Daimon Hellstrom

Daimon Hellstrom
Marvel Spotlight #13 (Jan. 1974). Cover art by John Romita Sr.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Ghost Rider #1 (Sept. 1973)
Created by	Roy Thomas (writer) Gary Friedrich (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Daimon Hellstrom
Species	Human/Demon hybrid
Team affiliations	Defenders God Squad Hellfire Club Masters of Evil Midnight Sons Shadow Hunters S.H.I.E.L.D. Paranormal Containment Unit
Notable aliases	Son of Satan, Hellstorm
Abilities	Dark magic user Fire projection Ability to heal others Peak human physical capabilities

Daimon Hellstrom, also known as the Son of Satan and Damien Hellstorm, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Encouraged by the success of the titles Ghost Rider and The Tomb of Dracula, both of which starred occult characters, Stan Lee proposed a series starring Satan, to be titled The Mark of Satan. Editor Roy Thomas had reservations about this idea and suggested a series focusing on the son of Satan instead. (Due to an oversight, "The Mark of Satan" is mentioned in a blurb in Ghost Rider #1.)

According to Thomas, Lee approved of the idea, and Gary Friedrich and Herb Trimpe were assigned the task of designing the character. However, Trimpe denies this, claiming Friedrich alone designed Daimon Hellstrom and only brought him in as artist after the character was fully realized. Thomas has said he later realized that a 1960s fanzine character created by his friend Biljo White had looked very similar. As Thomas recalled in 2001,

Stan called me into the office one day, and said he wanted to do a book called Mark of Satan, but this time, the hero/villain was going to be Satan himself. I went to a parochial Lutheran school, but I'm not religious, but I thought this was going to get us in trouble, and who needs it? I didn't even like the idea. So I went off and thought about it for a little bit, and I came back and said, "I think we're asking for trouble with Mark of Satan, but what if you made it Son of Satan? You could still have Satan as a character, but he's not the hero." It's a little different from [The Tomb of] Dracula, where the heroes were the human beings fighting the vampire. Stan loved it, and it was only a little later I realized that name and basic concept had been a fanzine comic by a friend of mine, Biljo White, back in the early '60s! He wound up looking even looking a lot like Biljo's character, by sheer coincidence, because I don't think Herb Trimpe and Gary Friedrich, who did the actual story, ever saw him and I don't think I described it much. The branded chest, a trident, and so forth... I think it just came out looking almost identical. I explained it to Biljo, and he understood, but it was really weird, because if you look at his old fanzine, it's almost the same character!