The First Black Anti-Heroine

Skywald was a fresh-faced publisher at the dawn of the Bronze Age who tried to make a break in the black 'n white horror magazine racket that Warren Publishing had proved to be profitable. Former Marvel editor Sol Brodsky formed a partnership with Israel Waldman in 1970 that went on to do a trinity of horror comics under the titles Nightmare, Psycho, and Scream. A number of these comics had a roster of different characters running through them such as a gritty version of the Golden Age creature, The Heap. Another one that got their own ongoing feature was Lady Satan who became at least the sixth character in the history of comics to use that name. This Lady Satan stands out from the rest as she's the first African American one, as well as being the first black anti-heroine in an American comic book. Written by Al Hewetson and drawn by Ricardo Villamonte plus Pablo Marcos, Lady Satan was part of a genre that was labeled by the publisher as the Horror-Mood, and even got a text intro before her first chapter. Anne Jackson(sometimes with a last name of Jason)was a Vassar honor student graduate who didn't know what to do with her life even though she just inherited a fortune from her deceased family, so not bad for a black female in the early-70s. She gets taken to a scene in Salem by her friend Berenice where the locals are remembering the infamous witch trial, and a coven conjures up the spirit of the deceased demoness known as Black Anne that takes over the body of this Anne who happens to be black. The witches were really just actors putting on a historic performance, but the possessed Anne hooks up with some genuine Satanists in the hills and summons up Lucifer who accepts her as his bride. Berenice shows up to stop her from getting hitched to the Devil as the actual Anne briefly reemerges and falls off a cliff to her apparent death. Real Anne is buried in a coffin, but the lingering spirit of Black Anne causes the not so dead body to bust out of her grave. The narration now takes a moment to confirm that this reborn version of Anne is a fusion of the original Anne and the witch-queen Black Anne now referred to by her followers a Lady Satan. Anne learns about the history of Black Anne who was an old white woman that terrorized Salem centuries ago, and now manifests herself in Anne's body, sometimes as a bloodsucker who feeds off the blood of her victims, thus turning Berenice into an undead ghoul. Lady Satan dials up Hell and is told by big daddy Satan that he wants a child. After a quickie at a hazbin hotel, Anne awakens to find out she is now carrying the Anti-Christ while being chained down by Lady Satan's groupies, but she's determined to kill herself to stop The Omen from happening. Anne breaks free and leaps to her death(again?)only to meet with failure as she's already dead. She can't even stab herself, so she leaps into an open fire burning the stillborn baby devil, even though Lady Satan rises from the ashes now looking like an overcooked french fry. What does the future hold for this charred abomination still being fought over by two separate souls? Nothing! Her four chapter run ends on a cliffhanger with the promise of adding a fifth, but the trail stops dead after Lady Satan skinny dips into a bonfire. Maybe Al Hewetson felt he had nothing more to do with the character after that even though it could have continued in a format similar to The Incredible Hulk show where an innocent person tries to rid themself of the raging spirit that dwells within them. Lady Satan never gained the kind of recognition she should have as a black comics icon, despite the fact that is about a virtuous girl thrust into a supernatural tug of war with her own soul and the fate of the world on the line. Skywald never really took advantage of how interesting this concept could be, possibly because of racial repercussions, but that didn't halt Black Panther's eventual rise to fame.