It's weird that Marvel decided they should name a title after their in-universe Necronomicon, and it's weirder that for copyright reasons they're probably going to publish something under that title every so often from now on: there were
a bunch in
2021-2022. It's maybe weirdest that thanks to the movies, it's not completely inconceivable that someone might have heard of it! This issue, probably not so much. From 1993,
Darkhold: Pages From the Book of Sins #7, "Day of Infamy" Written by Chris Cooper, pencils by Rurik Tyler, inks by Bud LaRosa.
A fairly typical Marvel-misunderstanding brawl between the "Darkhold Redeemers" and Modred the Mystic versus the Scarlet Witch, Agatha Harkness,
and Doctor Strange; gets out of hand when they are dive bombed by Japanese Zeros, as in the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Which they point out later, wasn't near Maui!) Wanda stops one of the Zeros, which explodes into a torrent of slime--excuse me, "
mnemonic ectoplasm." As Harkness explains how the goo resonates with the human mind and could be potentially limitless, Modred tells them good luck with that, and moves to bail. Strange then tells him he can't, he's under contract; or rather geas. Strange had tricked him: while Modred was bleeding, he swore at Strange that he wouldn't "leave this soil 'till I'm driven hence in defeat!" This is what trash-talking gets you.
The series regulars, the "Darkhold Redeemers"--Montesi, Buchanan, and Professor Hastings--try to find the Darkhold page presumably at the heart of the problem; while Wanda hits the ectoplasm with a hex, that could have an unpredictable effect. Modred goes for a drastic solution, then: if the volcano on Maui were to blow, and everyone on the island were dead, the ectoplasm wouldn't have any memories to react off of, and problem solved!
The Redeemers find an old man, a soldier who was bitter that after all the death he had seen, now the Japanese "were taking over!" Confronted by the horror he was causing, he reins it back in, remembering the dwarf that gave him the Darkhold page, who I don't think the Redeemers had seen before. He dies, and the slime recedes. Presumably, Strange takes care of the volcano, and now the heroes realize the Redeemers were on the side of good...if untrained, largely powerless, and completely outgunned. Still held by the geas, Modred is left trapped on Maui--oh, my heart bleeds--while Strange acknowledges he would probably figure out how to free himself sooner or later. And on the flight home, Buchanan claims to have an idea, how to gather up all the loose pages of the Darkhold, in one fell swoop...I have my doubts. Buchanan was very much the Scully of the group, so I'm not sure where he's going there, and the next issue-box teases "Betrayal, part one!" Modred didn't count, so there were only three characters, and one betrays the others? Feels too early in the game for that, too.
We've seen horror stuff from
Rurik Tyler before; but I remember him mostly for
What The--?! strips. Still,
Darkhold fell into the same trap as
Warheads: starting with an artist with a really distinctive look, then losing them almost immediately.
1 comment:
I can’t imagine the series sold very well back then, at least not after the whole Midnight Sons stuff was over. But perhaps they could try it again, with a much darker tone?
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