Who are the villains of Marvel Comics’ Blood Hunt? Meet the Bloodcoven

A coven of vampires, clouded in mystery, are at the head of what will be one of the biggest supernatural events in Marvel history.

They don’t really look like vamps…

Looks can be deceiving, and in this case they most definitely are, as the just-revealed Bloodcoven is poised to be a global threat to the Marvel Universe. That will come by way of the Blood Hunt, and the “cursed eternal night”. Coming to light as a result of that worldwide darkness, the Bloodcoven is made up of some of the most wicked looking bloodsuckers to ever curse the pages of a Marvel comic.

The ‘team’ includes a roster of completely new characters, headed up by Dracula himself. Well, actually the oddly-named Bloodstorm One is a clone of Drac, and that was one created by Hydra. Whether the evil organization plays any role in the actual Blood Hunt event is still unclear, but their creation most definitely does.

“I knew going in that vampires weren’t bad enough. If the children of the night were going up against the Avengers, let alone the other heroes of the world, bigger guns were required,” MacKay explained. “Hence the Bloodcoven—supervampires, fed on the blood of superhumans that follow different vampiric philosophies, subsisting not only on blood but pain, or magic, or thoughts, or even ghosts! I threw together a list of names and some thoughts about powers, but it was Pepe who really brought these characters to (un)life, creating an extremely gnarly set of predators!”

Marvel Comics press release

Along with collective reveal of the villains making their debut with Blood Hunt, we’ve also got some interesting takes on each, that come straight from artist Pepe Larraz. Scroll down to check out what the Blood Hunt penciler put into each one, and what he was shooting for with these creeps’ individual looks.

As for Blood Hunt itself, look for that to erupt in Blood Hunt #1 (of 5), landing on the racks this May the 1st.

Cruel

“This one was pretty straightforward, a character wrapped in razor wire by his own will is terrifying enough, so that is what I did. I added the cloud of wires at his feet and neck, always moving like some kind of metal gorgon.”

Smoke Eater

“The idea is that he inhales ghosts to acquire their strength in combat, so I made a physical representation of that. He becomes the unification of multiple beings, therefore the multiple limbs, which makes his silhouette pretty recognizable in battle scenes, and makes him one of the heavy hitters of the team. The idea is that he shows all the eyes of the ghosts on his forehead. I have a thing with eyes–on my designs, I either put none or too many!”

Damascene

“My initial idea was to make them bi-dimensional, like a paper sheet that will cut you when you try to grab it, but it was very difficult to convey that idea in comics, without movement. So I did his body absolutely geometrical to remark the sharpness of the body. Again, I decided to put no face. Expressionless beings are more scary, in my opinion.”

Megrim

“Probably the most vampire-looking of the litter. I hid her face on red cloth but my idea is that the cloth was always drenched in blood. The skirt’s folds make shapes like faces screaming of pain. Everything is super intense with her. She must be unbearable.”

Unusual

“The initial idea by Jed was to make him a collage of old engravings, always changing, like some kind of sinister Max Ernst picture in movement, but that would present a copyright issue so I came up with a weird idea. I started with a bunch of parallel lines and used a liquify tool from Clip Studio to make shapes with those lines, and finally adapted these shapes to a human silhouette. It’s probably the weirdest and fastest design I’ve even done.”

Bloodstorm One

“I gave him a lot of thought because I didn’t want to do a vampire super hero, but a true monster, who is scary enough that he’s even scared of himself. He hides his true nature under a perfect human shell, like some kind of Michelangelo’s David which is rotten inside, twisted, homicidal. The worst monster of all is the one who wants to look as the perfect human. The armor is an homage to Vlad Tepes’ armor from Coppola’s Dracula film, which seemed to me like a proper reference.”