During the fall of Marvel Television, the company managed to squeak out a single-season adaptation of the character Daimon Hellstrom, also known as the Son of Satan. Titled simply Helstrom, the live-action series took several liberties in bringing its characters to life. Jeph Loeb and the folks at Marvel Television took steps to ensure Daimon and his sister Satana, renamed here as Ana Helstrom, would come off as more grounded and a little less fantastical. Roy Thomas, who co-created the characters back in 1973, revealed in a recent interview with ComicBook.com that he took issue with the changes to his work.
As he bluntly states, Thomas feels the creatives should have leaned more on the source material:
They should’ve followed the comic books. Somebody doing the series should’ve read the comic book. Maybe they could’ve made a good series out of that. They could have even left the extra ‘L.
Thomas went on to expand his frustrations to other live-action adaptations, citing the successful live-action Incredible Hulk series as another example of changing too much from the source material:
I mean, the guy who did the Hulk show, he just buries the Hulk various times. He thought, ‘Oh, I paid no attention to that comic book. I went to things like Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ And gee, obviously Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could never have been smart enough to think of something like that. These guys have to think they’re reinventing the wheel every time they do something in order to justify their enormous salaries, I suppose.
With Marvel Television having closed its doors last year, a renewal for the series seemed unlikely from the start. Unfortunately, those hoping for a second season were upset to receive official confirmation that the series would not be returning last December.
If you’ve yet to check out the Helstrom siblings, you can catch Helstrom in it’s entirety on Hulu.
Source: Comic Book
