Issue(s): Marvel Spotlight #14
Cover Date: "Ice and hellfire!"
Title: Mar 74
Credits:
Steve Gerber - Writer
Jim Mooney - Penciler
Sal Trapani - Inker

Review/plot:
After just two issues, Hellstrom's entire creative team is replaced. Jim Mooney is a better fit for this book than Herb Trimpe and Steve Gerber is objectively a better writer than Gary Friedrich, although there was a good argument to be made for letting Friedrich manage all the Satan-themed books.

Gerber goes back to what i think is a weird idea, introduced in Hellstrom's first appearance in Ghost Rider's book, that he's an exorcist. He also introduces Dr. Katherine Reynolds, head of the Parapsychological Studies Division of Gateway University's Psychology Department.

Reynolds is Hellstrom's client for this issue (she's got a haunted Communications building) but it's also intended that she become a member of Hellstrom's supporting cast, which is good because currently he hasn't got one.

The haunting turns out to be the work of Ikthalon, an ice devil.

Hellstrom defeats him with the help of Reynolds.

The experience freaks her out a bit, which is understandable.

The name of Ikthalon is invoked in spells a few times in the future. The Marvel Appendix lists Dr. Strange #33 and Marvel Fanfare #6.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Katherine Reynolds

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Marvel Horror vol. 1

More Gerber commentary: Ikthalon is an ice demon, but he also claims to be a demon representing stagnation and the refusal to change; he's haunting the university because a cranky old faculty member summoned him to stop a bunch of proposed reforms.

For the love of God (no pun) please give Hellstrom a twisted and somewhat neurotic Exorcist persona and make him significant ASAP.