Cover Date: October 1993; Publication Date: August 1993
In a deserted alley in New York City, Spider-Man is ambushed by an evil mutant called the Paralyzer, who was just passing by and decided to attack the hero. Spider-Man recovers after the villain has left and returns home, depressed at the state of his life. He's welcomed by the Dwarf, who is there to offer him a page of the Darkhold.
Later, Ghost Rider and John Blaze are riding through the city streets when they are caught in a giant web that has also trapped several other people. A demonic creature wearing a ripped Spider-Man costume appears, calling himself Spider-X, and the Spirits of Vengeance assume that Spider-Man has become corrupted by the Darkhold and is now killing criminals. Ghost Rider frees himself from Spider-X's web, but Blaze remains trapped. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, two of the Darkhold Redeemers (Victoria Montesi and Jinx) sense the use of a Darkhold page in New York City and prepare to leave. Blaze is able to retrieve his shotgun and he blasts Spider-X away long enough for Ghost Rider to free him. Blaze and Ghost Rider fight with Spider-X over his victims, and Ghost Rider attempts to give the creature his Penance Stare. Spider-X breaks free and escapes, leaving the two heroes to free the people caught in the web.
Meanwhile, the Nightstalkers are in New York to meet with a client that had written them a letter about rising crime rates being attributed to the occult. They go to visit the letter writer, Brian Kornfeld, and meet the young man's mother. She tells them that Brian idolizes superheroes, and when she was brutally mugged last month he took it personally that none of the heroes helped her. She shows him a picture of Brian, who is wearing a Spider-Man costume. Suddenly, Spider-X breaks through the window, carrying a dead man wrapped in webbing. He kidnaps Mrs. Kornfeld and the Nightstalkers give chase through the city. Spider-X is blasted by Frank Drake into an electronics store, where he hears a news report about the Paralyzer having taken control of a power station in the city. Spider-X escapes, and when the Nightstalkers recover Mrs. Kornfeld she tells them that the body the creature had with him was the man who had mugged her.
At Grand Central Station, Vicki Montesi and Jinx arrive in the city and immediately encounter Spider-X. He webs Jinx to a wall and carries Montesi up the side of a building, but the demon is stopped by Ghost Rider, who has finally caught up to his foe. Montesi falls, but is caught by Blaze, who also rescued Jinx. They follow Spider-X through the city, but the creature again escapes them.
Morbius, the living vampire, sees Spider-X swinging through the city and flies to investigate, but is stopped by Spider-Man, who wants to apprehend Morbius. Spider-Man thinks about the strange dwarf in his apartment and how upset he was that the hero wouldn't take his envelope, saying he would "just have to find another Spider-Man". The fight between Morbius and Spider-Man takes them toward the power station, where they find another web with victims trapped inside it. Spider-X attacks them both, but he is stopped by the assembled Midnight Sons. Inside the power planet, Paralyzer finishes his work and recreates the energy being Zzzax, who he sends to fight the heroes. Morbius hypnotizes Spider-X into attacking Zzzax, and with the help of the Midnight Sons and Spider-Man the electrical monster is destroyed, killing Spider-X in the process. Spider-Man attempts to capture Morbius, but is held back by Hannibal King while Morbius escapes. The Paralyzer, though, gives up when he sees Spider-Man and the Midnight Sons surrounding him. Spider-Man returns home to his wife, Mary Jane, and he relaxes, comforted by the thought that there are heroes like the Midnight Sons out there to fight the beings outside his ability to defeat.
THE ROADMAP
Ghost Rider and John Blaze last appeared in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 13. Ghost Rider appears next in the back-up story in Ghost Rider (1990) Annual # 1 and Blaze appears next in Gun Runner # 1.
Ghost Rider and Blaze at first mistake Spider-X for the spider-demon Shelob, whom they fought and defeated in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 11.
Blade was possessed by the Darkhold and became Switchblade during the "Midnight Massacre" crossover, which ran through Nightstalkers (1992) # 10, Ghost Rider (1990) # 40, Darkhold: Pages From the Book of Sins (1992) # 11, Morbius: The Living Vampire (1992) # 12, and Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 13.
CHAIN REACTION
The quarterly Midnight Sons anthology series does its first full-length story, which has a great premise that falls down in the execution.
In the first two issues of this series, the book was split up with individual stories that spotlighted the various Midnight Sons characters. So this, a story that spanned the full 64 page issue, was a welcome break from the established formula. Of course, the anthology format was still used to break the story into individual chapters for each group of characters, there was just a common through-line that allowed everything to connect together at the end. It's a well-established storytelling device for comics, starting all the way back in the Golden Age with the original Justice Society of America series.
"Sins of Spider-X" has a fantastic hook, namely "what if Spider-Man became corrupted by the Darkhold?". It takes Marvel's most traditional superhero and throws him into the middle of the horror corner of the Marvel Universe, and it immediately makes you interested in what's happening. The mystery surrounding Spider-X is believable enough for the characters, even though the reader knows that there's no way Spider-Man has actually turned into a murderous demon. The point of the story isn't about what could happen to Spider-Man, it's about the mystery behind the new character.
Unfortunately, Mort Todd wasn't seasoned enough of a writer to take such a great premise and write an engaging story around it. Todd was an editor at the time for Marvel, and he'd established himself as a writer in the previous MSU issue. His plotting isn't the issue, he teases the mystery along nicely through each segment. The problem is his dialogue, which is incredibly cliched. The characters pontificate their way through everything, most egregiously during the Nightstalkers chapter. "You are the most sinful of all, Spider-X!" "Stay, beast! Now is time for recompense!" People just don't talk like that outside of Silver Age Marvel comics, and that's a problem for a story written in 1993.
Similarly, the artwork bounces around from the fantastic to the mediocre during each chapter transition. Todd himself handles the bookend pieces that focus on Spider-Man, and his work is extremely simplistic. I get the idea of having a non-horror artist handle Spider-Man's pages in order to contrast the difference between him and the Midnight Sons, but getting an actual traditional artist would have been much more preferable. The Spirits of Vengeance and Darkhold segments are the best looking, with Javier Saltares finally returning to draw Ghost Rider after two years away. He may not have Mark Texeira doing the finishes in this issue, but Saltares still draws a fantastic Ghost Rider and Blaze. The Darkhold chapter by Ken Meyer, Jr. is absolutely breathtaking to look at, but that's also why it sticks out like a sore thumb in the issue. Meyer's painted artwork is magnificent, and it makes the rest of the issue (outside of Saltares' pages) look inferior in comparison. Dougie Braithwaite, an artist I really liked for his work on the Punisher around this time, does a good job on his Morbius chapter before bailing five pages from the end. He's bailed out by Vince Giarrano, another jarring artistic transition from what's come before. The weakest art in the issue, outside of Todd's, comes from John Czop during the Nightstalkers chapter (seriously, the Nightstalkers had the worst segment by far). Czop just isn't in the same league as his contemporaries here, and it stands out in the complete opposite way from Meyers'.
I give this issue a lot of leeway due to it having such a killer concept behind it, I just wish the creators had been able to live up to it. Still, seeing Javier Saltares draw Ghost Rider again was, at the time, more than enough to justify picking this comic up.
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