Issue(s): Marvel Spotlight #20, Marvel Spotlight #21, Marvel Spotlight #22
Cover Date: Feb-Jun 75
Title: "The fool's path!" / "Mourning at dawn!" / "Journey into himself!"
Credits:
Steve Gerber - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Alden McWilliams / Joe Giella / Bob McLeod - Inker

Review/plot:
It is this site's policy to not cover stories involving Tarot cards in a lot of detail...

...especially when they include huge text passages...

...so suffice it to say that Daimon gets involved in a plot involving a fortune teller who is trying to get vengeance on a newspaper publisher for publishing an article saying that fortune tellers are frauds...

...by going after the publisher's daughter.

The fortune teller gives Daimon a tarot reading and of course everything in the reading starts to come true...

...and there's a lot of metaphorical and soul-searching stuff.

The Nihilists that appeared in a previous arc appear again in this story, inadvertently helping fulfill part of the tarot prophesy.

Do you want me to write, "Say what you like about belief in the Tarot, at least it's an ethos."? I will, if you want me to.

Satana shows up as part of an illusionary sequence.

The MCP lists it as an actual appearance of Satana, but the sequence also features the devil Ikathon...

...Ghost Rider...

...the Witch-Woman, and other characters that are clearly not actually appearing in the book...

...so i'm not counting this as an actual appearance.

I will grant you nice art by Sal Buscema.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• The Nihilists appeared previously and briefly in Marvel Spotlight #16.
  
• Daimon destroyed Ikathalon in Marvel Spotlight #14.
  
• The Witch-Woman (Linda Littletrees) appeared in Marvel Spotlight #12.
  
• Imaginary Ghost Rider says that he's parted company with Daimon's father, an unfootnoted reference to Ghost Rider #9.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Marvel Horror vol. 1

Madame Swabada also appears in Giant-Size Man-Thing 5 but that's a flashback to before Sallis becomes the Man-Thing, so I'm not sure how you want to handle it.

Just to close the loop on this, i wound up filing the Giant-Size Man-Thing issue as a Continuity Implant, so i logged Swabada as a character appearing. Thanks for pointing her out; i would have never noticed that it was the same character.

Jo Duffy has a letter in #20.

Whenever I see a rendering of the Fool card, I can't help but think of the Beatles' "Fool on the Hill" from the "Magical Mystery Tour" film and album.