Brother Blood
24 years ago - Sebastian Blood is born to members of Trigon's Blood Cult.
10 years ago - 14-year-old Sebastian Blood assists in the rise of Trigon, but escapes the battle before his fall.
4 years ago - 20-year-old Sebastian Blood uses the power upset in hell to move against his predecessor, usurping the role of Brother Blood.
3 years ago - 21-year-old Sebastian Blood magically grows a new body for Raven, taking Trigon's power for himself. He is stopped by the Titans.
Certain characters manage to become iconic simply because they serve a very specific utility. There are other cultist figures in DC, but Brother Blood is perhaps the core character to fit this archetype. Originally, while he had his share of tech-based powers, his main thing was his ability to inspire fanatical devotion in his followers (this sort of thing was more topical at the time. Temple of Doom would come out two years later.) Later appearances would put more focus on his cult's cool-looking eldrtich blood magic. We really only use the character to build up one major plot point, but we're going to get a little bit more use out of the cult itself.
Brother Blood's Comic HistoryBrother Blood appeared for the first time in New Teen Titans #21 in 1982. This was the height of the success and popularity of the New Teen Titans, but that often meant that the long-running soap-opera drama was really the star of the show, so the book just needed bad guys that were functional enough to drive the story forward while our teen heroes angst menacingly at each other.
For the story that he appeared in, Brother Blood was just that; functional. He was the head of a cult that had led to the death of an old girlfriend of Cyborgs, which the Titans had to infiltrate. He served as a competent main antagonist for that plotline. He made a few more appearances here and there, including being tied to HIVE in the animated series. Perhaps his highest profile return was in one of the opening arcs of the early 2000's Geoff John's series that introduced a new, younger Brother Blood who performed the ritual that brought back Raven in a younger body to rejoin the Titans. |
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Our Brother Blood StoryThe real utility for including Brother Blood seems insanely obvious to me, so much so that I hesitate to write it for fear that it must OBVIOUSLY have already been said in continuity and I must have just missed it somehow; The main nemesis of the Teen Titans is a powerful archdemon. The Blood Cult should be worshipers of Trigon, right? It just makes so much sense. As far as I can tell, though... they've always been separate entities. So for our purposes, we're making the Blood Cult dedicated to Trigon, allowing us to use them as manifestations of his powers on Earth, which also neatly ties Raven to the cult, which explains why they crafted a body for her.
Post New-52, Brother Blood made some appearances in the short-lived series Ravagers, but his most noteworthy appearances were in Animal Man. Here, Sebastian Blood is depicted as having literal, physical control over all blood, which makes him a viable antagonist for Animal Man as he seeks to control 'the Red'. This is actually a really interesting spin on these characters, and might be a good route to pursue with them in the future. |