At one point not too long ago, Hulu was working on crafting its own corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, featuring some of the brand’s most iconic characters rooted in the world of horror. One thing led to another and the streamer only managed to produce Helstrom, featuring characters based on Marvel’s Hellstrom siblings — Daimon, the Son of Satan, and Ana, a family-friendly version of Satana. Legendary Marvel creator Roy Thomas had his hand in helping create both of the characters and, as it turns out, he was hoping for the show to be a little bit more comic-accurate.
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“They should’ve followed the comic books. Somebody doing the series should’ve read the comic book. Maybe they could’ve made a good series out of that,” Thomas tells us. “They could have even left the extra ‘L.’”
Thomas then went on to compare Helstrom to his experiences with Universal’s Hulk series in the late 1970s.
“I was on the set of it one day, Lou Ferrigno was playing the Hulk for the first time, and the idea was: If you take something that was already good, whether it’s Marvel Comics, or it’s Dune, or it’s Wizard of Oz, or it’s Gone With the Wind, whatever it is that pre-exists. And you take it and you make a movie, well okay you’ve made a good movie,” Thomas adds. “But people will say, ‘Wow, you had something good to work with. You had a great novel, you had this great concept.’”
The writer-turned-Editor-in-Chief then suggested filmmakers oftentimes think reinventing the wheel is the best process in adapting comics for live-action.
“I mean, the guy who did the Hulk show, he just buries the Hulk various times,” he remembers. “He thought, ‘Oh, I paid no attention to that comic book. I went to things like Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ And gee, obviously Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could never have been smart enough to think of something like that. These guys have to think they’re reinventing the wheel every time they do something in order to justify their enormous salaries, I suppose.”
Thomas then recalls the creation of Daimon Hellstrom itself. As he says, Stan Lee originally wanted to do a horror book titled the Mark of Satan, though Thomas thought there would be pushback from some of Marvel’s religious leaders. Instead, Thomas pitched the idea of making Hellstrom the Son of Satan.
“I thought about it, came back and said, ‘Well what if it was Son of Satan. He’s a human being. He’s like Rosemary’s Baby becomes a hero,’” Thomas recalls.
He concludes, “And I mean I didn’t use that phrase, but that was what was in my mind. And then I had Gary Friedrich and Herb Trimpe do Son of Satan. And whatever else it was, and I made up the name Damion Hellstrom, but whatever it was it was better than that show. That was so dark, I can’t even see what’s going on. I could only watch two or three episodes and I gave up, and I really wanted to watch it. I’ll still finish it someday, but I’ve got to have a flashlight before I do that.”
The only season of Helstrom is now streaming on Hulu.
Where would you like to see Daimon Hellstrom pop up next? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!
