Hellverine, Vol. 1: Lost Highways

Hellverine by Benjamin Percy

by Benjamin Percy, Raffaele Ienco (Illustrator)

When you combine the vengeance and fire of Ghost Rider with the steel and savagery of Wolverine, you get...HELLVERINE, now in his very own ongoing series!

The demon Bagra-Ghul possessed Wolverine, turning him into a killing machine — but Logan is no stranger to caging the beast within his soul, and the demon learned his heroic ways. Now it’s resurrected Logan’s son, Akihiro, and the two must learn to live as one — as the Hellverine! But they can’t do it alone. Enter: Doctor Strange! But Daken will discover his rebirth was only part of a larger, diabolical story. What danger lurks at his former gravesite, and is there anything Hellverine can do to stop it? What does Bagra-Ghul want with him? And how is the demon linked to Mephisto? As the answers are revealed, the Hellverine is about to be put through hell — but you can bet he’ll come out swinging!

COLLECTING: Hellverine (2024B) 1-5

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Horror, Superheroes

120 pages, Paperback

Published August 19, 2025

About the author

Benjamin Percy is the author of seven novels -- most recently The Sky Vault (William Morrow) -- three short fiction collections, and a book of essays, Thrill Me, that is widely taught in creative writing classrooms. He writes Wolverine, X-Force, and Ghost Rider for Marvel Comics. His fiction and nonfiction have been published in Esquire (where he is a contributing editor), GQ, Time, Men's Journal, Outside, the Wall Street Journal, Tin House, and the Paris Review. His honors include an NEA fellowship, the Whiting Writer's Award, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, the iHeart Radio Award for Best Scripted Podcast, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics.

Reviews

[Khurram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this new Hellverine series. I was never a big fan of Draken, one of the things I really like about this series is Hellverine differentiating himself between Draken and Akihiro. There is a vibe of the original Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze's) first possession to this story, and the Hellverine will need to make his own decisions.

Born Akihiro, then forced to become Draken (his darkest self motivated by revenge), now made into the demonic possessed Hellverine. Is he back to being a puppet in hell's plan? He must follow a path of pain to find out.

I think this book outdoes the original Ghost Rider. One of the things that made Johnny Blaze so popular was his toughness and resilience. Akihiro has that in spades. The Hellverine character suits him but will it lead him to damnation or redemption?

Another thing I like is that Akihiro/Draken has kept his intelligence. I always thought he was smarter than Logan. as a bad guy that was an annoying trait to have as he was always one step ahead. This has served him well so far, but where will it lead him? The book finishes with a variant cover gallery.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.1 stars

I didn’t think much of the story, or care much for the (entirely unnecessary) mashup character for that matter, but the artwork was pretty good.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25
A good book. Overlooked, IMO. Daken is an interesting character when done well. Don't make him too much of a good guy, or he becomes a Wolverine clone. This newer direction is an interesting way to make him a little more distinct in a way that weaves his troubled past and inner demons into the mix.

[Mario V · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good! I’m glad they’ve given this character an ongoing series.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now revived and inhabited by the demon Bagra-ghul, Daken sets off across the world to try and right some wrongs, like a Ghost Rider with claws. But Mephisto's got an agenda for mutants, and only the Hellverine can stop him.

Percy's Wolverine work has got to be some of the strongest for the character in decades, and I'm glad to see it extending to Daken too. Hellverine is a silly concept, but Percy gives Daken a great plot, a whistlestop tour of all of his greatest failures, twisted by Mephisto's plans. If you want to see Daken stabbing demons, this is the book for you.

The issue I had with this is the artwork. Raffaelle Ienco's work on Darth Vader has been stellar, but I think it works better over there because Vader's expressionless and stiff on purpose. Some of Ienco's art here captures that same expressionless stiffness, but for the wrong reasons. Daken should be shocked when he's face to face with demonic versions of himself or his mom, not just...kind of stand there. There's a lack of dynamism to his art that detracts from the story at times, which is a shame.

Great plot, clever story hook, kinda flat artwork. I wanted to rank this higher, but the art definitely draws it back for me.

[Alex Sarll]

I think this may be the only case where a writer got to keep handling the same character uninterrupted by the transition from Krakoa to the 'exciting' new era of X-books, Marvel in their wisdom having decided that 'what kind of post-human society might be possible if mutants tried doing something more productive than hitting each other?' was exhausted as a theme, while 'what if Wolverine but also Ghost Rider?' still had legs. Now, in fairness, Benjamin Percy was perhaps the most consistent writer Krakoa had, there from start to end and mostly producing good, sometimes great work. But that only throws the change of editorial regime into further question, because this is piss-poor. True, the art doesn't help, oscillating between stilted, ghoulish and campy, and sometimes more than one at once; I never like to see a cute fluffy animal suffer, but when I can't be entirely sure what sort of animal it was supposed to be, I'm left juggling distress, bafflement and exasperation. The writing, though...dear gods, the writing. Logan's son Akihiro, the mutant formerly known as Daken, wanders the world, spelling out every last detail of his backstory in plodding internal monologue, yet carefully omitting any trace of the bit where he used to be fun (I do love a borderline psychotic bisexual, not that you'd know he was if this was the first time you read him). Any possibility of subtext is instead spelled out in gory detail and purple prose that would have been felt A Bit Much even in the early days of Vertigo, as the composite Hellverine finds people doing awful things, and then does awful but more sculptural things to them – which it has the temerity to call Lament Configurations! Some weaponised backstory ensues, Doctor Strange turns up looking drunk, Mephisto gets played like even more of an amateur than when he bought Spider-Man's marriage, and we end with a tease of, and I'm afraid I'm quite serious here, Hell Hulk. Except not a smart version like Immortal Hulk deployed, just another fundamentally lazy mash-up further supporting the impression that the House of Ideas is running pretty short of them lately. Lamentable comicturation, more like.

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun read and we finally focus on Daken and how he feels about the whole change and following his places in the past that have mattered to him and understanding the mystery of that basically. First being north pole where he was resurrected and then going to Japan where he was born and what happened there, there is a cool fight there with a demonic thing and its awesome to see Daken confront these horrors and move on and then finally going to Genosha and what he sees there plus confronting Mephisto was awesome!

I like how it drops all these hints about Mephisto controlling Daken and all and then how he ultimately feels like he will lose but then seeing how Daken has learnt from Dr Strange (whose in the first part of the book and I liked his panels of appearance and how he helped Daken) and then Daken vs Mephisto and what it ends in.. giving our hero that big moment!

I like how it showed the past of Daken and revisiting those places and allowing him to move on and also address the guy who created whats inside him and gives him a mission statement and Percy shines in it showing this story and next up: HELL HULK! Its gonna get even more nuts now!!

[Scarred Wizard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick fun read! always the case with all Percy's comics, which i really love. this one is super weird & super cool at the same time. i don't know. but i enjoyed most of Benjamin Percy's titles. the horror element are still there, top notch! i like the artwork on Hellverine: Resurrection better. this one just ok. nothing ugly but nothing beautiful though. colors are bland. not a big fan.

i decided to pick this up cause i really love the original run. bad-ass! while this volume can't beat that, i will be still continuing my purchase for the next volume. big fan of you, Benjamin Percy. hoping for the next volume would be better than this

Rating: 7.5/10

[Joey Nardinelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a VERY generous three star rating. If there’s been one character I’ve cared next to nothing about, it’s Mephisto, and having him be the bad guy this run builds towards + the climax being generally very weak just left me really baffled by the overall trajectory here. The idea of Akihiro being possessed by a demon and resurrected is certainly itself interesting, but he gets zero time to interact with any characters he has any meaningful history with and therefore a chunk of the writing is just internal narrative. I like the idea of this being folded into the current or most recent run of Hulk, since that’s also steeped in the supernatural and demonic, so maybe this being subsumed by a stronger run will yield more compelling results overall? I’ll also admit to a degree of Wolverine fatigue since at least five are now running around in the Marvel comic universe.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

All this to separate a character from his messy, messy past...
Not Daken...
Not Akihiro...

Hellverine, in trying to settle this new life, learns that all of their past is being used as a weapon by Mephisto. Mephisto is developing a new fixation on mutants and fostering the hate that the world has been developing towards them after Krakoa. If Hellverine can get control of the demon Bagra-gul, he could be a new 'seeker of vengeance' (Ghost Rider-esque)
====
Bonus: So, Mephisto is the cause of all the MU hate towards mutants now?
Bonus Bonus: Project Hellfire WAS a horrible idea, but may now have promise...

[Tyler Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I said it last time and my sentiment still stands this is sick as hell. A Wolverine merged with a spirit of vengeance! Metal as hell. The story this time goes much deeper into this being Daken, Wolverine’s murdered son, and how he balances his new unwanted roommate. Looking forward to what weird hell stuff they do after this.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ridiculous premise leads to a ridiculously fun comic much in the same vein as the Hulk-Wolverine book "Weapon H." Best of all, this is a character driven book with great art that leans into Daken's fascinating history in a way that rewards you if you know it, but doesn't penalize you if you don't. It's a real fun, horror superhero-horror mashup.

[libreroaming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I never found Daken to be interesting, this mashup with a Ghost Rider-esque demon contract can only improve him. I give it props for being extra gory in its murder inventiveness. And even if the story is standard, it had potential to go places with Daken finally claiming the demon at the end of this volume. Pity it was canceled before it could flourish.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was kind of surprised by how good this was. In the greater scheme of things Hellverine-related, this was actually a fairly decent story to get things rolling. And the art isn't bad, either. We'll see if Percy can keep this up...

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool as f**k

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[Patrick Book · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the best art is inspired by a clumsy portmanteau, right?

[Lawrence Kapture · Rating 1 out of 5]

All style. What substance there was, was a thorough cliche. Short read but boring.