Better watch out, Avengers: the Council of Red is on the way! In Avengers (2018) #55 by Jason Aaron, Javier Garrón, David Curiel, and Cory Petit, a superbly Satanic double spread gave us a glimpse of seventy-nine out of six-hundred-sixteen Mephistos.
The Council of Red
The Council of Red first appeared in the final panels of Heroes Reborn #1 by Aaron, Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, Matthew Wilson, and Petit. In that issue, it was revealed that the Council of Red is comprised of 616 Mephisto variants.
According to an interview with Marvel.com, it took Garrón a significant amount of time to depict the seventy-nine Mephistos: four days, compared with his usual rate of about a page a day! Garrón cited the double spreads of George Perez in Infinity Gauntlet and Avengers as his inspiration for the page, and noted that he returned to previous appearances of the Council of Red drawn by McGuinness in order to include some of those Mephistos for a return appearance.
In addition to Marvel Comics references like Howard the Duck, Cyclops, and Hela, there are plenty of other pop culture references in the spread. Garrón hinted that one of the seventy-nine Mephistos was inspired by “a Staten Island energy vampire,” which must indicate the one-and-only Colin Robinson, played by Mark Proksch in What We Do in the Shadows on FX.
And he also said a Mephisto had been inspired by “a certain singer-actor, who appeared as a cunning, evil wizard in a movie a long time ago… a movie with puppets! The movie it’s a-maze-ing!” Naturally, this is referring to David Bowie in Labyrinth. For future Faustian deals, that’s the Mephsito I’d like to be dealing with, please!
Garrón isn’t just good at drawing devils, he’s also good at drawing Devil Dinosaur, as demonstrated by this memorable page from Secret Warriors (2017) #1 by Matthew Rosenberg, Garrón, Israel Silva, Clayton Cowles, Tradd Moore, and Wilson:
79/616 Mephistos
Which Mephisto variant from Avengers #55 is your favorite? Now that Fox properties are owned by the same parent company as Marvel Comics, can we expect to see Futurama’s Robot Devil in a future satanic Spread?
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Jason Aaron’s Avengers has been about everything but the Avengers.
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