Marvel Comics’ Blood Hunt just kicked off with a gruesome bang. Or rather, with an ominous shriek ushered in by one of the most underrated supervillains of all time.

Blood Hunt #1 opens to the sight of nearly the entire world being engulfed in towering shadows that blot out the sun entirely. Only moments before the event ominously referred to as “Sundeath,” Earth’s Mightiest Heroes find themselves facing off against one of their oldest foes in the form of Marcus Daniels, aka Blackout. Unfortunately, what they are actually up against isn’t exactly a fight, as Blackout himself clearly has no control over his powers, nor do any of the Marvel Universe’s other Darkforce-wielding villains.

Written by JED MACKAY Art by PEPE LARRAZ Colorist by MARTE GRACIA Letterer by VC’s CORY PETIT Design by JAY BOWEN Cover by PEPE LARRAZ & MARTE GRACIA Variant Cover Artists STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU, DAVID BALDEÓN, JESUS ABURTOV, GABRIELE DELL’OTTO, JAVI FERNÁNDEZ, MATTHEW WILSON, JOHN TYLER CHRISTOPHER, KAEL NGU, LEINIL FRANCIS YU, SUNNY GHO and PEACH MOMOKO

When Blackout made his debut all the way back in the pages of 1978’s Nova #19 by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Carmine Infantino, he came into conflict with the titular hero during a series of high-tech robberies. While Daniels was indeed searching for tech that would allow him to stabilize his Darkforce-fueled abilities, which were acquired after being subjected to inhumane experiments at the hands of his own mentor, his desperation and the side effects of his powers ultimately fractured his psyche entirely.

Blackout is just one of several Darkforce wielding characters unwittingly caught in the middle of Marvel Comics’ Blood Hunt crossover event, which sees the vampires of the Marvel Universe launch their latest all-out attack on everyone and everything still drawing breath. The vampires’ assault is being led by a new team of supercharged vampire villains known as the Bloodcoven. The Bloodcoven consists of six new characters including Cruel, Unusual, Smoke, Eater, Damascene, Megrim, as well as the recently returned Dracula clone known as Bloodstorm One in a terrifying new form.

Apart from the five-issue Blood Hunt miniseries, the overarching event is also slated to take place in the pages of numerous other ongoing Marvel Comics series including Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Venom, and Fantastic Four. The students of the Sorcerer Supreme’s very own Strange Academy will also be among the dozens of heroes facing off against the vampire threat in the pages of writer Daniel José Older and artist Luigi Zagaria’s three-issue miniseries, Strange Academy: Blood Hunt. The miniseries is slated to see the likes of Doyle Dormammu hunting down pieces of the lost Montessi Formula, a spell capable of eradicating all vampires on Earth.

Blood Hunt #1 is on sale now from Marvel Comics

Source: Marvel Comics