*JAMES WARREN
After success with magazines like CREEPY, EERIE, and the seminal FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, publisher James Warren "wanted a female comic character", he remembers. "Vampirella was to be a living, breathing creature" closer in tone to European fantasy heroines. After the 1968 movie Barbarella appeared, Warren studied "terrifically imaginative" skills from the film and began developing his own original character, the comic world's first, super heroic, high profile extraterrestrial bloodsucker. Originally, "I didn't really know where we wanted to take her" recalls Warren. "There is a real difference between the first two Vampirella stories because of that." Abandoning a campy, tongue in cheek storytelling approach, Vampirella's writers and artists soon set her on the path to pop culture immortality.
In "Death's Dark Angel", Skaar (one of the lesser demons of Chaos) is summoned by aging millionaire W.W. Wake to capture Vampi so that her bite will make him immortal. This was the first Vampirella story illustrated by Jose Gonzales.
FRONT: This classic painting by Sanjulian appeared on VAMPIRELLA #12. It represents Skaar, The Harbinger of Doom in "Death's Dark Angel." *Source: Back of card