LUCIFER'S SIX
HISTORY
Lucifer's Six are a group of super-powered teenagers gathered together by occultist Lucas Ferguson, better known as Father Lucifer. After his failure to garner demonic power for himself using the child Damien, Lucifer went underground to rebuild his power base. Eventually Lucifer struck a new bargain with the demon Mellikon which involved the corruption of six innocent souls. Father Lucifer went out and either kidnapped or persuaded the six children to come with him. Lucifer had deliberately chosen adolescents who had all recently developed metahuman powers, powers which often resulted in them being ostracized by their peers. This made it very easy for Father Lucifer to convince the children to join him. Lucifer eventually persuaded the children to give their souls to Mellikon, actions which set them all on a path of pure evil.
Father Lucifer and his new group first came to the attention of the authorities when they killed the parents and grandmother of William Night, the oldest of Lucifer's Six, who calls himself Reaper. Lucifer also planned to sacrifice Reaper's younger brother and sister but they were stopped by the heroes Tarantula and Headlong, who had come to Vancouver seeking their teammate Firestrike: Reaper's younger brother, David. Tarantula and Headlong rescued Reaper's sister Angela but were unable to stop Father Lucifer from performing a ritual that allowed the demon Mellikon to come to Earth by possessing Firestrike's body. Father Lucifer, Mellikon, and Lucifer's Six all escaped before the heroes could stop them.
The group next appeared in New York City where Father Lucifer and Mellikon were recruiting gang members as followers and giving them super-powers by feeding them a mystic potion Father Lucifer had devised which he called the Demon Drug. The scheme eventually brought them to the attention of Justice Inc. who were able to stop the group's production of the demon drug. Father Lucifer and his protégés were able to escape capture when he double-crossed Mellikon and used a magic ritual to steal much of the demon's power for himself. The weakened Mellikon fled the body of Firestrike and slinked back to Hell while Lucifer used his newly acquired power to escape with the Six.
Father Lucifer and the Six next appeared in Empire City, apparently planning on tapping some of the latent mystic energy that was present there. The plans changed when Father Lucifer learned that his long-lost child Damien, now grown up, was in Empire City. Lucifer had Damien kidnapped and then attempted to persuade his son to rejoin him and fulfill his destiny. Meanwhile, Damien's teammates in the Guardians tracked down where Lucifer and the Six were. By the time the battle was finished the Six were in custody, Damien had been regressed to infancy, and Father Lucifer had been banished to Hell by a vengeful Mellikon. Due to their age the Six were placed in psychiatric care in the hopes of countering Father Lucifer's programming.
The Six did not remain in custody for long. Reaper soon used his powers to escape and then freed the others from the various group homes and psychiatric facilities they had been placed in. The first thing they tried to do was avenge themselves on the Guardians. At this time, however, the Guardians were disbanded so the Six settled on trying to kill the team's former leader, Paladin, and take the baby Damien, whom Paladin had adopted. Mind-controlling the armored villain Harrier, the Six attempted to kill Paladin, but the intervention of his teammate Flashback resulted in his survival, and in sending the baby Damien into the far future, where he would be raised and would eventually return to the present as the Harbinger.
After their failure, the Six went into hiding until the events of Day of Judgment, when Father Lucifer escaped his imprisonment in Hell. Lucifer tracked down the Six and then took them to Superior City, where he hoped to establish a new power base. Lucifer and the Six began killing the leaders of various organized crime groups in the city, planning on using the chaos to take control of the criminal underworld. Their plan again attracted the attention of a team of heroes, this time the new Enforcers of Justice. Their presence also attracted the attention of another in the city, a man named Malachi, the self-proclaimed Prophet of Darkness. Malachi was the other son of Father Lucifer, Damien's twin brother, who Lucifer had attempted to kill when he was still a child. Malachi tracked down the Six and persuaded them to leave Father Lucifer and join him. Malachi then confronted Lucifer and killed him. By the time the Enforcers located the hideout, Malachi and the Six had disappeared.