Ouroboros

Ouroboros Kevin Nestor was already a monster before anything supernatural moved into his body. That's worth remembering with this one, because once he starts talking about gods, rebirth, and giving forgotten people a better life, he makes it sound like he has some higher purpose. We watched what he was doing before he had that speech ready. In Hellchild: The Unholy, he targets people he expects nobody to miss. He buys a homeless man food, attacks him, and brings him back to a place where other people are already tied up waiting. These aren't enemies in some ancient war. They're people he can overpower. The blood and the sacrifices are supposed to help him bring back Samuel Diamond, a sorcerer whose obsession with reptiles survived his original body. Diamond's history comes through the people involved in this mess, and they don't exactly give neutral accounts of each other. Jezebel describes him using human sacrifices and a magically prepared venom mixture to change himself. Diamond later describes discovering the writings of banished gods and trying to bring Glycon into the world through his own flesh. Either way, this isn't a case of somebody getting bitten by the wrong snake. He was deliberately trying to make himself a vessel. Angelica kills Nestor before that plan appears to be finished. She tears him apart, breaks his neck, and throws him out a window. He lands next to the broken ritual bowl. That should be the end of the job she was hired to do. Instead, the thing she was supposed to prevent gets a body. The green presence enters Nestor's corpse, and he gets up changed. When he speaks with Diamond, the distinction between worshipper and god starts collapsing. Later he identifies Nestor, Diamond, and the Cold Ones as being together inside him. Ouroboros is the name he gives that combined identity. I wouldn't treat that as proof that every god he mentions has physically arrived, though. The later ritual still matters because bringing Glycon through is something he hasn't accomplished. One of the more interesting moments is with Lotus, his giant snake. Angelica has badly injured it, and Nestor is genuinely upset when it finds him. He calls it his loyal friend. He can recognize suffering when it belongs to something he cares about. That doesn't mean he's learned to care about everybody else. He starts gathering monsters and talking about the people humanity ignores. There is real hostility in the city for him to exploit. We see police telling nonhumans they have no rights, and we see people frightened of the supernatural. Ouroboros turns that tension into an argument for his own rule. He offers Angelica a place beside him and presents transformation as a gift for the people he previously victimized. Then somebody tells him no. One of those people doesn't want the eternity he's offering. Ouroboros tears his head off. There goes the generous new god who was supposedly making amends. The offer was only generous as long as everyone accepted that he got to decide what happened to them. His body makes stopping him difficult. He attacks with claws and a long tongue, communicates inside Angelica's head, and regenerates after damage that should leave nothing functional. Jezebel cuts him apart during the attempted ritual, and he still comes back. Beating him once isn't enough if everybody stands around waiting for him to finish rebuilding himself. Angelica finally turns his victims against him while she's tearing him apart again. She points out that he hasn't stopped being the man who tortured them. He's changed their bodies and given himself a grander name, but they're still being used. They swarm him before he can regenerate, and the resulting destruction ends the fight. Afterward, Jezebel explicitly confirms that Nestor is dead and Diamond is gone. That's what makes Ouroboros work for me. The snake imagery and the grotesque regeneration are great, but the actual character is uglier than the design. He wants credit for rescuing people from a miserable life while taking away their right to choose anything about the next one. Give Kevin Nestor a second life and a god's voice, and he still thinks other people's bodies belong to him. Spoilers for Hellchild: The Unholy #1–5.