Darkhold: Pages From the Book of Sins (1992) # 1

"Rise of the Midnight Sons, Part 4: Black Letter"

Cover Date: October 1992; On Sale Date: August 1992

Writer: Christian Cooper; Artist: Richard Case; Inker: Mark McKenna; Letterer: Phil Felix; Colorist: Glynis Oliver; Editor: Bobbie Chase; Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco; Cover Artist: Richard Case

In New York City, a mysterious dwarf delivers a black letter to aging record producer Donald Walsh. Later that night, Walsh goes home and kills his wife by transforming into a swarm of worms. In Rome, nurse Victoria Montesi experiences a vision of Walsh’s transformation while out to lunch with her roommate Nash. When the two go back to their apartment they are caught by an explosion triggered by them opening the door. Montesi wakes up in the hospital and is visited by her father, Vittorio Montesi, and Sam Buchanan, an Interpol agent assigned by the Vatican to protect her. Vittorio explains all about the Darkhold, the so-called “Book of Sins” that their family has sworn to protect through the generations. Vicki refuses to believe the stories of the Darkhold, even when she experiences another vision of the people around her being consumed by worms. Meanwhile, back in New York, Oxford Professor Louise Hastings is approached by John Blaze, who takes her to a back alley to meet Ghost Rider. The two explain that they saw Louise and others in a vision of a world overrun by Lilith and her demonic children.

At the hospital in Rome, a ninja attempts to kill Vicki in her bed, but finds that she has snuck out. She’s attacked on the streets by more ninjas, who she realizes are the Darkholders, a secret cult who worship the Book of Sins. Buchanan rescues her from the ninjas and, against his better judgment, agrees to go with her to New York to discover the source of her visions. At that moment, Lilith meets with the leaders of the Darkholders, who give some of their men for the Lilin Doc to reshape into demonic killers.

Later, Vicki and Sam arrive at the Walsh home, which has been taped off as a crime scene. Inside the empty home they find the black letter and Louise Hastings, who tells them that the police flew her in to consult on the case when the letter was found to contain a missing page from the Darkhold. Louise explains that the Darkhold was written by the Elder God Chthon and would one day summon him home from exile. The recovered page translates into a spell for immortality as a swarm of worms. The trio are attacked by Donald Walsh, who has transformed into a creature comprised of worms. Ghost Rider and Blaze crash through the window and drive Walsh away, but not before they capture some of the worms.

Soon, at a hotel in Manhattan, Walsh is interrogated and reveals that the letter was delivered by a dwarf; when he read the words on the page, a creature called “the Other” appeared and offered him his greatest wish, to live forever. He didn’t know it would be as a rotting pile of worms who has to consume other living beings. Later, Walsh reforms inside the hotel to try and kill Vicki and when she runs Louise tells Blaze and Buchanan to not use their guns. Vicki leads Walsh to Central Park, where she and the others are also confronted by Lilith and the transformed Darkholders. Before Walsh can kill Vicki a swarm of birds appears to devour all of the worms, killing Walsh. While Lilith attempts to teleport away, she is struck by a blast of hellfire from Blaze’s shotgun before she escapes, though she leaves her Lilin daughter Nakota behind. Sam realizes that any gunfire would have scared away the birds, which had been Louise’s plan all along. While Ghost Rider and Blaze continue their fight against Lilith, the other three decided to stay together to search for more missing pages of the Darkhold. Elsewhere, an arsonist at the Library of Congress is approached by the Dwarf.

That's why you use a crosswalk

THE ROADMAP

This issue is part four of "Rise of the Midnight Sons", continuing from Morbius: The Living Vampire (1992) # 1 and continuing into Nightstalkers (1992) # 1. 

Ghost Rider and John Blaze last appeared in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 2.  They will follow Nakota into Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 3 before the crossover picks back up in Nightstalkers (1992) # 1. 

CHAIN REACTION

“Rise of the Midnight Sons” launches its third new title, a decidedly darker and more horror-oriented affair than the rest.

All of the Midnight Sons launches were strong debuts, but Darkhold was easily the hardest sell to mainstream audiences despite the obvious talent behind it. The rest of the line straddled that line between horror and superheroes with lots of action scenes in between scares. Darkhold was the outlier, having more in common with the contemporaneous Vertigo line of mature horror titles at DC Comics than it did with Ghost Rider. Naturally, having former Doom Patrol artist Richard Case providing the artwork for the series strengthened those Vertigo ties, but the tone of the storytelling was far removed from standard Marvel fare at the time.

While on the one hand I applaud the line for taking a chance on a more cerebral type of series, on the other it made for a jarring shift in tone when going from the first issues of Spirits of Vengeance and Morbius to this. Full disclosure, as an 11-year-old Ghost Rider fan, I absolutely hated this comic. The artwork was ugly, the story was boring with not enough action, and parts of it just didn’t make any sense to me. The consensus amongst my peers was that Darkhold was a dud.

Going back as an adult, however, this is probably my favorite of the Midnight Sons debuts. It’s obviously written for a more mature audience than the other titles in the line, though it naturally doesn’t cross the lines that the Vertigo line did with restricted content. The tone of the series is dark and paranoid, with a grotesque sense of humor and a story telling engine that easily could have lasted for years. It reminds me a lot of the X-Files, with its believer/skeptic dynamics and emphasis on “monsters of the week”, even though it technically debuted a full month before that show’s first episode went on the air.

Then there’s that Richard Case artwork that I disliked so much as a kid but looks so damn great now. He has a shaky handle on Ghost Rider, the character doesn’t quite look natural on the page, but everything else is amazing. That dark tone that Chris Cooper sets up with the story is realized brilliantly by Case, who drowns the pages in heavy blacks. Plus, the characters all have distinct features and body types, which wasn’t common in Marvel Comics from the 1990s.

Darkhold was a fantastic series that was probably ahead of its time and definitely not served well by being swallowed up amongst its Midnight Sons siblings. It’s certainly an overlooked and underappreciated gem.

Being eaten by worms does not sound pleasant