Midnight Suns: Blood Hunt #3 - Marvel Comics

MIDNIGHT SONS: BLOOD HUNT No. 3, September 2024

It’s probably a fair bet that many a reader was rather disappointed with Bryan Hill’s script for Issue Three of “Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt”, considering that the vampireless comic doesn’t contain any sort of showdown between Blade and his former comrades whatsoever. In fact, up until this twenty-page periodical’s conclusion – which frankly feels like a bolt-on when the American author realised his ‘play by the numbers’ plot was going to fall significantly short - there’s not even a glimpse of Eric Brook’s sword-slashing alter-ego to be found despite its publisher’s pre-print solicitation promise to the contrary.

Instead, any bibliophiles picking this mini-series’ final instalment up will be faced with the “now (mostly) banded together” titular characters disconcertingly confronting a demonic clown in an Illinois hospital. Admittedly, this bemusing twist definitely contains a few terrifying scenes as Danny Ketch, Vicki Montesi and Johnny Blaze all appear to abandon a local nurse to a gruesome fate (possibly worse than death). But such is the team's confidence to trounce the worm-infested walking cadaver that the storytelling quickly becomes almost sedentary once it becomes clear that the petrified health worker was simply being used as bait; “You are bound. Embodiment of darkness. Bound in this form. And once banished, never shall you return.”

Furthermore, for some utterly bizarre reason Tamlyn Hamato seems to leave the paranormal super-heroes to the battle by ‘exiting stage left’ just as the fearsome fight begins. This baffling departure ‘off-screen’ debatably makes a complete mockery of just why Tulip was brought into the book in the first place, as the three devil-hunting comrades-in-arms all seemed perfectly willing to be drawn together without her influence anyway. Indeed, somewhat uncharitably, the Chicago-born screenwriter could be criticised for including the Japanese arms dealer simply so he could pointlessly pen her walking the sun-drenched streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand some “weeks after the defeat of Varnae and his blood hunt” and finding a heavily-bearded Blade.

Possibly just as perturbed by this bizarre sequence of events as the audience is German Peralta, who pencils some rather lack-lustre, lifeless panels depicting Montesi trying the convince Julie that she needs to face her greatest fear so it can physically manifest itself in our dimension. Some of the illustrator’s panels genuinely look like reused sketches from earlier in the layouts (or even page), and debatably lack a lot of dynamic energy any onlooker might expect from a frightful undead fun-fair attraction stalking the living.

The regular cover art to "MIDNIGHT SONS: BLOOD HUNT" #3 by Ken Lashley & Juan Fernandez

Midnight Suns: Blood Hunt #2 - Marvel Comics

MIDNIGHT SONS: BLOOD HUNT No. 2, August 2024

Despite starting with a scene seemingly stolen straight out Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 psychological horror film “The Shining”, there’s arguably still plenty to enjoy with Bryan Hill’s narrative for Issue Two of “Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt”. Indeed, no sooner has the audience waded through Victoria Montesi’s blood-drenched nightmare, than they are whisked away to the vampire-stalked corridors of a partially-deserted hospital in Springfield, Illinois for an enjoyable, pulse-pounding confrontation with a skin-shredding revenant; “I have so much pain inside me… Pain I want to share… with you.”

This tense, adrenalin fuelled chase scene genuinely doesn’t look good for the poor female nurse who finds herself at the fanged fiend’s not-so-tender mercy, and right up until the flame-fuelled Ghost Rider makes an impressive last-minute appearance, everything penned by the American author appears to lead the understandably terrified woman towards a truly grisly demise. Likewise things look similarly glum for the titular characters when their former friend Eric Brooks shocking crashes into the middle of their latest congregation and appears on the verge of dispatching at least a couple of the super-powered protagonists with his deadly sharp sword.

Quite possibly this twenty-page periodical’s best moment however, doesn’t come until its very end, when it’s revealed that Blade was merely trying to lure his ex-team-mates away from the infirmary so that some unseen demonic “sleeper of Hell” could cross over into our dimension. So disconcerting a plot twist really is very well delivered by the Chicago-born writer, and debatably occurs just as the audience are probably expecting the supernatural troupe to somehow follow their one-time mentor straight out of the clinic’s smashed multi-storey window.

Proficiently pencilling all this action is German Peralta, whose sketches of the aforementioned vampire literally clawing his flesh off of his head are well worth a “parental advisory” warning alone. Furthermore, the Argentinian artist does a cracking job in making the reader drop their guard with the ‘quiet’ of the hospital’s empty canteen. This serene atmosphere is disconcertingly peaceful, and resultantly makes the Daywalker’s dramatic entrance all the impactive as it completely shatters the calm nature of the moment in an instant.

The regular cover art to "MIDNIGHT SONS: BLOOD HUNT" #2 by Ken Lashley & Juan Fernandez

Midnight Suns: Blood Hunt #1 - Marvel Comics

MIDNIGHT SONS: BLOOD HUNT No. 1, July 2024

It is difficult to imagine that many fans of action and terror were truly satisfied with Bryan Hill’s narrative for Issue One of “Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt”, no matter how hopeful the American Author was during this mini-series’ pre-publication launch interview in February 2024. True, the thirty-page periodical definitely contains some high-octane action sequences, alongside a disconcertingly dark journey into a haunted cave in El Fasha, Iraq. But considering that large chunks of this comic consist of little more than conversational pieces, a lot of the storytelling’s dynamism has arguably already been negated by the time Tulip encounters a warband of vampire mercenaries in the desert.

Indeed, so much of this book appears to simply depict Tamlyn Hamato just nonchalantly talking to the likes of Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze as part of her recruitment drive to tackle an utterly villainous Blade, rather than the tale actually explaining just how the “clairvoyant Japanese arms dealer” knows where to find the former super-team’s members, or that the Daywalker has even turned treacherously rogue. Much of this legwork was presumably obtained ‘off-screen’ and through her numerous contacts in the underworld. However, this unwillingness on the part of the writer to even summarise any of this, and instead simply signpost that Eric Brooks has been empowered by Dracula, debatably smacks of an assumption on Hill’s part that the reader has already consumed the entirety of his run as writer on the recently cancelled 2023 “Blade” series.

Such a shortfall of context also somewhat seems to permeate the Ghost Rider’s subsequent demand that Tulip help him first before the Midnight Sons will help her. Just why the Spirit of Vengeance and his predecessor need the help of a ‘mortal’, no matter how large the bazooka she carries into combat, is never explained, nor the reason behind why Blaze and Ketch needed to specifically destroy a thing from the Darkforce Dimension in the first place..? Unless they simply felt it was too dangerous a living weapon for the vampires to own..?

Ultimately, quite a bit of this comic’s palpable lethargy disappointingly also seems to stem from German Peralta’s layouts, which even when crammed full of explosions, flesh-tearing bullets and deadly sword slashes, seemingly lack the raw energy which so attracted Stan Lee to Jim Steranko’s artwork in the Sixties. Indeed, despite the Argentinian illustrator prodigiously pencilling an incredibly violent splash page showing the Ghost Rider riding straight through the aforementioned tentacled beastie from elsewhere, the picture appears to be devoid of the ‘oomph’ a bibliophile might ordinarily expect from such a sense-shattering shenanigan.

The regular cover art to "MIDNIGHT SONS: BLOOD HUNT" #1 by Ken Lashley & Juan Fernandez

Doctor Strange #388 - Marvel Comics

DOCTOR STRANGE No. 388, June 2018

Considering that Issue Three Hundred and Eighty Eight of “Doctor Strange” seemingly promised its readers a truly mouth-watering confrontation between the likes of Man-Thing, Moon Knight, Elsa Bloodstone, Doctor Voodoo, Wong, the Ghost Rider, Iron Fist and Blade with the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, there must have been many within its 30,155 strong audience in April 2018 who were bitterly disappointed by Donny Cates’ bizarre decision to instead have this twenty-page periodical’s narrative almost exclusively focus upon its titular character conducting a lengthy conversation with the ghost of his dead basset hound. True, this bemusing plot twist involving the Sorcerer Supreme’s dog does apparently result in the Master of the Mystic Arts finally regaining his sanity after previously believing Mephisto’s glamour upon his disembodied soul that he was being rescued from Hotel inferno by the likes of Wanda, Loki and Clea. But this dialogue-driven, incredibly sedentary and sleep-inducing solution to his precarious demonically-possessed predicament hardly compares to the sense-shattering shenanigans a blow-by-blow battle between the Midnight Sons and Avengers would have produced.

In fact, this particular instalment to the Texas-born writer’s “Bleeding Neon” storyline is arguably absolutely packed full of head-scratching decisions which genuinely seem to be at odds with the notion that a “Damnation” Event tie-in edition should provide an entertaining, or at very least eminently sensible, experience. For starters, if all it takes for Strange to shake-off his devilish opponent’s deception is his pet pooch's presence, why doesn’t “Stephen’s old magic buddy” Wong simply instruct the animal to “bail him out” straight away, rather than wait until his “team of weirdos… vampire slayers… and… uh, Spider-Man in a hoodie” are beaten within an inch of their lives..?

Equally as bemusing is just how Shuma-Gorath suddenly appears from amidst a casino packed full of lost souls, when the All-Killer of the Dawn and Devourer-God of the Eternal Ever-Was doesn’t, as even the titular character pointedly exclaims, belong in Hell..? Disappointingly, such an utterly bizarre inclusion of the Many-Angled One would debatably seem to only have been made just to provide a worthy opponent for Jane Foster’s Thor to arbitrarily clobber into tomorrow when the female physician’s super-strong alter-ego gobsmackingly appears completely out of the blue so as to supposedly save the sorcerer at this comic’s conclusion; “Yes, by all means, the mighty Thor shall handle this monstrosity for as long as it takes for you all to have a wonderfully casual and lengthy conversation!”

The regular cover art of "DOCTOR STRANGE" No. 388 by Mike Del Mundo