Image Comics has produced some hard-edged characters who push the antihero title to new levels. One such character is Chapel, a mercenary and member of the government superhero group Youngblood, who was created by Rob Liefeld in Youngblood #1 (April 1992).

Bruce Stinson, aka Chapel, is a black ops soldier-turned-mercenary who specialized in torture. He joined Youngblood and was pumped with chemicals that give him superhuman abilities. What he didn’t know was that a strain of HIV was included in those chemicals that his superiors could activate if Chapel disobeyed them.

He was ordered to kill Al Simmons, a fellow mercenary that Chapel had worked with on Operation Knightstrike. Simmons was suspected of being a spy, hence the order to kill him, but when he died, he went to hell and became the vigilante Spawn.

Bruce’s situation was precarious with Jason Wynn, one of his bosses and the person that ordered Chapel to kill Al. When Bruce refused to engage in a mission that Jason had ordered, Jason sought old enemy Giger to kill him. The attempt was unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Spawn’s memory eventually returned and he realized that Chapel was the one who killed him. Seeking revenge, Spawn confronted Chapel and disfigured his face, using the skull makeup that Chapel wore. After being disfigured, he had a skull grafted onto the bone where his skin had been removed.

He left Youngblood and followed Spawn to learn how he had been resurrected. Once he learned about the supernatural warriors, Hellspawn, Chapel committed suicide to join their ranks. Instead of becoming a Hellspawn, he was resurrected as Lord Chapel, a horseman of apocalypse serving Calcifer. He was able to separate himself from the creature he had become and teamed with Spawn to take down Lord Chapel.