Issue(s): Nightstalkers #10
Cover Date: Aug 93
Title: "Blood in the water"
Credits:
D.G. Chichester - Writer
Kirk Van Wormer - Penciler
Mark Badger - Inker
Hildy Mesnik - Editor

Review/plot:
Ok, so these Midnight Massacre issues all shipped with thick faux-leather black cardboard covers, complete with texture. We turn it around and see that these are actually set up like envelopes.

And that means that these are the envelopes containing the Darkhold pages that are getting passed around in the Darkhold series, and opening those envelopes never results in anything good. So i am not opening these. Review over.

...ok, fine. My soul is already in tatters after reviewing all these horrible 90s comics, so what more can happen to it?

By the way, you aren't getting cheated out of cover art. Inside the outer cover is basically a second cover minus the trade dress, on glossy paper with the normal thickness of a comics cover.

I guess the UPC code had to go somewhere (these weren't polybagged), and there's also the matter of the ads that go on the back and interior cover pages.

The premise of this crossover was set up in previous issues of Nightstalkers and Darkholders. Samantha and Richard Regent hated the occult because their parents spent all of their inheritance money on occult stuff. So Samantha was given a Darkhold page that promised to wipe out all the supernatural in the world. Richard didn't think using that page was a good idea, so he called the Nightstalkers for help. But Blade got the message, and he likes the idea of wiping out all the supernatural, so he went to Richard himself without telling the other Nightstalkers. However, the Nightstalkers' security footage caught Blade taking and deleting the message. We also saw that Samantha got hit by a car before she could use the page.

This story begins with Blade having tracked Samantha to the hospital that she's been brought to. He finds out that her Darkhold page was taken by a guy named Max, at the Pan-Demonium Club.

The other Nightstalkers, meanwhile, have contacted Johnny Blaze for help finding Blade. They go to Richard's place just as he happens to be talking to Blade on the phone. Blade says he doesn't trust the Nightstalkers anymore after their willingness to work with Ghost Rider and Morbius (let alone the fact that Hannibal King is a vampire).

It's worth remembering that this is all Dr. Strange's fault. Blade used to hate vampires exclusively until Dr. Strange went to the mental institution where he was being kept and manipulated him into hating all supernatural things (Nightstalkers #1). It's too bad he couldn't have programmed in an exception for allies.

Blade tracks down Max, who just turns out to be a garden variety thug unaware of the purpose of the Darkhold page. Blade gets the page just as the others arrive...

...and they're unable to stop him. Blade gets away and reads the page.

The spell doesn't just immediately wipe out all the supernatural. It instead turns Blade into a killing machine who absorbs the powers of the creatures that he kills. He's able to kill both Hannibal and Johnny.

He passes on Frank Drake since he's only human ("bein' Dracula's great-great-grandkid don't make you rate!").

The death of Johnny Blaze ensures that all of this will be reversed by the end of the crossover attracts the attention of Ghost Rider, who joins up with Frank.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Blade says that he's been "track[ing]" Samantha since she was brought to the hospital without ID. So i've allowed time to pass between the last arc and this one. This is part 1 of Midnight Massacre. Part 2 is in Ghost Rider #40.

References:

• Samantha Regent got the Darkhold page in Darkhold #8 and Blade was contacted by Richard in the last arc of this series.
  
• Johnny Blaze says that he and Ghost Rider have had experience with Darkhold pages. No footnote, but that happened in both Darkhold #1 and Midnight Sons Unlimited #1.

Crossover: Midnight Massacre

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Fnord, you have Midnight Sons Unilimited 1 in between Nightstalkers 9 and this issue. That doesn't work, unless Blade rejoined the Nightstalkers in between searching for the Darkhold page.
Blade's actions really show how far he's fallen since the 70s- then he was arguably more moral than Quincy, now he's willing to sacrifice his friends to Chthon to achieve his goals. Of course, Strange deserves some of the blame.

I actually think it's fine for Blade to appear with the Nightstalkers in between. We don't know how long it took Blade to track down Samantha and he might have gone back with the Nightstalkers to keep up appearances during the search. We also don't know when the other Nightstalkers first thought to review the security footage. But i've pushed Midnight Sons Unlimited #1 back to before Nightstalkers #8-9.