Issue(s): Marvel Spotlight #24
Cover Date: Oct 75
Title: "Walk the darkling road!"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Bob McLeod - Inker

Review/plot:
Chris Claremont writes the surely much demanded meeting between Daimon Hellstrom and his sister, Satana.

Claremont uses a lot of elements from Satana's stories, even the parts that he didn't write. He establishes that Daimon is an old friend of Gloria Hefford, one of the Satanists that Satana moved in with early in her series. Daimon responds to a call for help from Gloria. On the plane ride over, he has a dream depicting her sister in the worst way possible, and when he arrives, Gloria does say that Satana is what she is concerned about. She says that she and most of the other members of the Satan cult joined it for "giggles" but things got serious when one of the members, Ruth Cummins, was killed, right after Satana joined.

Daimon finds Satana at the grave of Mike Heron, the ex-priest from her Claremont issues. Satana didn't actually kill Ruth, but Hellstrom's dream on the plane had predisposed him to suspicion, and characteristically, neither sibling manages the conversation very well.

They fight, and Daimon seems to easily overpower and kill Satana.

Hellstrom then discovers that he was being manipulated by another devil, called Kthara.

Kthara has possessed Gloria, and intends to kill Daimon as part of a satanic ritual.

But it turns out that Satana isn't really dead, and she shows up to help Daimon fight off Kthara. Daimon's exorcism isn't enough to banish Kthara, but Satana activates her Basilisk, and that defeats the devil.

However, Satana and Daimon don't walk off as good friends. There's no reconciliation here.

It's also said that the use of the Basilisk strengthens it, at cost to Satana, and when the Basilisk is fully in control, it will mean "Armageddon".

This issue also moves Daimon out of St. Louis and the university setting that he's been at for most of his series. We saw last issue that Daimon really has no emotional connection with his sort-of love interest Katherine Reynolds, and Claremont builds on that here for the goodbye scene.

The story is a good way to have the two characters meet while ensuring that they won't constantly be hanging out together, which i guess was the desired effect. They actually have a lot in common now that Satana has rejected her father, but that's not mentioned at all in this issue. I will say that this issue was quite rewarding for me after slogging through the text pieces and jumbled plotting in Satana's books, since so much of it was relevant here. Things might have seemed a little more random to a reader that hadn't read all of that. Oddly, the Essential Marvel Horror trade doesn't include these stories in sequence; it's Son of Satan in the front and Satana in the back. So even if you had all these issues you might not realize that a lot of the events and people referenced in these issues had relevance to Satana's series until (or, frankly, if) you eventually make it through the Satana stuff. This is why we must read our comics chronologically.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating:

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Daimon first met Katherine Reynolds in Marvel Spotlight #14.
  
• Gloria Hefford was mentioned in Gerry Conway's text piece in Haunt of Horror #2.
  
• Daimon's dream sequence shows him Satana's actions in Vampire Tales #2 and Vampire Tales #3. Ruth Cummins was killed in issue #3; that event is incorrectly footnoted as Haunt of Horror #3.
  
• Mike Heron died in Haunt of Horror #5.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Marvel Horror vol. 1

Kthara appears again in a rather embarrassing issue of Marvel Two-In-One with Hellstorm.

Added Kthara. Thanks.

The mounting risks each time Satana summons the basilisk remind me of how Claremont would later signal Magik's progressive corruption by adding to the number of blood gems in her locket or increasing her armor.

You have this placed in the 1975 list before Marvel Preview #7, where Satana gets the leotard outfit.