Writers: Nick Spencer & Donny Cates; Artist: Szymon Kudranski; Letterer: Travis Lanham; Colorist: Szymon Kudranski; Editor: Nick Lowe; Assistant Editor: Kathleen Wisneski; Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski; Cover Artist: Rod Reis
While Doctor Strange is tortured in Mephisto's infernal casino, Wong and Bats the ghost dog go about assembling their team of Midnight Sons to go into Las Vegas. Wong gathers Blade, Elsa Bloodstone, Iron Fist, Moon Knight, Doctor Voodoo, and Man-Thing before picking up their last recruit. They find Johnny Blaze at a desert gas station, and he initially refuses to help them rescue Strange until Wong says that Mephisto has brought Hell to Earth. Later, at the destroyed Sanctum Sanctorum, Wong goes over the plan to rescue Strange with the team.
When they teleport into Las Vegas, they immediately begin fighting demons and are eventually attacked by the Avengers that have been transformed into Ghost Riders. Blade finds himself trapped under the possessed Thor's enchanted hammer, and only the intervention of the Scarlet Spider keeps the Midnight Sons from being overwhelmed. Wong and Bats, having left their team on their own, quickly discover that Doctor Strange has also been possessed by one of Mephisto's Ghost Riders.
When they teleport into Las Vegas, they immediately begin fighting demons and are eventually attacked by the Avengers that have been transformed into Ghost Riders. Blade finds himself trapped under the possessed Thor's enchanted hammer, and only the intervention of the Scarlet Spider keeps the Midnight Sons from being overwhelmed. Wong and Bats, having left their team on their own, quickly discover that Doctor Strange has also been possessed by one of Mephisto's Ghost Riders.
THE ROADMAP
"Damnation" was a crossover event in 2018. Other titles that featured tie-ins to the event were Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider, and Johnny Blaze: Ghost Rider. The event continues into Doctor Strange (2015) # 387, Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider # 15, Iron Fist # 78, and Doctor Strange: Damnation (2018) # 3.
Doctor Strange's transformation into a Ghost Rider is detailed in Doctor Strange (2015) # 386-387.
Doctor Strange's transformation into a Ghost Rider is detailed in Doctor Strange (2015) # 386-387.
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| You know, Strange IS due an ass kicking, isn't he? |
CHAIN REACTION
"Damnation" moves into a second chapter that unfortunately slows the event's momentum to a crawl.
Given that the whole first issue of this crossover event was nothing but pure setup of the Hell Las Vegas concept, taking the entirely of the second issue to gather up the hero team is absolutely a case of poor space management. From what I understand, "Damnation" was initially a 5 issue series that was truncated down to four, so perhaps that's why Cates and Spencer took so long setting things up. As it stands with just four issues in the main event, though, the pace of this issue is positively lackadaisical. Consider that the end of issue one already spelled out exactly who Wong was going to gather for his new Midnight Sons team, taking nine pages to do so in this issue was completely unnecessary. In hindsight, especially, since the only one of the group who actually factors into the plot other than characters to fill up panel space is Johnny Blaze. Other than a name and a caption description, which the characters get anyway, you don't need a two page introduction to people like Blade and Bloodstone.
It's then another six pages of exposition and introduction before the heroes arrive in Las Vegas, which again makes reading this comic a slog through a murky swamp. The battle in Vegas against the demons and possessed Avengers at least picks things up some, with a pretty great idea involving Blade and Thor's hammer. Even then, at the issue's conclusion, there's another character thrown at us, the Scarlet Spider. I believe wholeheartedly that this story began as just an arc of Cates' Doctor Strange series and only ballooned out to event status so it can have tie-ins, it's the only way I can justify in my head why Scarlet Spider and Iron Fist, of all characters, are involved (and Iron Fist's presence even gets called out in the dialogue itself, like it's saying "yeah, I know it doesn't make any sense").
In regards to the artwork, the series takes a huge step down from Rod Reis work in issue one to what Szymon Kudranski produces here. The characters look stiff and posed in extremely unnatural ways, even in relation to other characters and their placement in the panels. Look at the panels with Moon Knight's introduction, it doesn't convey at all the shift in personalities between Moon Knight and "Mr. Knight", it just looks like two different characters. Iron Fist is randomly backflipping through the air in the splash teleport page, it's like the characters have no spatial relation to one another. Add that to the soft finishes that makes the faces look slightly out of focus and this is a really ugly comic to look at. Kudranski does, however, do a good job with all the Ghost Rider material, particularly Blaze's introduction sequence and that spectacular cliffhanger page with Dr. Strange.
So far, "Damnation" is not impressing me and reads like the worst kind of event, one that took a simple story and expanded it more than it could contain. Somehow though, it simultaneously feels rushed and that not enough weight and time is being taken to build the stakes, so it's a really weird beast of a series so far. Can't say I recommend it.
Given that the whole first issue of this crossover event was nothing but pure setup of the Hell Las Vegas concept, taking the entirely of the second issue to gather up the hero team is absolutely a case of poor space management. From what I understand, "Damnation" was initially a 5 issue series that was truncated down to four, so perhaps that's why Cates and Spencer took so long setting things up. As it stands with just four issues in the main event, though, the pace of this issue is positively lackadaisical. Consider that the end of issue one already spelled out exactly who Wong was going to gather for his new Midnight Sons team, taking nine pages to do so in this issue was completely unnecessary. In hindsight, especially, since the only one of the group who actually factors into the plot other than characters to fill up panel space is Johnny Blaze. Other than a name and a caption description, which the characters get anyway, you don't need a two page introduction to people like Blade and Bloodstone.
It's then another six pages of exposition and introduction before the heroes arrive in Las Vegas, which again makes reading this comic a slog through a murky swamp. The battle in Vegas against the demons and possessed Avengers at least picks things up some, with a pretty great idea involving Blade and Thor's hammer. Even then, at the issue's conclusion, there's another character thrown at us, the Scarlet Spider. I believe wholeheartedly that this story began as just an arc of Cates' Doctor Strange series and only ballooned out to event status so it can have tie-ins, it's the only way I can justify in my head why Scarlet Spider and Iron Fist, of all characters, are involved (and Iron Fist's presence even gets called out in the dialogue itself, like it's saying "yeah, I know it doesn't make any sense").
In regards to the artwork, the series takes a huge step down from Rod Reis work in issue one to what Szymon Kudranski produces here. The characters look stiff and posed in extremely unnatural ways, even in relation to other characters and their placement in the panels. Look at the panels with Moon Knight's introduction, it doesn't convey at all the shift in personalities between Moon Knight and "Mr. Knight", it just looks like two different characters. Iron Fist is randomly backflipping through the air in the splash teleport page, it's like the characters have no spatial relation to one another. Add that to the soft finishes that makes the faces look slightly out of focus and this is a really ugly comic to look at. Kudranski does, however, do a good job with all the Ghost Rider material, particularly Blaze's introduction sequence and that spectacular cliffhanger page with Dr. Strange.
So far, "Damnation" is not impressing me and reads like the worst kind of event, one that took a simple story and expanded it more than it could contain. Somehow though, it simultaneously feels rushed and that not enough weight and time is being taken to build the stakes, so it's a really weird beast of a series so far. Can't say I recommend it.
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