WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Savage Avengers #20 by Gerry Duggan, Patch Zircher, Java Tartaglia, and VC's Travis Lanham, on sale now.
The Marvel Universe has never been short on terrifying villains, and the Savage Avengers have been on the hunt for one of the worst of all time. The ancient, evil sorcerer Kulan Gath has been amassing power in the modern era. Thankfully, Doctor Strange has put together his own team of brutal heroes to handle the threat head on. Still, Kulan Gath is no slouch by any stretch, having been around for thousands of years. In that time, the villain has not only empowered himself, but his followers as well, and one in particular has just come back from the most gruesome death imaginable.
When the Savage Avengers split their forces a few months ago, it was in an effort to attack Kulan Gath on multiple fronts. While half of the team took to Bruges in order to wrest an ancient artifact from the hands of the ancient Asgardian dragon Sadurang, the rest of the team made their way to Central America to dispose of the drug cartels that Kulan Gath had wormed his dark tendrils into. The latter team was able to overpower Kulan Gath's forces, even his strongest lieutenant, the Priest of Sickles. In fact, the heroes put the Sickle Priest through one of the most brutal defeats of all time by running him through an unfortunately placed wood chipper. It might seem like the kind of end that no one could ever hope to recover from, but Kulan Gath has just proven that death, no matter how gruesome, is not the end for those as well-versed in the dark arts as he has proven to be.
First introduced in 2019's Savage Avengers #1 by Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato Jr., the Sickle Priest was originally Johan Richter, a Nazi fighter pilot. When his plane was shot down over the Savage Land, Johan fought his way through treacherous jungles before arriving at the City of Sickles, which was then under the control of Kulan Gath. The ancient sorcerer had no knowledge of the Second World War that had engulfed the rest of the world, but after perusing Johan's mind, he knew that he had found a suitably evil subject.
Kulan Gath bestowed Johan with supernatural abilities and inducted him into his cult that was working to summon the Marrow God, Jhoatun Lau. During the course of his servitude, the Sickle Priest brutally murdered Doctor Voodoo as a sacrifice to the dark god. Now seems that the Priest of Sickles has been given yet another chance to bring his brand of horror to the world.
It doesn't take much effort for Kulan Gath to reform Johan's body from what little remained of him, though the newly resurrected Sickle Priest is very much worse for the wear. Now bearing the deep scars of his horrific demise, it appears that Richter isn't especially thrilled about his new station in life.
Although the Priest of Sickles is a dutiful servant to his dark master, the constant bloodshed around him may have worn his resolve a little thin. With any luck, the Savage Avengers will be able to quickly deal with their reanimated enemy before he has a chance to enact his vengeance upon them.