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chevalier716's review
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
3.0
"Rise of the Midnight Sons" was cool concept with a cool look, but of the 6 parts that make it up, 3 only exist to launch doomed comic series, confuse the narrative, and ultimately stands good example of why long-time Marvel readers are wary of crossovers.
In 1990, Marvel reintroduced the character of Ghost Rider in a new series. In the liner notes, as is customary in comics, it was designated Volume 2 to distinguish it from the prior 1970s series with a new numbering sequence. The series was hugely popular from the start and by 1992 Marvel was looking to cash in on the success with a crossover and a brand-wide launch of a series of darker supernatural heroes. However, in the very issue prior to the start of "Rise of the Midnight Sons," Ghost Rider was just coming off ANOTHER crossover with X-Men, that had spanned 4 issues shared between the two titles and had altered the status quo and "killed" the host of the new Ghost Rider, Dan Ketch.
"Rise of the Midnight Sons" ran from August to September of 1992, encompassing Ghost Rider 28, Spirit of Vengeance 1, Morbius 1, Darkhold 1, Darkstalkers 1, and Ghost Rider 31, complete in sealed poly bags with a piece of a collectible poster. Naturally, since they're numbered you'd assume that you'd have to buy all 6 comics to get the "whole" story, but when you'd pick them up, you'd soon find out that three of those (Darkhold, Morbius, NightStalkers) are side-stories at best, at worst they break the narrative considerably. It was all a superficial ploy by Marvel trying to cash-in on the sudden popularity of the new Ghost Rider and to get you invested in comics you probably wouldn't buy otherwise. Which is a disservice to those fledgling comic series as they were not allowed to blossom on their own, instead their fates were linked to this crossover. Of the four series that were started (Spirit of Vengeance, was another series started as a part of this, but more closely linked to the narrative), only Morbius ran the longest, eventually canceled by issue 32. Darkhold and Nightstalkers didn't even make it to 20 issues, Spirit of Vengeance only doing slightly better, being canceled at 23. All these series would have benefited from a 3-4 issue lead instead of jumping straight into the crossover. To make matters worse, if you were just reading Ghost Rider, there was a two month gap between parts 1 and 6, leaving you with two one-shot issues in-between.
Overall, "Rise of the Midnight Sons" was a victim of Marvel's gimmicky publishing culture in the 90's and soon, despite Ghost Rider's popularity, sales dwindled to the point that Ghost Rider was canceled before he was able to reach 100 issues in 1998. Ghost Rider has had a total of 6 volumes, one most recently in 2019, all have struggled to maintain a series longer than 40 issues ever since.
In 1990, Marvel reintroduced the character of Ghost Rider in a new series. In the liner notes, as is customary in comics, it was designated Volume 2 to distinguish it from the prior 1970s series with a new numbering sequence. The series was hugely popular from the start and by 1992 Marvel was looking to cash in on the success with a crossover and a brand-wide launch of a series of darker supernatural heroes. However, in the very issue prior to the start of "Rise of the Midnight Sons," Ghost Rider was just coming off ANOTHER crossover with X-Men, that had spanned 4 issues shared between the two titles and had altered the status quo and "killed" the host of the new Ghost Rider, Dan Ketch.
"Rise of the Midnight Sons" ran from August to September of 1992, encompassing Ghost Rider 28, Spirit of Vengeance 1, Morbius 1, Darkhold 1, Darkstalkers 1, and Ghost Rider 31, complete in sealed poly bags with a piece of a collectible poster. Naturally, since they're numbered you'd assume that you'd have to buy all 6 comics to get the "whole" story, but when you'd pick them up, you'd soon find out that three of those (Darkhold, Morbius, NightStalkers) are side-stories at best, at worst they break the narrative considerably. It was all a superficial ploy by Marvel trying to cash-in on the sudden popularity of the new Ghost Rider and to get you invested in comics you probably wouldn't buy otherwise. Which is a disservice to those fledgling comic series as they were not allowed to blossom on their own, instead their fates were linked to this crossover. Of the four series that were started (Spirit of Vengeance, was another series started as a part of this, but more closely linked to the narrative), only Morbius ran the longest, eventually canceled by issue 32. Darkhold and Nightstalkers didn't even make it to 20 issues, Spirit of Vengeance only doing slightly better, being canceled at 23. All these series would have benefited from a 3-4 issue lead instead of jumping straight into the crossover. To make matters worse, if you were just reading Ghost Rider, there was a two month gap between parts 1 and 6, leaving you with two one-shot issues in-between.
Overall, "Rise of the Midnight Sons" was a victim of Marvel's gimmicky publishing culture in the 90's and soon, despite Ghost Rider's popularity, sales dwindled to the point that Ghost Rider was canceled before he was able to reach 100 issues in 1998. Ghost Rider has had a total of 6 volumes, one most recently in 2019, all have struggled to maintain a series longer than 40 issues ever since.
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