Issue(s): Hellstorm #4, Hellstorm #5
Cover Date: Aug-Sep 93
Title: Pawns: "The devil's work" / "The damnation game"
Credits:
Len Kaminski - Script
Rafael Nieves - Plot
Michael Bair - Penciler
Peter Gross / Michael Bair - Inker
Carlos Lopez - Assistant Editor
Fabian Nicieza - Editor

Review/plot:
In the introductory essay that i quoted in the last Hellstorm entry, editor Fabian Nicieza wrote that the choice of writer for this series was down to Kurt Busiek or Rafael Nieves and he was having trouble choosing. But now we see Len Kaminski scripting off of Nieves plots, and after next issue (which is fully written by Nieves), Kaminski will become the regular writer. The same essay also said that Nicieza wanted Michael Bair on art but only if he was going to be inking himself, which isn't the case with issue #4. These are Bair's last two issues. The essay also said that the remit of the book was to walk the line between Vertigo and Midnight Sons, but for these issues we fall completely off the line onto the Midnight Sons side.

A random demon in Hell comes across some chess pieces that Satan has left sitting around and starts playing with them, resulting in a daughter of one of the Black School cultists getting possessed. Hellstorm fights it with the help of... um, is that Ghost Rider?

Why, no! It's Soulfire!

Hellstorm and Soulfire actually fight for a bit first, and Hellstorm finds out that Soulfire, or rather his human form Jason Maldonado - was previously rescued by possession thanks to an exorcism by Gabriel the Devil Hunter (who does not otherwise appear in these issues). But the fight between Hellstorm and the possessed girl re-trigger his demonic abilities, and Jason learns to control his demonic impulses. So then they team-up to stop the demon.

For all intents and purposes, Soulfire doesn't appear again (he's mentioned in the Civil War handbook and he is briefly considered as a new Sorcerer Supreme in the Bendis story where Dr. Strange is replaced by Brother Voodoo). I guess he was too obvious a pander even in the age where Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze, and Vengeance were all running around.

Back in Hell, the demon is punished for messing around with the chess pieces.

I have a vague feeling that the pages in issue #5 are out of order, but i may just not care enough to follow the story.

A letter published in issue #5 praises the decision to do something more mature than the "super-horrors" in the Midnight Sons books, but what we have here makes the Midnight Sons stuff look deep.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Wow, you are full bore into the drek at this point. You've more fortitude than I, that's for sure.

The garbage that you have to work through.. Man your dedication is admirable. Thank you for this site. I check it everyday going thru the years and now I've started to collect Quasar and others I never would've even thought twice about.

Soulfire seems to have a bad case of nipple eye chest face.

With Kaminski, this series will become really better. With Ellis, will become a hidden gem.

Am I the only person who has the urge to sing out Soulfire's name like the opening to Soul Train?

Sooooooooooulfire!

I can't "like" or "lol" everything I find amusing here, but that loopy "Sooooooulfire!" joke lightened my evening :-D

This was originally meant to be Ghost Rider per the original cover to #4: https://66.media.tumblr.com/2575a763d7f1f01e8ddb8af5d4d06af9/tumblr_og6u3tIbJp1tms107o1_1280.jpg