Thursday, October 22, 2009 Halloween Countdown: Gabriel, Devil Hunter

You're probably too young (or not geeky enough) to remember the coverless comics that were sold three to a bag in nearly every drug store and corner grocery during the Sixties and Seventies. Back in the days before comic shops, retailers would actually return unsold copies of comics for credit on their next order. As it was cost-prohibitive to ship the entire magazine back, stores were required to return only the top third of each cover - the section with the title, date, and price. The rest of the book was supposed to be destroyed. It wasn't long before someone got the bright idea of selling the "returned product" instead.

It was a genius move that benefited nearly everyone involved. The comics were already accounted for in bookkeeping, so their secondary sale was pretty much pure profit. Consumers got three old comics for less than the cost of a single new one, and the bags provided fans with a rare opportunity to pick up back issues they might have missed. Finally, readers got introduced to a lot of titles they might not otherwise have picked up, which often led to increased sales of new comics on the stands. Okay, so the whole thing was highly illegal. But no one got hurt, right?

The books were packed with two titles facing out in front and back, and a "mystery" title sandwiched in-between. If you were sneaky, you'd stretch the plastic just enough to scope out what the third comic was. Otherwise, it was a lottery when you opened the bag. A bag with three superhero books was very rare and the ultimate prize. Two superheroes packed with a horror or Archie title was next best. Western and war comics were much less desired. But the worst of all was when you found a Harvey book hiding in your bag - those comics were for babies!

Magazines were also sold the same way. Most were "true detective" and "true confession" rags, but you could occasionally find good stuff like various Warren titles and oddball UFO one-shots. And Marvel black-and-white mags. It's how I acquired Monsters Unleashed #11 and met Gabriel the Devil Hunter.


The Exorcist was a bone fide phenomenon when it first hit theaters in 1973. It was shocking and transgressive in ways that had never been presented to a mainstream audience before, and unlike films about vampires or space monsters, it dealt with a horror that millions worldwide devotedly believed in. It's another case of "you really had to be there", but the movie freaked people's shit. Even those who weren't personally affected by the film still obsessed over the cultural impact it had. (For proof of that, look no further than Haunt of Horror, in which such comic stalwarts as Steve Gerber, Chris Claremont, and Marv Wolfman spent two issues in a roundtable discussion trying to make sense of what they had just witnessed on the silver screen.)

The film was also a cash cow, and sales of superhero comics were flagging. So, just as they had done with the blaxploitation and kung fu crazes, Marvel jumped on the Satanic bandwagon. The Son of Satan popped up in their color books, and Santana and Gabriel premiered in their b&w magazines, where the Comics Code had no Authority and things could get really freaky. But Damion Hellstrom and his sister were really nothing more than superheroes with trendy origins (though Satana probably owed a bit more to the success of Vampirella - she even premiered in Vampire Tales). Gabriel the Devil Hunter, however, was the closest in spirit (hah!) to its inspiration, and was all the better for it.

Gabriel is a defrocked priest who continues to perform exorcisms aided by his psychic companion, Desadia. He is so bad-ass that he once performed an exorcism on himself, losing an eye and gaining a crucifix-shaped scar in the process. Gabriel's wife had also been the victim of possession, but she didn't fare so well and is either suffering in Hell or inhabiting the body of Desadia, depending on who you believe. In the tale presented in MU #11, Gabriel is once again called upon to drive a demon out from an innocent's body. This time, however, the host is not a living victim, but a recently deceased corpse!

The Gabriel stories may not seem special today, but they certainly fascinated me as a kid. Like the film that inspired them, they were transgressive. Tales of demonic possession were simply not allowed under the Comics Code, and while Dr. Strange and the Silver Surfer had battled the likes of Dormammu and Mephisto before, Gabriel went up against the honest-to-gosh, really real Satan himself. That was more than enough to send shivers down an eight-year-old Catholic boy's spine.


Gabriel appeared in Haunt of Horror #2-5 and the aforementioned Monsters Unleashed #11 before moving on to four-color comics and a slow spiral into suckatude. The b&w Gabriel stories all available in the Essential Marvel Horror 2 trade paperback, which I highly recommend. The remaining content from those issues have not yet been collected as far as I know, so today I'm sharing the complete run of both magazines. In addition to Gabriel, these issues feature Satana, Frankenstein's Monster, Tigra the Were-Woman, the Wendigo, and whatever old Atlas filler the editors had on hand that day.

Just don't expect to be really frightened by any of 'em, you jaded post-modern hipster.

Click on the links below to be whisked away to the appropriate Rapidshare download page.

Monsters Unleashed #1-3 (115mb)
Monsters Unleashed #4-6 (104mb)
Monsters Unleashed #7-11 & the 1975 Annual (186mb)

Haunt of Horror #1-5 (172mb)