Lucifer (DC Comics) - Other Versions

Other Versions

• The Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe lists Lucifer as first having appeared in a dream in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #65 (1962). He appears when Jimmy Olsen attempts to memorize a devil's food cake recipe with his alleged photographic memory and dreams that he is in France 300 years in the past. Putting on the clothing of a bandit who has ditched them, Jimmy is arrested and sent to rot in Devil's Island Penal Colony. A bald man known as Lord L offers five years of freedom for people to escape in exchange for their souls. Convinced that the magic the man uses is technological in nature, assuming him to be an ancestor of Lex Luthor, he asks to be returned to from where he came, believing Lord L will be long dead by then and unable to claim him. Lord L shows up at his front door, still bald but now with a goatee, and insists that he is Lucifer and has given him over 300 years extra, but will dine with him before taking him, but disappears when Jimmy serves him cake. Superman wakes Jimmy soon after and reveals that the card he memorized was really for angel food cake, and this is why Lucifer disappeared.
• In Weird Mystery Tales #4 (Jan-Feb 1973), a story by Jack Oleck and Rubeny depicts Lucifer, looking much like his present incarnation, save for a few panels in which he appeared as a more traditional devil, held prisoner by an order of monks. It also presents a prisoner switch trick not unlike the one performed in The Sandman: Season of Mists, in addition to being hosted by Destiny, another character later used by Gaiman. In the story, Lucifer gave Philip Burton his form in order to trade places with him and fulfill his wish for immortality. Lucifer walked away in the body of the elderly Burton.
• A character called Lucifer, The Fallen Angel appears in Blue Devil #31 (the final issue). He has angelic wings and a halo, and his face includes dark facial hair. He does not have horns. Madame Xanadu recognizes that even with a magic book, he is not the real Lucifer. He is simply a washed-up actor who decides to be a costumed criminal for a living. He is dragged into Hell on a train at the end of the issue.
• The Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe lists Lucifer's first genuine pre-Crisis appearance as DC Special Series #8 (1978's The Brave and the Bold Special Starring Batman, Deadman and Sgt. Rock). This character has hair and wings like Lucifer as he appears in Sandman #4, but he is red-skinned and has a face like a traditional devil, complete with goatee, though his horns may be part of a headband. His appearance in the comic is brief, but he is specifically referred to as "Lucifer," rather than by other epithets. He has an advisory board consisting of Guy Fawkes, Benedict Arnold, Adolf Hitler, Jack the Ripper, Nero, and Bluebeard. He has an operative, Edward Dirkes, set bombs, while using a bronze Batman statue transported by the Easy Company like a voodoo doll.
• Writer Garth Ennis introduced a character intended to be the Devil as an antagonist in his run on the Hellblazer comic: however, as the character appeared at the same time as Gaiman's reuse of the Lucifer character, Ennis had to introduce a new back story for his character to distinguish the two: the Hellblazer character was named the First of the Fallen, and was ruler of Hell prior to and after Lucifer's reign. How this fits in with the reigns of the angels and Christopher Rudd has not been clarified, although the First of the Fallen mentions Duma and Remiel ruling Hell during Ennis' run. In the Hellblazer film adaption, Constantine, however Lucifer, portrayed by Peter Stormare showed up as an antagonist.
• Satan has appeared as a distinct figure in numerous DC comics.
• In one of DC-Vertigo's "Fables" spinoffs, "Jack of Fables", the titular character made various (unwise) pacts with several devils. One of them is heavily inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost.