Concept and designed by Richard Buckler in 1975 for the late Atlas Comics line, this character would later be re-vamped into Devil Slayer at Marvel Comics by the creator.
An outcast, alienated because he possesses the power of ESP, Gideon Cross returns from combat duty in Vietnam to find that his wife has run off with someone else. Despondent, Cross goes wild with booze and women, and decides to work for the mob because he "was good at shooting and plans to stay with it." However, while making a delivery for the mob in Nigeria, he encounters the Harvesters of Night cult at their remote mountain sanctum. Sensing something "special" about Cross, they clothe him and train him in their occult ways and send him forth to collect blood for their rituals. He is given a shadow cloak that allows him to materialize arcane weaponry from the beyond, can act as a "tentacle", and when thrown over people, causes them to disappear.
Only later does he learn that the Harvesters are evil and these ceremonies invoke demons who, diguised as human beings, are intent on ruling the earth. Keeping up his front as a gangster, Cross thereafter works to destroy the demons and prevent xenogenesis, the birth of the demon race.
Although always in costume, Cross keeps up a "mental guard" that makes him appear normally dressed to those around him, or make himself appear "invisible".
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