Darkhold: Blade #1 introduces the Last Avengers, a version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who battle vampires in a gruesome alternate future.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Darkhold: Blade #1, by Daniel Kibblesmith, Federico Sabbatini, Rico Renzi and Clayton Cowles, available now from Marvel.
A new Avengers team forms to combat Marvel’s premiere vampire slayer in the terrifying alternate future of Darkhold: Blade #1.
Composed of Silver Sable, Prowler and Citizen V, the “Last Avengers” battle the undead in a dark world irrevocably altered after Deacon Frost offered himself to the demon La Magra. Frost unleashed a surge of energy known as the V-Wave, which changed billions of humans and mutants into vampires and banished other races, including Inhumans and Eternals.
In this new realm where only “the fanged and the food” exist, the Last Avengers attempt to steal a cure for vampirism from Wilson Fisk, who has also turned into a grotesque vampire himself. They also come into conflict with Blade, who kills indiscriminately and seems to have lost all traces of his humanity. After Silver Sable and Prowler are killed in an attack on Fisk’s base, Citizen V engages in hand-to-hand combat against Blade, who dispatches him. In his dying moments, Citizen V reveals himself as the former Nightcrawler, who became human when V-Wave was unleashed and was forced to watch his mutant brethren morph into the undead.
The sordid beginnings of the “Darkhold” event were told in the Darkhold: Alpha one-shot. There, Scarlet Witch experienced a vision of the Elder God Cthon — the deity responsible for the Darkhold’s writings — escaping his nightmarish Other-Realm. After reading from Cthon’s eldritch tome, Doctor Doom ventured into the god’s prison world and barely made it out alive. When he refused to work with her, Scarlet Witch recruited Black Bolt, Blade, Iron Man and Spider-Man as so-called Darkhold Defenders to stop Cthon’s impending machinations.
Unfortunately, each of these characters was horribly changed after they read from the Darkhold. Calling themselves the “Darkhold Defiled,” the heroes turned into twisted versions of themselves, with their respective alternate histories revealed in the one-shots connecting Darkhold: Alpha to the upcoming Darkhold: Omega, which releases in December to bring the event to a close.
The story of Tony Stark’s Darkhold variant was told in Darkhold: Iron Man #1 and featured a hefty dose of body horror as his skin dissolved into his suit, which bonded with his consciousness and began absorbing others. Following Darkhold: Blade, an eerie alternate future for the Wasp, featuring Janet Van Dyne turning into what appears to be a cross between her namesake and a human, will release in November.
Darkhold: Blade #1, by Daniel Kibblesmith, Federico Sabbatini, Rico Renzi and Clayton Cowles, is on sale now from Marvel.
Source: Marvel
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