Issue(s): New Warriors #32, New Warriors #33, New Warriors #34
Cover Date: Feb-Apr 93
Title: Forces of Darkness, Forces of Light: "Crawling to the shadows" / "The soul canyons" / "Breaking the back of love"
Credits:
Fabian Nicieza - Writer
Darick Robertson - Penciler
Larry Mahlstedt - Inker
Dan Cuddy - Assistant Editor
Rob Tokar - Editor

Review/plot:
This is the first three parts of a four part Forces of Darkness, Forces of Light storyline that includes a lot of guest stars, with a focus on Marvel's Darkforce characters. The final part is in the New Warriors' annual.

In the last arc, we saw Vanisher lurking around hoping to find Silhouette, who has already gone missing. And then Vanisher himself disappeared (and not on his own power). This arc opens with a kid in a drug rehabilitation clinic having problems with "the dark" talking to him and touching him.

And, meanwhile, Cloak is having another problem with his powers going out of control.

Cloak gets pulled inside his cloak. Dagger follows, and finds several people in there with him. But she's expunged.

The New Warriors' involvement starts with Speedball's mother, Maddie, joining the cast of the soap opera where Mary Jane Watson works. So Spider-Man and Speedball run into each other in their secret identities.

They both notice a building getting covered in darkness. They find excuses to leave (facilitated by the fact that MJ and Maddie know Peter and Robbie's identities, respectively), and are therefore in the same area when they reappear in their costumes.

Archangel, entertaining Charlotte Jones in his New York apartment, is also nearby and he also goes to investigate.

Note the Wolfpack reference, which i just take as a joke (the same joke as in New Warriors #1).

Dr. Strange also detects the disturbance.

Note that the footnote says that Strange appears after Doctor Strange #50. But that has to be a mistake, as we'll see below.

Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to discover several characters held captive in the darkforce. These are all characters with darkforce related powers, including Vanisher, Shroud, Silhouette, Quagmire (we saw him get captured in Quasar #44, published the same month), Black Mamba, and a character that the MCP identifies as Ecstacy but who also looks a little like Darkstar (and whichever it is, i wonder why the other wasn't included).

Rage and Namorita are at the New Warriors' headquarters, actively searching for Silhouette with their computer system, and instead they also detect the disturbance. They're then flooded by dark goop, and Namorita is possessed. Luckily Nova shows up to help Rage.

Rage says that he felt the darkness kind of calling to him too, amplifying his rage, and Nova suggests that "with all the junk she's gone through lately", Namorita might also be particularly vulnerable to it. We see that Archangel is similarly affected and possessed.

Meanwhile, Darkhawk and Firestar show up to help Spider-Man and Speedball, who have gotten themselves trapped in the darkness goo. Speedball makes a joke that will turn out to be a bit prescient.

And we're not done adding heroes yet. The male version of Turbo shows up (the New Warriors met the female version in New Warriors #28, but this is the first time they've met the boy).

Gotta love how accepting Spider-Man is about accepting teen super-heroes at this point. Turbo's so obviously a rookie, but Spider-Man just lets him come along. Which i think makes sense; Spidey himself started out as a kid.

More heroes still: some Avengers and FFers.

Sersi and the Human Torch also turn out to be targets for the Darkforce. The Black Knight may also have been a target, but Firestar, whose powers prove particularly effective against the goop, is able to keep it off him. Vanisher then shows up to teleport Sersi and the Torch away. Nova and Rage are similarly attacked by Cloak, but Dagger shows up to repel him. Dagger is apparently sick of Cloak's problems.

Meanwhile, Dr. Strange is confronted by Manual Gallante (Strange later calls him Henrique; i guess his full name is Henrique Manual Gallante), the guy from the rehab clinic. Strange says he's a mutant that is unable to control his powers.

Strange then uses the Shield of Seraphim on him, and now a footnote tells us that this story takes place prior to Doctor Strange #50, which makes more sense. I don't know if the original footnote was just a mistake or maybe if people didn't realize that the changes to Strange in that story were going to be long term, but either way it seems to be corrected here.

During all of the fighting, Nicieza uses the opportunity to clarify that even though Darkhawk called his chest beam his "Darkforce Blast", it's got nothing to do with Darkforce Dimension.

Gallante is under the impression that he's being driven by demons, but Dr. Strange confirms that there are no demons in the Darkforce (this is of course an important point for of the drama of this story, confirming that Gallante is out of control, not possessed, but i wonder if it's also a kind of knock at the Predator concept from the Cloak & Dagger series).

Gallante is happy to hear that, because it means that it's all about him, which is "cool".

Gallante has as many super-villain names as he does regular names. The above panel makes it look like he's calling himself Night-Maker, but a few pages later he grows in size and identifies himself as Darkling.

And he'll become the second Asylum (replacing the Psionex character).

But we'll pause here because the final part of this is covered in the annual.

Statement of Ownership Total Paid Circulation: Average of Past 12 months = 231,150. Single issue closest to filing date = 227,800.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Darkling/Asylum

Chronological Placement Considerations: Continues directly in New Warriors annual #3. Silhouette is said to have been missing for "weeks". Note that the Thing's face is not injured. See above regarding the confusion around the Dr. Strange footnotes, but this should take place before Doctor Strange #48-50.

References:

• The New Warriors met the other Turbo in New Warriors #28.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

"Speedball makes a joke that will turn out to be a bit prescient when we get to Kurt Busiek's Avengers run."
Angelica's powers poisoning her was actually established by Skolnick in New Warriors 61.
Black Mamba is described by Rage as having the ability to control minds, which is not her powers work.To be fair, Rage has never met her before, so he wouldn't know how her powers worked. Also in that sequence, Mamba shows Rage a vision of his family being killed, which will prove to be a bad omen in a few issues.