Eric Payne (Earth-616)

History

Eric Simon Payne was a former U.S. Marine and later soldier of fortune and one time member of a demon cult who turned on the cult after obtaining the mystical Shadow Cloak and unlocking his own latent psychic abilities.

Payne has served in the Vietnam War, he has served the mob, and he used to serve the Cult of Harvester of Eyes. Each time his service was rewarded with betrayal. He was sick of secret motives and unquestioned obedience. He had already lost his wife, his innocence, and his idealism, before meeting with the Defenders.^[2] He hooked up with the Defenders while battling Vera Gemini^[2] and eventually joined their ranks on a full time basis during their war with the Six-Fingered Hand.

Eric was, however, plagued by mental instability and guilt over his past actions and, after turning himself in for crimes committed during his time as a mercenary, eventually ended up in an asylum. He discovered a shard of the Nexus of All Realities and briefly became involved with the Man-Thing and with the woman named Sorrow (who became his partner and lover for a time).

The Initiative

After the Civil War, he was listed by Tony Stark as a potential recruit for the Initiative,^[3] and was willing to join a new team of Defenders headed by Nighthawk. However, when Nighthawk suggested it to Initiative boss Tony Stark, Stark declined the offer. Instead, Eric became a member of the Hawaiian Initiative team, the Point Men, serving the team as their "Monster Hunter."

During the Skrull Invasion, when the new 3-D Man arrived in Hawaii, Devil-Slayer informed him that he had sensed portents of doom all day. When 3-D Man identified team member Magnitude as a Skrull impostor, the Skrull attacked and severely wounded the other Point Men, Star Sign and Paydirt. The Skrull was killed, and Devil-Slayer used his Shadow Cloak to teleport Delroy to Camp Hammond before taking Star Sign and Paydirt to a hospital. Devil-Slayer later appeared in Utah with the cyborg Jocasta to aid 3-D Man and the Skrull Kill Krew.

Revengers

He joined Wonder Man's Revengers and successfully attacked the Avengers Mansion.^[4] He was later in the day defeated by the Avengers and New Avengers combined forces, and while being interrogated, explain his participation by claiming that he had seen countless realities, and the wish of being among the winners in a world without Avengers.^[5]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

• Telepathy:
  • Telepathic camouflage
  • Psi-link: Allowing him to decipher languages.
  • Hallucinations
  • Mental Probe
• Psychokinesis: Telekinetic abilities included levitation and moving objects.
• Sixth Sense

Abilities

• Intimidation, Military, Occult Lore, Guns, Weaponsmaster, Marksman
• Fencing: Devil-Slater has used swords in combat, and seems to be a competent swordsman ^[6]

Strength level

Peak Human

Weaknesses

• Mental Illusion can only make things look normal.
• Telepathy is very limited with non-English-speaking targets.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• Shadow Cloak: With the Shadow Cloak Payne could teleport to other dimensions and draw different weapons from across the ages.
  • Dimension Travel
  • Teleportation
  • Summoning

Limitation: Warp cannot affect more than 1,000 pounds.

Weapons

Various medieval weapons

Notes

• Devil-Slayer was created by Rich Buckler, who had created a similar character in Demon Hunter (1975) for Atlas/Seaboard Comics and Bloodwing for his magazine Galaxia in 1980. Most of his early appearances and characterization were written by David Kraft.
• For a time, Devil-Slayer operated as a member of the Defenders.
• Devil-Slayer received an entry in the original Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #3, and in the All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #3. (2006)
  

Trivia

• Devil-Slayer is no longer considered one of the 'do-gooders', he is seemingly considered a criminal.

Links and References

• 44 Appearances of Eric Payne (Earth-616)
• 4 Minor Appearances of Eric Payne (Earth-616)
• Media Eric Payne (Earth-616) was Mentioned in
• 20 Images featuring Eric Payne (Earth-616)
• 1 Quotations by or about Eric Payne (Earth-616)
• Character Gallery: Eric Payne (Earth-616) 
• http://home.flash.net/~jeanneb/d.html
• His profile in the Appendix to the Marvel Handbook

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• Search this site for: Devil-Slayer · Eric Payne (Earth-616)

Footnotes