I think Doom just wants it for the big 'd,' it's a branding thing.

This one at least shows why about every Doom figure comes with the book now: From 2021, Darkhold: Alpha #1, written by Steve Orlando, art by Cian Tormey, color art by Jesus Aburtov.

Deep within Abysmia, beneath the United States, Doctor Doom's robots and his herald Victorious, discover the one, true, original Darkhold: previously seen incarnations were "a copy of a copy," which was perhaps inadvertently a safety measure. Reading from the true Darkhold caused madness, as the Scarlet Witch well knows: she has a vision of the usual terrible future to come, and tries to head Victor off, despite their past history. Which, um, your guess is as good as mine: that might be from the Children's Crusade, but it might be implied they knew each other before Doom's face was wrecked. Still, Doom had already read the book, through the eyes of his Doombots, and now sought to prevent Chthon's rise for his own purposes. He reads a story from the book, for her to interpret: how five defenders had once driven Chthon into exile, at the cost of their sanity. Wanda thinks they need to form a new team, with five in those roles; Doom declares that wouldn't be necessary, as he had all five aspects within himself, and heads off to confront Chthon alone. (Victorious believed it was too dangerous, and tries to go in his stead; only for Victor to condescendingly remind her, who did she think she was talking to? Nothing was beyond Doom!)

Wanda has to summon a dreamer, a fool, a stoic, a hunter, and an artist: she gets Iron Man, Blade, Wasp, Spider-Man, and Black Bolt. Can you figure out who was what? While they're caught up on the stakes, Doom returns from Chthon's "other-world," which kind of looks like an alternate earth Chthon had already taken over. Victor looks like crap, like the remains of his face are leaking out of his mask; but while he thinks the heroes are doomed and leaves Victorious to aid them, he won't reveal anything else of what had happened, and immediately takes off "...to consider," and prepare. That really feels like Doom got his ass kicked but won't admit it.

The heroes are told, they have to read a bit from the Darkhold; just enough to "temper" themselves with madness. This fails miserably, and they mutate into new, red-themed outfits: evil Spidey points out "what about madness inspires self-restraint?" As the new Darkhold Defiled, could Chthon be stopped...? Evil Iron Man also appeared to be leaking flesh from his armor, which might make him the most striking of the bad heroes; each of whom would get their own Darkhold one-shot to be evil, or fight it off, either or. This would then wrap up in Darkhold: Omega, which appeared to be bringing back a long-forgotten, and probably previously misused, character. I think there's also a fairly big retcon here: that every appearance of the Darkhold prior, had just been a copy? But...that copy, it and at least some of the pages, had been just about indestructible themselves! That seems like it's giving Chthon a lot of juice, which may or may not be justified. Read more!

I'm glad the movies didn't go with that outfit, but Stephen Dorff would've been terrifying in it.

I watched Night of the Hunter a week or two back, and even if you're not into older movies (it's from 1955) it holds up. Robert Mitchum plays Harry Powell, a 'preacher,' who's actually a serial killer, marrying for money and then killing his brides. He has "L-O-V-E" tattooed on the knuckles of one hand, and "H-A-T-E" on the other, a bit I know has been used elsewhere; but honestly the preacher outfit with the hat and string tie maybe scare me more. Somebody shows up wearing those, I'm out of there like they were wearing a hockey mask and bloody smock. I don't know if it's a callback to NotH, but the bad guy today has that outfit: probably would've looked evil and creepy without it, but it ices the cake! From 1995, Blade the Vampire Hunter #7, "Bad to the Bone" Written by Ian Edginton, pencils by Douglas H. Wheatley, inks by Steve Moncuse.

The bad guy in question is Deacon Frost, the vampire that attacked Blade's mom before he was born, making him what he was. Frost had been dead, possibly more than once, but here as he attacks Blade's friend Bible John, he explains how an amateur wizard accidentally brought him back, and how he was going to be a new god for vampires. Later, fighting Blade, Deacon says "the vampire race has become mired in the cliche of its own mythos," which seems remarkably forward-thinking for somebody dressed like that. He also doesn't appear to have the old weaknesses, and transforms into a bunch of rats after Blade stabs him through the heart. (Um, the technical term is a mischief of rats!) It's an impressive move; or at least it would've been before I saw this Oglaf strip.

For his part, this is a kinder, gentler Blade than usual: he appears to be trying to have a life outside of hunting vampires, maybe improve his work-life balance a bit. He takes care of the injured Bible John rather than chasing Deacon at all costs. But, taking John to the hospital was a tactical error, as they would probably throw John back in the asylum when he was better...! (Somehow vampires were not commonly known in the Marvel U. then, so someone devoting their life to their study and extermination probably did seem a nut.) Blade knows only one person can help him here, probably not his favorite person either: Morbius! 

I tried to look up, if Deacon Frost was ever portrayed consistently; because if he looked like that before turning into a vampire...Anyway, probably not, but Frost also had a weird doppelgänger-generation power, just to confuse the issue further.

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As usual, when I find a full mini-series in the cheap bins, I'm mandated by law to pick them all up; also as usual, here's a book I probably should save until October that we're going to check out now. From 2004, (The) Tomb of Dracula #1, written by Robert Rodi and Bruce Jones, pencils by Jamie Tolagson, inks by Tom Palmer and Jay Leisten. Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz!

This was, let's see, the second mini-series to reuse the name from Marvel's classic horror series: we flipped through a cursed image from the prior revival last year. The previous volume had Wolfman and Colan, but this one does have one link back to the original, with the return of inker Tom Palmer. Blade follows a striking--and suspicious--blonde to a club, shades of his first movie; but this one is almost all vampire wannabes. After killing maybe the one real vamp in the club, Blade still can't figure her out: she still had a reflection, but felt like death somehow. They have a little swordplay/foreplay at her place, where she cops to being a "halfbreed" like him, but they're interrupted by a video call from her boss, who turns out to be Noah Van Helsing.

Through dossier pages and narration, we're introduced to Noah's crew: yeah, don't get too attached. Their upcoming mission was a big one: the vampires were in a frenzy, since a once a millennium event was coming. The lord of the vampires was about to undergo a transformation, ridding himself of any humanity and ascending (descending?) to full demon status, cue apocalypse. But, said transformation had to happen on the vampire's home turf: a later issue notes, the wizard that had been forced to set that up had added that bit to block the then-current vampire lord Varnae, since his home Atlantis had sunk! Blade cuts in and joins them, even though he doesn't think they're up to it, that the vampires would be ready for a siege, and that the blonde, Divinity Drake, can't be trusted, as she was a descendent of none other than...Dracula! Who doesn't appear until the last page here, with rocker long hair and jeans? Urg, that's almost enough to make me reconsider the red-armor look for him.

We actually don't see a ton of Drac in this series, to be honest; since he spends most of it almost cocooned up and ordering his troops around. There is a bit more variety of vampires here too, tapping into other cultures' vampire mythos; as well as the "Mortuus Invictus," or the unwilling dead. I don't think this one quite stuck the landing, though: this maybe needed to be an ongoing, to give it enough room for the other vampire-slayers to be more fully fleshed-out. (The ticking-clock would have to be extended, then; this series takes place over maybe a few days.) That and there are not one but two twist reveals...one I liked, the other felt like a cheat. Read more!

"Prom."

This strip (and the next one, if I'm honest!) runs pretty squarely against "show, don't tell" as we hit a wall in what I can do with action figures. It's not like I have a young Nightcrawler figure...wait, I do, all those X-Men Evolution figures. Well, it's not like I have a young Elsa Bloodstone figure. Although...do I still have that Baby Bonnie Hood from Darkstalkers? Well, it's not like I have costumes for them! Although...

Actually, since I'm getting ready to move next month, I shouldn't even have the stuff I do have out. And I shouldn't be buying more figures to have to move as well. And I almost certainly should be packing instead of trying to plot out another strip, so you can easily guess what I'm up to.

Nightcrawler pretty memorably threatens a guy with neck-biting in the classic Marvel Graphic Novel #5- X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills. His potential victim panics and spill his (figurative) guts; but I wonder if Kurt's ever had his bluff called. Or started giggling midway through, after a bad Bela Lugosi-styled 'Blah!' "I vant to su-- Ach, sorry; let me try that again..."
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"Hunters."

This feels like a hundred years ago and didn't really happen anyway, but it used to seem like Marvel Legends and Marvel Select were going to run on different tracks; with Select featuring less conventional choices and larger characters, like Mephisto or the Watcher. Neither of whom have gotten a Legend figure to date, by the way: I think the last Select I picked up (at full price, anyway) was the Destroyer, another big'un. In some alternate timeline, maybe Legends kept the regular sized figures and Select was down the roster to Xemnu the Titan or Gorgilla...maybe not.
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"Dark."

Where did Moon Knight go? We'll find out later! Why would Elsa be putting together a team of hunters? Another good question, we'll look into that. Bonus points if you know what monsters each one hunted: Blade's an easy one, but Puma? Well, it's not like I threw him in just because I bought his figure for a Kingpin part and it was handy...
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A black envelope is fine for a wedding invite, but for a comic cover?

I've been scratching my head trying to recall if I read this issue, let alone the rest of the crossover. I know I had been reading Darkhold at least a bit...From 1993, Morbius #12, "The Bait" Written by Gregory Wright, pencils by Ron Wagner, inks by Mike Witherby.

Hmm, I think I had fallen off Darkhold by this point, the "Midnight Massacre" crossover with Nightstalkers, Ghost Rider, and the Ghost Rider spin-off Spirits of Vengeance. The cover gimmick was a black parchment "envelope," like the Darkhold pages were doled out in; since Blade had taken a page from it to become Switchblade. (Ugh...) In a mad crusade against the supernatural, he had killed John Blaze, Hannibal King, and Victoria Montesi (from the Darkhold book) as well as Modred the Mystic and Demogoblin. (The heroes weren't in any particular hurry to avenge those last two.) Switchblade absorbed their respective powers, and became more powerful with each kill.

Morbius gets a phone call warning from the other heroes, but has his own problems. Infected with demonic "Lilin" blood, Morby was in even less control than usual, but still pulls himself together to go to work in the morning. He may have some help, though: guest-star Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night! He had achieved a modicum of control over his dark nature, and wanted to help Morbius with his. They're attacked by Switchblade, who seemingly kills Jack with a pumpkin bomb, then nails Morbius to the wall! Morby being a "living" vampire, he doesn't turn into dust or anything; moreover, with the "human" no more, the Lilin side takes over, oozing like liquid and killing a bum to regain its strength. It attacks Switchblade again, and it goes even worse: Morbius is reduced to a charred skeleton.

In what appears to be the afterlife, Morbius is greeted by his lost love Martine...who welcomes him to the "bowels of the netherworld!" That doesn't sound great...Switchblade's story would be wrapped up in Spirits of Vengeance #13, where I'd guess everyone he killed was brought back. Except maybe Morby, who might've had to fight it out himself, judging by the next cover.
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"Randoms."

Let's see: Paladin was largely purchased for a Sasquatch part, since I think I like the idea of the character more than any comics he's actually appeared in. I think Hasbro's gotten a lot of reuse out of that mold, in colors other than purple. Per OAFE's review, it's a reuse of Blade! I didn't plan using them both in the same strip for that reason, just a happy accident. But that mold has been used since in the A.I.M. two-pack.


The Thing, of course, is a unique sculpt, and so great. (EDIT: And Mark Waid and Dan Slott both established the Thing really shouldn't be tooling about in Dr. Doom's time machine. Reed had left signs all over it like "NO!" and "Remember the Alamo!" and implored him and Johnny to leave poor Davy Crockett alone. Or was it Daniel Boone? Well, either way.)

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This wasn't gonna work, but good on Blade for giving it a try.

Mike Baron played a card really early in his Punisher run--around the second issue, if I recall correctly--like Frank was going to bag it in, give up being the Punisher, retire somewhere. Seemed pretty unlikely then, seems pretty unlikely here too. From 1994, Blade: the Vampire Hunter #1, "Dark Visions" Written by Ian Edginton, pencils by Douglas H. Wheatley, inks by Chris Ivy.

After the (presumed) deaths of his teammates in the Nightstalkers, Blade was going to give the old normal life a try. In fact, I thought he was using his real name, but he gives it out as "Hannibal Francis Blade," after his lost friends. Still, in short order he's accosted by escaped lunatic Bible Bob, who tells Blade he's never going to be able to walk away from the life, and to that effect gives him a "witch's compass," knowing it will lead Blade back into action soon enough. Blade fights Thorne, a corporate raider type, now head of Varnae's vampire cult; who's up to all sorts of modernized vampire nonsense, like a "necrotech program" using "a chaos theory form of random analysis" for mystic events. Such as "the imminent return of that Carpathian leech, Count Dracula!"

Sure enough, a reporter working on the Nightstalkers story runs afoul of the resurrected Dracula, who appears briefly this issue, in a toga. They may have been trying to update him from his traditional Tomb of Dracula look, but I know they weren't quite to his current red armor look, which I can't stand.
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