Satanik ("Killing" in the original Italian edition -- see "Publishing History" below) is a terrifying and diabolical master criminal.  Totally without mercy, Satanik mostly goes after other criminals, usually to steal their loot or whatever they're after.  His real identity remains unknown.  No one knows who he is.  Satanik uses a special brand of flesh-like masks he designed to make himself look like any of his targets.  He also uses darts filled with Mjanico, the "green death", an Amazonian poison which kills its victims slowly and painfully. 
 
Satanik's only companion is his lover, the equally mysterious Dana, probably the only person in the world to know his secret identity.  Dana ably assists Satanik in his criminal endeavors. 
 
Satanik's nemesis is Inspector Mercier, a smart, relentless policeman who is always hot on his trail, but somehow loses every time.

A RARE SHOT OF SATANIK
WITHOUT HIS MASK

The Stories 

Publishing History

 
Satanik's literary ancestor was Fantômas, the brain-child of French writers Marcel Allain (1885-1970) and Pierre Souvestre (1874-1914). 
  
Fantômas was created in 1911 and appeared in a total of thirty-two volumes written by the two collaborators, then a subsequent eleven volumes written by Allain alone after Souvestre's death.  
 
Arch-criminal Fantômas is one of the most popular characters in the history of French pulp literature.  His adversaries are determined policeman Juve (who may be Fantômas' brother?) and young journalist Jerôme Fandor, who eventually falls in love with Fantômas' own daughter.  Another recurring character is the tragic figure of Fantômas' lover, Lady Beltham, who is constantly torn between her passion for the villain and her horror at his criminal schemes. 
 
The character and the monstrously complicated plots designed by Allain & Souvestre were greatly admired by the French surrealists. The  Fantômas novels were rich in gruesome scenes, such as: 
  
-- Fantômas sending an innocent man made-up to look like him to the guillotine (in "Fantômas" (1911)); 
 
-- Fantômas using gloves made of human skin to leave a deceased man's fingerprints on his victims (in "Le Mort qui Tue" [The Dead Man Who Kills] (1911)); 
 
-- Fantômas holding a King prisoner in a secret chamber under the Place de la Concorde in Paris (in "Un Roi Prisonnier de Fantômas" [A King Prisoner Of Fantomas] (1911)); 
 
-- Fantômas hijacking an entire subway train; 
 
-- Fantômas commandeering a hansom cab driven by a dead man to spread the plague through the streets of Paris (in "Le Fiacre de Nuit" [The Night Hansom Cab] (1911)); 
 
-- and even, on a more mundane level, Fantômas placing razor blades in all the shoes sold in a department store, and filling their perfume sprays with acid! 
 
The first Fantômas book cover, showing a contemplative masked man dressed in a dinner jacket and holding a dagger, boldly stepping over Paris, is so well known in France that it has almost become a cliché. Just as Sherlock Holmes became the archetypal modern detective, Fantômas became the archetypal modern arch-villain. 
 
Among his better-known (and even more horrific) literary descendents are the Italian super-villains Diabolik, Kriminal, Demoniak, Zakimort, Mister X, Sadik... and Satanik. 

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