The Best of the Worst: Deathwatch

I've been batting around ideas for articles to try and beef up content on the blog beyond just the comic reviews (though those are still the bread and butter, don't get me wrong). One of the things I thought might be fun is a deep dive into some of Ghost Rider's best villains in all their awesome and oft-times ridiculous glory.  Ghost Rider has a pretty deep bench of rogues to talk about, though some are certainly more memorable than others. It would be easy to start with one of the big guns, like Mephisto or Blackout, but instead I decided to go with one of my favorites who really gets overlooked despite being a pretty big deal when he was introduced.

Glad he added that qualifier at the end!

DEATHWATCH: WHO HE IS AND HOW HE CAME TO BE

First appearance: Ghost Rider (1990) # 1; created by Howard Mackie, Javier Saltares, and Mark Texeira

Deathwatch was the first major villain created to fight the Danny Ketch incarnation of Ghost Rider, he's right there in the first issue as the major antagonist of the series. In his introductory storyline, Deathwatch is a crime boss with a small army of ninjas at his disposal, and while apparently wealthy enough to have his own business he also takes on jobs from employers in a mercenary capacity. He gets hired to steal and release a set of three canisters, the chemical contents of which will cause a massive death toll when all three are opened together. This brings him into conflict with the Kingpin, the top dog of crime lords in New York City, and their beef ultimately triggers the events that lead the Ghost Rider's rebirth.

He has a pretty interesting power, in that he absorbs the memories of people and gets stronger reliving the murders they commit. He quite literally watches death, then not only gets stronger but also kind of gets off on it. You can tell that he really likes it when people get killed and he gets to experience it vicariously, which now that I think about it is actually a bit of an inverse of Ghost Rider's Penance Stare, which makes you relive all the pain you've inflicted on others.  Huh, that's a neat touch that I've never realized before.  Nice one, Howard Mackie!

Deathwatch playing with his food

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

Naturally, Deathwatch and Ghost Rider don't get along and the two have a pretty intense relationship for the first two years of the 90s series. He also has that aforementioned rivalry with the Kingpin in the opening arc, but that gets dropped without much of a resolution. He gets involved in a kerfuffle with Wolverine and a vengeful soldier named Brass where he off-handedly references a sister that's never brought up again, which is kind of weird considering the fact that Deathwatch is in fact not a human being (but we'll get into that later). But Ghost Rider was his primary opponent, at least in his early days.

What Deathwatch did have in his corner were ninjas, lots and lots of ninjas, that he trained in a secret bunker underneath his skyscraper. Of course, he also used them as disposable cannon fodder on the regular and eventually killed them all when he detonated explosives in said skyscraper. He's not a very good boss. Deathwatch also had a couple of special operators in his employ, the most notable of which was Blackout.  I'll be doing a post for Blackout in the future, but it's safe to say that he doesn't come out of his partnership with Deathwatch on a positive note with his severance package including a hideously scarred face.

Again, Deathwatch is not a very good boss.

Then there's Hag, Troll, and the Deathspawn.  Hoo boy. So, Deathwatch is actually not a human crime lord with a fetish for hospice patients, he's actually what's called a "Translord" and hails from another dimension. What his status as a Translord actually means is not clear, but he has the ability to instill gifts and powers on to select members of his underlings. Hag and Troll were a duo (maybe brother/sister?) that he gave powers to and were subservient to him.  There was also Snowblind, who was empowered and then murdered to bait Ghost Rider into a trap.  The Deathspawn were other humans cursed by Deathwatch into becoming his servants, and he let them live in the sewers beneath Rockefeller Center. They were able to briefly reanimate Deathwatch's comatose body but were all ultimately destroyed by another villain, Centurious, when he enslaved Deathwatch into being his minion.

Deathwatch lords it over Ghost Rider

NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN VILLAINY

Well, the guy is ultimately responsible for the creation of the Dan Ketch incarnation of Ghost Rider, though he probably wouldn't think of that as an accomplishment.  It was under his order that a ninja shot an arrow through the chest of Barbara Ketch, which led her brother Danny to the junkyard containing the mystical motorcycle that transformed him into the Spirit of Vengeance.  Later on, Deathwatch will try to say it wasn't just a happy accident that he'd planned it all so he could get his hands on the Medallion of Power, but I think he was just trying to make himself look better in front of Centurious.

Other than that, Deathwatch killed dozens of people when he blew up his skyscraper just to kill Ghost Rider and he led murderous assaults on the Cypress Hills police precinct on two separate occasions.  That's kind of impressive, even if he did take a bullet in the arm from Michael Badilino in the latter precinct invasion. 

Your threat wasn't much better, Blackout

BUT IS HE REALLY THAT BAD?

Yeah, he's really that bad.  The thing about Deathwatch, though, is that he talks a big game without really backing it up, tending to just kind of sit in the background to direct underlings. However, in recent years he has lost a lot of the aura he possessed in the early 90s.  He showed up alongside Blackout in the ruins of Dayton, Ohio (my dad's birthplace, weirdly enough) during a Hydra attack, only to get taken down pretty quickly by Alejandra when she was the Ghost Rider. Following that he jobbed around a lot, mainly as an enforcer for the Hood during "Dark Reign" and again in the most recent Werewolf by Night: Red Band series. He also got a really dire redesign in that series at the hands of Lilith, only to ultimately get decapitated by Elsa Bloodstone and eaten by a feral werewolf.

I'd like to see Deathwatch come back as a major Ghost Rider villain in the future, I think he has a cool premise with the whole "absorbing memories of death" schtick, but not if he's treated like a joke or some pawn of another villain. He's fallen a long way, and while I'm sure he'll make a return to comics in some future story who knows how long that will take or if the guy will ever get his nemesis status back again.

VILLAIN RATING: 6 Penance Stares out of 10

Not a fan, the original mask looked so much better