Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #144
Cover Date: Dec 93

Morbius
Title: "Like family, like enemy"
Credits:
Gregory Wright - Writer
M.C. Wyman - Penciler
Christopher Ivy - Inker

Ghost Rider
Title: "Treachery redeemed"
Credits:
Chris Cooper - Writer
Reggie Jones - Penciler
Fred Harper - Inker

Werewolf By Night
Title: Goblin Night: "Stage fright"
Credits:
Len Kaminski - Writer
James Fry - Penciler
Rey Garcia - Inker

Scarlet Witch
Title: Algorithm of Live: "Techno phobia!"
Credits:
Cefn Ridout - Writer
Charles Adlard - Penciler
Charles Adlard - Inker

Michael Kraiger - Assistant Editor
Richard Ashford - Editor

Review/plot:
The first two stories in this issue are technically part of the core Siege of Darkness story. But it's just a bunch of mindless fighting. The stories seem disconnected from the main story and even from each other, with Morbius seemingly reverting back and forth between being possessed by Bloodthirst and not. That's partially because that's the actual plot; it seems Morbius' mental battle against Bloodthirst in the last chapter was not meant to be as definitive as i assumed (because why should anything be clear cut?). But it's also because of the format of the book, wherein every concept gets recapped/reintroduced at the beginning of each story and each chapter is handled by a different creative team.

I guess maybe each story is supposed to be taking place at the same time, from a different perspective? It's not really clear, and the entire story is such an overwhelming mess it's hard to care enough to sort it out. Here are the endings of each part. As you can see, Martine Bancroft figures into the ending of each, but in totally different ways.

The other half of the book concludes the Werewolf By Night and Scarlet Witch stories. The Werewolf fights the Lilin masquerading as children and then lectures the townfolk.

In the Scarlet Witch story, that thing we saw at the end of the last issue evolves based on how Pixil interacts with it.

We learn that it's a program created by a 13th century philosopher.

I don't really get how it came to be a computer program, but i don't really care. Siege of Darkness was apparently a license to do any goddamn thing.

Scarlet Witch loans her power to Pixil so that he can carve out an escape for both of them. But Pixil is captured by the program anyway. She then escapes through the computer of a hacker in Milwaukee.

Minor note: one of the covers on this issue shows Vengeance as one of the headliners, but he doesn't appear in this issue.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part six of Siege of Darkness. Part seven is in Marvel Comics Presents #144.

References:

• Ghost Rider does a penance stare on Morbius and detects the Lilin. He berates himself for not doing so in Morbius #15.

Crossover: Siege of Darkness

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Ramon Lull (more properly Llull) was a real medieval philosopher who believed all human thought was comprised of small bits of truth that could be combined and re-combined to build larger systems of truth, ultimately building an interactive system that could unlock all human knowledge. The whiff of binary computation in this idea has caused many computer scientists to adopt Llull as a kind of patron saint. But no, none of this explains how a handwritten book could have autonomously evolved into a literal computer program (nor is there necessarily anything "demonic" about it to justify its inclusion in this crossover). Marvel of course fielded several other awful characters based on a really questionable understanding of cyberspace (Annex and Stunner come to mind). But hell, it was the 90s-- none of us knew what the digital revolution would bring. We just knew things were about to get *weird*.

On a separate note, something tells me that a teenage boy who suddenly managed to make a living, breathing, scantily-clad Wanda Maximoff appear in his bedroom, would be *MORE* inclined to continue his hacking endeavors, not less.