Missing Links: Nightstalkers #2

Nightstalkers #2
“Revenant Season”
Writer: D.G. Chichester
Penciler: Ron Garney
Inker/Colorist: Tom Palmer
Letterer: John Costanza
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco
Released: Oct. 6, 1992

Although I'm often ambivalent toward horror, as a kid, I found classic monsters like werewolves and vampires pretty interesting. I endlessly checked out a series of books from the local library that broke down characters like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man and even King Kong and Godzilla.

Combining those concepts with comics and superheroes should have been a home run, but for whatever reason, I didn't dive into the darker corners of the Marvel Universe.

In the early '90s, I gave Nightstalkers a try. It featured the vampire hunter Blade and two other characters I knew little about. Hannibal King was, if memory serves, a vampire who fought against his bloodlust (I want to say he reminds me a bit of Angel from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) while Frank Drake was a descendant of Dracula, fighting the occult with a high-tech blaster he nicknamed Linda, after “Exorcist” star Linda Blair.

The former team of occult investigators resumed their alliance and started this series as part of the “Rise of the Midnight Sons.” In true superhero fashion, they were pitted against then-Ghost Rider Danny Ketch and once and future Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze through the machinations of the villainous Lilith. If you want a breakdown of that series, check out the Unspoken Issues Unspoken Epics podcast series being released this week for Halloween. (Or jump to the Nightstalkers episode here.)

I thought these hybrid Ghostbusters/superheroes were pretty cool, maybe even edgy to my 12-year-old sensibilities. I figured I would check out the next issue, which promised to put them up against a supernatural Hydra squad called D.O.A.

But I never saw it.

The series came and went and was always something of a curiosity in the back of my mind. A few years ago, I stopped at Snooper's, an antique mall in Wytheville, Va., where I often shopped for comics while my mom bought, you know, antiques and boring stuff. Intent on getting a comic there for the first time in ages, I found, lo and behold, Nightstalkers #2.

Despite references to Hydra, the guy shooting at Blade and the gang on the cover looks like a pretty standard thug. That scene plays out almost immediately, after an introductory page in which a trio of ne'er-do-wells con a man expecting to contact his dead brother via séance and wind up killing their dissatisfied customer.

They do have some dark magic abilities though and wind up with the Nightstalkers in hot pursuit. That's exactly whose attention someone named Belial wanted the trio to catch, but the team makes quick work of them.

Turns out Belial isn't a demon but a middle manager at Hydra, working for the group's Department of Occult Armaments that specializes in developing weapons from occult sources. He thinks King is the key to developing an army of “vampiric stormtroopers,” but Hydra big cheese Baron Strucker isn't all that optimistic. Or supportive.

Next we get some character moments with King lamenting his vampiric immortality, Drake talking to his wife about the perils of getting the Nightstalkers back together and Blade … gathering ingredients for a pie.

Belial bails his goon squad out of jail, only to set them up to be eliminated by D.O.A.'s super-powered field operatives: Malpractice, Innards, Rotwrap and Pyre (if Strucker is assessing the unit's performance based on codenames, I understand his skepticism).

Many years removed from reading issue 1, I dropped into this story no problem. Drake recaps the purpose of the team in expository dialogue, and I know they have history without having read any of those issues. Conversation at the Hydra staff meeting lets me know S.H.I.E.L.D. is in flux at this point and links the story to the wider Marvel Universe.

What stood out to me most were Strucker's references to Hydra as a Nazi group, or at least descended from their ranks. When people flipped out a few years back after Captain America broke bad and said “Hail Hydra,” I brushed off their concerns because a) a cosmic cube was clearly involved and b) Hydra was just a bunch of generic bad guys. The Nazi connection was more a creation of the movies. Or so I thought. Clearly, that wasn't the case. (But still – “Secret Empire” spoiler, technically – that wasn't Captain America.)

Chichester's dialogue is lively, and he makes clear the conflicts in the group, mostly between Blade and King. Blade hates vampires, and King is one. It makes Hawkman and Green Arrow seem like bosom buddies.

I've picked up another issue or two of Nightstalkers, and I may try to complete the set if it's not too pricey (read: more than a buck an issue). But it's fueled more out of nostalgia at this point than a burning desire to see what Innards' powers are.