Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #145
Cover Date: Jan 94

Morbius
Title: "Casualties of war"
Credits:
Gregory Wright - Writer
M.C. Wyman - Penciler
Malcom Jones III - Inker

Darkhold
Title: "White letter"
Credits:
Chris Cooper - Writer
Reggie Jones - Breakdowns
Rey Garcia - Finishes

Ghost Rider
Title: "Speakeasy"
Credits:
Chris Cooper - Writer
Reggie Jones - Breakdowns
Fred Harper - Finishes

Nightstalkers
Title: "Dust"
Credits:
Steven Grant - Writer
Lawrence Brown - Penciler
Lawrence Brown - Inker

Michael Kraiger - Assistant Editor
Richard Ashford - Editor

Review/plot:
The format of this book actually works in its favor this issue, since the Midnight Sons have split up and therefore each of the four stories can focus on a subset. Kind of like how teams would split up during old school annuals to search for individual pieces of a MacGuffin. Except instead of an annual this is a seventeen part crossover that we are slogging through.

In the Ghost Rider portion, Caretaker is tortured to death by the Fallen, but that's actually part of his plan, because he wants to get a message to Ghost Rider through Speakeasy, whose power is that he can speak for the dead.

The message is just about which Blood are in danger from the Fallen. I guess it's new information that Caretaker got since he gave his message to Hannibal King about ten minutes ago. After Speakeasy delivers the message, Caretaker recovers and returns to life.

In the Nightstalkers chapter, we see Blade still trying to rescue Frank Drake, who was caught in a cave-in in the tombs under Cypress Hill Cemetary. Drake is trying to make his own way out, and he comes across the "People of the Dust".

Blade joins up with him.

In the Morbius story, he has been assigned to find the Blood known as James Raydar. But while he's searching, he finds a child Lilin that has been left behind when the other Lilin were banished.

Hannibal King shows up and they debate whether or not to kill the Lilin. King is for it, Morbius is against, and his hesitancy causes King to doubt that Morbius is truly free of the Lilin influence. But the child dies while they are fighting it out, and then they go off to search for Raydar together.

In the Darkhold story, Victoria Montesi has found a letter that Louise Hastings intended to send to Dr. Strange. It says what Hastings learned in Darkhold #13-14, which is that her supposed father, Vittorio, was actually sterile. We further learn that Vittorio cast a fertility spell from the Darkhold, and that's how Victoria was born. It's said that the spell didn't cause Vittorio to become fertile; it planted Ch'thon's seed in Victoria's mother. This news has Victoria feeling suicidal.

The reason she's considering killing herself is that (as has already been hinted) Victoria is pregnant, and it's with Ch'thon..

She is, in fact, the gateway that Hastings was recently searching for, the one that was powering the Darkhold pages.

Victoria can't bring herself to pull the trigger, so she asks Sam Buchanan to do it. He can't do it either, and then they are attacked by a N'Garai demon.

Dr. Strange shows up to teleport them away.

This is a pretty big revelation, and it's weird that it's tucked away in an issue of Marvel Comics Presents instead of an issue of the Darkhold series. It's also worth noting that this has nothing to do with Siege of Darkness (but then again i guess neither do the Dust People). Maybe the plot of this story was originally intended for an issue of Darkhold, with an extended fight with the N'Garai (and a different resolution) making up the difference in pages before the book got canceled? But, as we'll see next chapter, the coordination between this story and the regular Darkhold series, even though they're both written by the same writer, is a mess.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - revelations regarding Victoria Montesi

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part eleven of Siege of Darkness. Part twelve is in Darkhold #16. It's insanely annoying, but the Nightstalkers story ends on a cliffhanger that will continue directly in the next issue of this series. The good news is that the next Marvel Comics Presents issue is only three chapters away, and Blade and Drake don't appear in the next two chapters (Darkhold and Morbius) so we can say that all of these events are happening concurrently.

It's also possible that the Darkhold story here was meant to be read after Darkhold #16. See the Considerations and comments on that issue for more.

References:

• Speakeasy's origin was in Darkhold #5.
  
• Frank Drake was caught in a cave-in in Nightstalkers #15 (incorrectly footnoted as #14).
  
• The Darkhold Redeemers faced the N'Garai before, in Darkhold #4.

Crossover: Siege of Darkness

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I own the original artwork by Reggie Jones & Rey Garcia for the page where, shock and horror, Vicki Montessi reveals that she is pregnant... with Chthon!

(If you are so inclined, now is a good time to click on this link to see Dramatic Prairie Dog in action... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs )

Okay, all frivolity aside, as fnord has observed in his reviews, the monthly Darkhold series was very hit or miss, with a lot of unfulfilled potential. I imagine Chris Cooper was building up to this dramatic revelation since the very first issue. It's a bit of a pity that the book gets cancelled right when he finally has an opportunity to reveal the truth about Victoria. I'm curious where he would have gone with the character after this. Unfortunately after "Siege of Darkness" Vicki spends the next couple of years as a dangling subplot in Doctor Strange's series.