Issue(s): Ghost Rider #40
Cover Date: Aug 93
Title: "Hunters"
Credits:
Howard Mackie - Writer
Ron Garney - Penciler
Christopher Ivy - Inker
Matthew Mora - Assistant Editor
Bobbie Chase - Editor

Review/plot:
Blade has read a Darkhold spell that allows him to kill the supernatural and absorb their powers. This issue starts with Blade having hunted down a mystic healer. He's injured her son, but the healer pleads with him, saying that the son isn't supernatural. So he allows her to heal her son, and then kills her.

Meanwhile, we're reminded that the Demogoblin thinks that he's an agent of God, and he's hunting down people touched by supernatural evil.

That includes a minor sorcerer who tries to bargain for his life, telling him that the Demogorge has returned to Earth (showing him an image of Blade). Demogoblin says that he'll seek out the Demogorge as an ally (for now). He then kills the sorcerer. Then Ghost Rider and Frank Drake, tracking Blade, find Demogoblin instead.

Note Demogoblin referring to "Switchblade". That left me scratching my head, but i wrote it off as like some unhip oldster referring to the Internet as the Interwebs or something.

Ghost Rider and Drake fight the Demogoblin, but he gets away. Demogoblin tracks Blade to a club where he's stalking another mystic.

Blade manages to slash the woman (before she can run off and "contact the others"). But she still manages to run Blade then turns to Demogoblin, completely uninterested in his offer to join forces (look at the poor goblin still trying, though. Like give it up, dude, he's just not into you.). And then Ghost Rider and Drake show up again.

They fight, but Blade gets away again and continues to track the woman. Demogoblin has caught her, and he continues his pathetic attempt to form an alliance with Blade, offering the woman to him. Blade lunges to attack Demogoblin instead, but he's interrupted by Ghost Rider.

Demogoblin still continues his doomed effort to befriend Blade, grabbing Ghost Rider from behind. And in return Blade stabs both of them.

Ghost Rider somehow survives the attack, but Blade kills Demogoblin and absorbs his powers. Meanwhile, the mystery woman teleports away, making mention of the Caretaker.

Blade uses his newly acquired Demogoblin powers to defeat Ghost Rider, and then tortures him with hellfire from Johnny Blaze's shotgun. Drake arrives and drives Blade off with his exorcist gun. Drake sends Ghost Rider to get help from Louise Hastings and the Darkhold Redeemers.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Seer

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part 2 of Midnight Massacre. Part 3 is in Darkhold #11. See Don's comments below regarding the Demogorge. I'm not listing the characters that Blade has killed and absorbed from chapter 1 (Johnny Blaze and Hannibal King), and that'll continue going forward.

References:

• Continues from Nightstalkers #10.

Crossover: Midnight Massacre

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Actually, the Blade version of Demogorge is NOT the same entity at the Demogorge from Thor Annual #10. Demogorge the God-Eater is the alternate form of Atum, the offspring of Gaea and the Demiurge, who used his power of the sun to destroy gods (like the Elder Gods) once their time was up.

The Darkhold Demogorge was something that the evil Elder God Chthon created in imitation of that other Demogorge. Although both absorb the mystical/godly powers of the beings they kill, their purposes are very different.

Darkhold #11 had Modred mention "the first Demogorge" and how Chthon "create(d) its own Demogorge."

Thanks Don.

I kind of feel bad for poor old Demogoblin; he just seems lonely and confused and in need of a friend. I sorta wonder if that was part of the point of the character; even though he was an insane, violent demon, he was *still* nicer than Jason Macendale / Hobgoblin.

@Ben Herman, you will want to read of of his next apperances in the Spider-Man books (adjectiveless, IIRC).