Hellverine #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeHellverine #1 (ongoing, cover date February 2025) marks Akihiro's graduation from a supporting-cast resurrection to the solo lead of Marvel's first ongoing series built around the Hellverine concept — a fusion of Wolverine's mutant legacy and Ghost Rider's demonic hellfire mythology. The issue represents the creative payoff of a character trajectory that moved from a crossover cameo to a mini-series to a fully fledged ongoing within roughly eighteen months, a pipeline Percy himself compared to the breakout arc of Cosmic Ghost Rider. By anchoring Akihiro — long one of Marvel's most volatile antiheroes under the Daken identity — as a demon-possessed antiheroic monster-hunter, the series reframes him within the horror-superhero genre that Percy had been pushing toward throughout his concurrent Wolverine and Ghost Rider runs. The issue also formally introduces Mephisto's shadow as the overarching threat and brings Doctor Strange into Akihiro's orbit, widening the supernatural corner of the 616 around a character who had previously existed almost exclusively in X-Men-adjacent stories.
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The Hellverine concept originated in the summer of 2023 when Benjamin Percy, simultaneously writing both Wolverine vol. 7 and Ghost Rider vol. 10, engineered a crossover called 'Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance,' which introduced the demon Bagra-ghul and his possession of Logan. Fan response to the flaming-skull Wolverine design — co-created with artist Geoff Shaw — prompted Marvel to commission a four-issue Hellverine mini-series in February 2024, this time transferring the demon's host to Akihiro (formerly Daken), who had been killed by Sabretooth during the 'Sabretooth War' storyline. The mini-series performed well enough that in August 2024 Marvel greenlit the ongoing, announced with Percy returning as writer and Raffaele Ienco (known for Star Wars: Darth Vader) replacing mini-series artist Julius Ohta on interior pages; the main cover for #1 was handled by Kendrick 'Kunkka' Lim.
Trivia · 8 facts
- On-sale date: December 18, 2024; cover date: February 2025 — the premiere issue of Hellverine Vol. 2, Akihiro's first-ever ongoing solo series.
- Written by Benjamin Percy (Hellverine co-creator); interior art by Raffaele Ienco; colors by Bryan Valenza; letters by VC's Travis Lanham; main cover by Kendrick 'Kunkka' Lim.
- Variant covers for issue #1 include a 1:25 Leinil Francis Yu variant, a 1:100 Kendrick 'Kunkka' Lim Virgin variant, an Alessandro Cappuccio variant, a Dave Johnson variant, and a Mark Bagley Foil variant.
- The issue is the formal ongoing debut of Akihiro as the Hellverine — the resurrected, demon-possessed son of Wolverine — following his resurrection and first transformation in the preceding four-issue mini-series.
- Mephisto is established as the series' greater-scope villain from the outset: issue #1 begins Akihiro's discovery that Bagra-ghul's creation and Project Hellfire were part of a larger scheme connected to Mephisto.
- Doctor Strange appears in issue #1 as a key supporting character, tethering the series to Marvel's supernatural landscape and expanding Akihiro's world well beyond its X-Men roots.
- The series launched as part of Marvel's 'X-Men: From the Ashes' franchise initiative, situating Hellverine within the post-Krakoa mutant publishing era.
- A Marvel Legends action figure of the Hellverine was produced — cited by Percy as one of the milestones demonstrating the character's commercial breakout before the ongoing was greenlit.
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Reprinted in Hellverine #1 (2025), Hellverine #1 (2025)
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