Marvel Horror & Superheroes: Rise and fall of the Midnight Sons
Marvel Comics has always had a strong connection to horror. Perhaps surprising then is the fact that the company has rarely attempted to bring its horror output under one imprint and that when they have tried it has only lasted a very brief period. By the late 1940s a significant part of the company’s output was horror comics which were often quite gruesome and only neutered by the creation of the Comics Code Authority. In the silver age Marvel mostly restricted themselves to giant monster comics and other “silly” takes on the genre in order to be inoffensive but by the 1970s and 1980s they were ready to delve into darker stuff more suited to the audiences of the day again. None of these “families” of titles had any consistent branding or trade dress but in 1992 Marvel unleashed an entire horror-themed sub-franchise, the Midnight Sons. This is the story of the brief life and quick death of Marvel’s first horror imprint.
The Return of Ghost Rider
Johnny Blaze had starred as the skull-headed Ghost Rider through the 1970s and into the early 1980s in a surprisingly long-running superhero title with heavy supernatural elements. Next to the iconic Tomb of Dracula Ghost Rider had been the most successful of the 1970s Marvel horror craze and while Johnny Blaze was freed of the demon Zarathos and depowered in the final issue of the comic there was of course always a way to bring him back. Given the increasingly dark and violent content in mainstream comics in the late 1980s the idea of bringing back a horror-themed superhero like Ghost Rider seemed like a natural development.
Instead of simply bringing back Johnny, writer Howard Mackie and artist Javier Saltares created a new Ghost Rider with an updated uniform and new powers for the new decade and Danny Ketch debuted as the Spirit of Vengeance in his own title in 1990. The title was very dark (often literally) and featured Danny taking on ninja, mobsters, vampires and assorted weirdness. Howard Mackie’s writing had a distinct style filled with mystery boxes, unanswered questions about the characters which were only revaled over time and inevitably led to new mysteries coming to light. This coupled with the dark and moody artwork managed to capture the imagination of the early 1990s audience and made the new Ghost Rider a certified hit. Alongside the Punisher and Wolverine the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider became a defining character for this era, guest starring in countless titles from Spider-Man to the X-Men. And this success planted the idea that perhaps the time was ripe for a full-scale return of Marvel horror comics.
The Midnight Sons
Mackie set up the groundwork for the new family of title in Ghost Rider by bringing back Johnny Blaze and intensifying the mystery of where Danny’s Ghost Rider powers came from, since the demon who turned Johnny into the Rider was seemingly not part of it. In 1992 readers were first treated to a glimpse of Lilith, the mythological mother of demons, who was posed as the new supernatural major thread to the Marvel Universe. This kicked off the Rise of the Midnight Sons crossover which ran through two issues of Ghost Rider and launched four new titles that formed the new Midnight Sons imprint: Spirits of Vengeance (Ghost Rider and Blaze team-ups), Morbius: the Living Vampire, Nightstalkers and Darkhold.
The crossover saw supernatural characters from across the Marvel Universe assemble to take on Lilith and her horde of demonic children, the Lilin. The Nightstalkers consisted of Blade and fellow vampire hunters Frank Drake and Hannibal King, all survivors of Tomb of Dracula. Darkhold featured a team of all-new characters dragged into the conflict despite primarily being concerned with finding the scattered pages of the primeval dark magic book called the Darkhold. And Michael Morbius who had been cured of his scientific vampirism for years saw a major relapse and once more thirsted for blood. After Lilith’s defeat the five titles continued on and though they had no distinct cover dress at the start they were considered a title family just like the X-titles or Spider-Man. Rise of the Midnight Sons was an engaging crossover mostly because of its fast pace and the small number of issues involved. The artwork was solid with Andy Kubert providing energetic and gruesome art for the spine of the crossover. It was a promising start for the new family of titles and the books offered a nice diversity of supernatural tropes.
Darkhold focused strictly on the team searching for the missing pages after this while the Nightstalkers primarily fought vampires. Spirits of Vengeance continued being essentially a Blaze title with Danny as co-star and Morbius was about the Living Vampire searching a dark and dangerous New York for a cure for his condition. All the titles attempted to emulate the darkness and grit that had made Ghost Rider a success but none seem to have really succeeded. Darkhold was the most unique book out of them, coming almost close to a Vertigo tone at times and with very little superhero involvement. As usual with books of this era the artwork was often shaky, with none of them having anybody of the calibre of Kubert on Ghost Rider, though Doom Patrol alumni Richard Case made Darkhold look suitably weird.
Massacre and Decline
Ghost Rider did well in sales the new titles were on shaky ground even as the first crossover ended. This was the era of speculation and insane amounts of new titles hitting stands every month, and Marvel’s line was quickly over-expanding into a dangerous state of bloat. In the Midnight Sons titles the creative teams also sought to expand the horror “universe” they created in various ways by introducing new characters or pulling existing Marvel characters into the orbit of Ghost Rider and friends. Perhaps the most notable of the new characters was Vengeance, an even more over-the-top “evil” version of Ghost Rider who was essentially that title’s answer to Venom. Vengeance began as a straight villain but eventually became an uneasy ally of Blaze and Danny, forming a vague triumvirate of Riders who were hinted at as having a shared origin. For better or worse, Vengeance was symptomatic of the 90s exceess and of how most titles sought to copy the success of either Spider-Man or the X-Men in some manner.
The Midnight Sons editors sought to recapture sales with a second crossover in 1993 called the Midnight Massacre. Promoted with all-black covers, this story ran through the same titles and saw a demonically possessed Blade slaughter supernatural creatures across Marvel earth, seemingly slaying many of the Midnight Sons characters in the process. In the end Blade was freed and the slain characters returned to life, and the titles continued going their own way. This crossover was a lot less fun, with a repetitive story that was only resolved through a dues ex machine, though the cover gimmick was pretty cool.
Midnight Massacre had virtually no effect on the ongoing titles except for Nightstalkers, unfortunately, which meant it felt even more disposable. And despite this, editorial was already planning for the NEXT event. The two titles featuring the Ghost Riders ran a story arc known as Road to Vengeance which finally brought back Zarathos, the demon who originally possessed Johnny Blaze when he was the Spirit of Vengeance. Zarathos allied with Lilith and though defeated the two were not vanquished. With the imprint having existed for less than a year, the solo titles were already showing signs of failing and another major crossover was planned. Perhaps in retrospect talent was spread too thin as the secondary titles didn’t really have any spectacular creative teams working on them and had trouble standing out.
Siege of Darkness and The End
Late 1993 had seen two additional titles added to the Midnight Sons lineup, which now sported distinctive cover dress with a dagger-shaped emblem for the imprint. The Doctor Strange title became a Midnight Sons book with the dramatic issue #60 where the traditionally benevolent Doctor (who had cameod in several Midnight Sons titles previously) was replaced by a dark, edgy version known simply as Strange. The mystery of this new incarnation was the driving force of the title’s brief tenure under the imprint. Midnight Sons Unlimited was a 64-page quarterly comic in a series of similar series of which X-Men Unlimited was the only truly successful one.
Siege of Darkness was by far the most ambitious crossover of the imprint but also the final one. It ran for a massive 18 issues and included every title in the lineup as well as special backup stories in Marvel Comics Presents which tangentially involved other supernatural characters like the Scarlet Witch in the events. This storyline featured a huge final battle to stop Lilith and Zarathos and tried to be a true epic while being much more rambling and unfocused than the previous two efforts (which consisted of less than 10 issues each). Siege of Darkness failed to revitalize the lineup in any way, and soon after the writing was on the wall. In all honestly both Road to Vengeance and Siege of Darkness were nearly unreadable, plodding messes. The storyline threads were hard to follow and Mackie’s mystery box writing was wearing out its welcome. He did not have the energy to pull something of this scale off and coordinate all the other writers and artists and as a result I think many of the established readers felt cheated, having spent so much time and effort on the crossover.
With the final big push to revitalize the line failing, Nightstalkers, Darkhold and Spirits of Vengeance all ended before 1994 was over with many of the characters from the books killed off and Blade going off into a solo title. With the end of these books the surviving titles dropped the Midnight Sons trade dress and continued on as an only vaguely connected franchise. Of the remaining titles that had formed the core lineup only Ghost Rider and Doctor Strange survived 1995, and Strange was soon back to a more traditional look and feel. Ghost Rider would continue on for some time and Mackie would continue writing it for most of its life though by the end it saw several strange revamps which ultimately failed. Many of the abandoned plot threads and mysteries would not be picked up and resolved until many years later by writers such as Jason Aaron. But that is another story.
Legacy
Though a short-lived experiment the Midnight Sons made a mark in the minds of readers and creators and the characters would see assorted revivals through the years. The titles are probably more remembered for their nostalgia and for how they captured the 90s zeitgeist than for quality and I personally find Mackie’s Ghost Rider a very tough read in retrospect, especially knowing most of the plotlines never pay off. Like much of the 90s the Midnight Sons books are all attitude and bluster, even when cloaked in the trappings of horror. Though Marvel has never attempted a dedicated horror imprint since the Midnight Sons name lives on both as an in-universe team name and in homages such as the video game “Midnight Suns”. The Midnight Sons titles also represent Marvel at their most expansive and over-reaching, when each editorial office thought they could form a new title family as successful for merchandising and sales as the X-Men.
