulated would be the rebirth of the demon race upon the Earth.
Back in '75, when I was a wee lad of ten, I asked my uncle to pick me up a comic book when he went to the local corner store. I expected that he would return with an Archie or Richie Rich, or maybe an issue of World's Finest. Instead, he brought me this... and I was floored. It was, by far, the most adult-themed comic I had read up to that point, with a decidedly amoral protagonist pitted against genuinely frightening, supernatural adversaries. I had also never heard of Atlas Comics, and I was fascinated by the in-house advertisements for their other titles, which all sounded kind of twisted.
(They were all rather twisted, actually. Check out this website for a history of this oddball publishing house. Needless to say, I have since collected nearly their entire output!)
Anyway, the series never made it past this single issue. Creator Buckler revived the character under the name "Bloodwing" for a self-published comics mag called Galaxia a few years later, and when that failed (also after one issue), he introduced a thinly-disguised version of the character at Marvel, where he went by the name Devil-Slayer.
Never cared much for the Marvel version, but this comic – with its script by Kraft – remains one of my favorite horror-themed adventure comic books, and Buckler's art has rarely been better than it was here.
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