Mary, Queen of Blood

Few characters announce themselves with quite the menace packed into a name like Mary, Queen of Blood — and when she first stalked onto the Bronze Age DC scene in House of Mystery #317 in 1983, courtesy of Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, and Paris Cullins, it was clear she was no ordinary figure lurking in horror's shadows. Her pages have been graced by the likes of Andrew Bennett, Deadman, and Cain himself, a rogues' gallery of DC's most deliciously dark company, and her reach has extended from the gothic corridors of House of Mystery all the way to Justice League Dark — a nearly three-decade presence that speaks to her staying power in DC's supernatural corners. She may appear in a modest number of catalogued issues, but in the world of DC horror, quality of menace has always counted for more than quantity.