Damballah

Damballah is a serpentine supernatural villain from Marvel's horror era, a snake-themed sorcerer who clashed with Brother Voodoo in his debut, drawing on the name and imagery of the Vodou loa to serve as a mystical threat in Marvel's early 1970s horror comics.

Slithering out of the Bronze Age in Strange Tales #169 (1973), Damballah is one of Marvel's most evocative supernatural presences, conjured by the creative trio of Len Wein, Roy Thomas, and Gene Colan at a moment when comics were pushing boldly into horror and mysticism. With roots stretching across nearly five decades of publication, this serpentine figure has wound through some of Marvel's most atmospheric corners — Dracula Lives, Strange Tales, and the Doctor Strange Epic Collection — sharing dark and dangerous pages with the likes of Brother Voodoo, Jericho Drumm, and Papa Jambo. Two of those appearances carry the weight of key-issue status, making Damballah a name collectors keep a watchful eye out for. Compact in catalog count but rich in atmosphere, this is exactly the kind of Bronze Age discovery that reminds you why digging deeper into Marvel's supernatural vaults is always worth your time.