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Olav Bakken
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | 1
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In the 70s, there were some religious elements in Marvel comics. Dracula meets the biblical Satan on a couple occasions. His son Janus is possessed by an angel. Daimon Hellstrom is the son of Satan. Ghost Rider makes a deal with Satan and meets a hippie that is actually Jesus (or was meant to be).
But it started to changed after the Ghost Rider issue where the hippie turns out the be Jesus, was changed by Shooter and made him Mephisto instead.
Since then, it has been explained that all appearances of Satan was actually Mephisto in disguise. To make Marvel more secular.
Which makes you wonder who the angel in Dracula was. And why Mephisto pretended to the Jesus (the Friend) in Ghost Rider, protecting Johnny Blaze from Satan (himself). And what about Daimon Hellstrom? His father was changed into a demon called Marduk Kurios? I suppose to he his son believe he was Satan. If not, it must have been Mephisto again, claiming to be both Satan and his father.
I'm an atheist, so I don't feel the need to see religious elements in the comics. But since they're first there, I'm not able to see them as anything else than what they were supposed to be. If I read Tomb of Dracula again, then he actually meets the real Satan, not Mephisto in disguise.
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Edward Aycock
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Joined: 13 July 2024
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | 2
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The 70s were a different time and since books and films like "Rosemary's Baby", "The Exorcist", and "The Omen" were so popular, it bled over into the comics world. I think that the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right in the 80s may have contributed to the softening of the tone of the earlier stories because nobody wants to be boycotted and the ghost of Frederic Wertham was always hovering.
To your point, I suppose Mephisto was supposed to be terrifying but never really had the full impact for me personally as the actual Christian concept of the devil would have. That stuff used to scare me as a kid.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | 3
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Add in the crazy “Satanic Panic” that started in the late 70s and lasted until the early 90s here in the US that included such bonkers scare tactics like “backward masking” in popular music as well as bullshit “recovered memories” about parental abuse that actually never happened, and it makes a perverse sort of sense that Marvel might have wanted to back away from any kind of overt religious themes. Focus on a fictional representation of Satan and not the actual fictional biblical character.
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Brian Miller
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | 4
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backward masking
****
“Here’s to my sweet satan”
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | 5
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My dad, being a traveling preacher, was all-in on that shit. Drove me up a wall. This all happened when I was a teen, so I was in the thick of it. Add in the AIDS crisis where conservatives and the nascent Christian Nationalist movement was blaming “sinful lifestyle choices” and “Satan’s influence” as the reason why people contracted AIDS and the 80s were far from the idyllic time many harken back to with fond memories. It was a minefield and total shitshow.
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Michael Roberts
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | 6
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Since then, it has been explained that all appearances of Satan was actually Mephisto in disguise.
——
I think the current take is that there are multiple Hell-lords with their own fiefdoms, of which Mephisto is one, that have at various times claimed to be “Satan”.
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Edward Aycock
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | 7
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"It was a minefield and total shitshow."
------------------------------------------------------------ ---
It was indeed, Matt. As one who lived through it, it certainly was. "Nostalgia is a longing for the way things never were".
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | 8
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A satan, it should perhaps be noted, was/is an angel sent by God to frustrate the plans of humans. (If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.)As early Christians shopped around for a suitable supervillain for Jesus to contend against, the word developed an upper case S, and more and more of the evils of the Old Testament were attributed to “Satan”. (The serpent in the Garden of Eden, once no more than a talking snake, a laAesop, became an early manifestation of this reimagined satan.) Marvel has for a long time presented a quasi-Christian foundation for their “universe”. Recall when Sue Storm referred to Galactus as “all-powerful”, and the Watcher reminded her there is only one who deserves that term, “and his only weapon is love.” (‘Scuse me—I just threw up in my mouth a bit…)
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Vinny Valenti
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | 9
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Isn’t Surtur basically the Norse Gods’ Satan?
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Olav Bakken
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | 10
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Yes, those where the days where supernatural horror movies often dealt with devil worship and such.
In regard of vampires in Marvel; they can still be held back by using a crucifix, and holy water will burn them. Which is kind of old school.
I don't remember the Watcher referring (indirectly) to god. Maybe it was lost in translation.
Surtur is not a Norse Satan. He is a jötunn living in Muspelheim, a realm of fire and heat, one of the nine worlds in Norse Mythology. He's the most powerful of his kind, and has a flaming sword. Maybe an inspiration for Tolkien's Balrogs. (Then where is Hel, who rules the underworld where most of the dead reside, except those who died in battle, who goes to Valhalla.)
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Vinny Valenti
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | 11
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Olav, your name sounds Norse enough to back up your post! Thanks!
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Colin Ian Campbell
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| Posted: 11 July 2025 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | 12
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According to the Marvel Chronology Project, Jesus Christ appeared in Howard the Duck v2 #5 (written by Steve Gerber, whose suggestion it had been to feature Jesus in 70s Ghost Rider) and in a flashback in Ghost Rider Annual v2 #1.
Edited by Colin Ian Campbell on 11 July 2025 at 7:31pm
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