Mazikeen (comics)

Mazikeen
Mazikeen, riding out to battle
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Sandman vol. 2 #22 (December 1990)
Created by	Neil Gaiman (writer) Kelley Jones (artist)
In-story information
Species	Lilim
Place of origin	Red Sea

Mazikeen is one of the Lilim, that is, the children of Lilith; she is a comic book character published by DC Comics. She first appeared in Sandman vol. 2 #22 (December 1990), and was created by Neil Gaiman and Kelley Jones. Her name, "Mazikeen", comes from the name of a kind of demon from Jewish mythology; in Jewish mythology, 'Mazikeen' are invisible demons which can create minor annoyances or greater dangers.

In the comic book series Lucifer, Mazikeen is a devoted ally and lover of Lucifer Morningstar and the war leader of the Lilim, a race descended from Lilith. A fearsome warrior and a respected leader, Mazikeen is a prominent character in the Lucifer comics. She has the appearance of a beautiful human female with long bluish black hair. She is also the only character for whom Lucifer seems to have any genuine affection. Mazikeen first appeared in The Sandman, where she was Lucifer's consort while he reigned in Hell. At the time, half of her face was normal, but the other half was horribly misshapen and skeletal (not unlike the half-corpse appearance of the goddess, "Hel/Hell/Hela", from Norse mythology), causing her speech to be nearly unintelligible. (Gaiman wrote Mazikeen's dialogue by trying to speak using only half of his mouth, and writing down phonetically what came out.)

When Lucifer resigned, Mazikeen left Hell and ended up following her master, becoming part of the staff at the "Lux" (Latin for light), an elite Los Angeles bar that Lucifer had opened and at which he played piano. To conceal her demonic nature, she covered the deformed half of her face with a silver mask and rarely spoke., In Lucifer, Mazikeen's face was turned fully human when she was resuscitated by the Basanos following the destruction of the Lux in a fire. This was because the vessel of the Basanos, Jill Presto, did not realize that Mazikeen's face was naturally deformed, and assumed that it was burned in the fire.