Darkhold
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- For the Forgotten Realms location, see Darkhold.
The Darkhold, also known as The Book of Sins, is a fictional book (a grimoire) in the Marvel Comics universe. It was co-created by Gerry Conway and Mike Ploog. The Darkhold was first mentioned in Marvel Spotlight #3 but first shown in Marvel Spotlight #4.
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[edit] Fictional book history
Chthon, a demonic Elder God who was the Earth's first practitioner of black magic, was the principal author of the Darkhold. Being academic, Chthon wrote all his collected knowledge of magic into the iron-bound scrolls that served as the first form of the Darkhold. It remained as the Darkhold after most of the Elder Gods were slain (Chthon and Set managed to escape) by the Demogorge.
[edit] First vampire
Humans first found the Darkhold during time of surface Atlantis. When Kull slew Thulsa Doom, Doom's followers, the Darkholders, utilized the Darkhold to create the first vampire, Varnae, dying due to wounds suffered in battle with Kull. Varnae consumed one of the Darkholders who attempted to command him, and began creating other vampires. Some surviving Darkholders managed to make off with the Darkhold before Atlantis sank.[1]
Varnae, when Atlantis sank, went into hibernation and did not revive until circa 10,000 BCE. He found that some parchments of the Darkhold had been left behind in the Flaming Mountains of Khorasha. Varnae attempted to recover these parchments. In an altercation with Conan, Red Sonja, and the sorcerer Zula, Varnae controlled the bat-like humanoids the Afterlings. Zula used the Darkhold against Varnae. Zula uses a spell from the Darkhold/Chthon Scrolls that shocks Varnae. The spell went: "Shemek Iref Wenek Tjhen Inek It-Ek Chthon Djedeni Emm-Maat Wenen Taeei Hemet Ankh-Ek Isheset Antioo Djedte Nes Sep Iree NEn Renek Anhkhu Wi-Im Valka!". Zula notes that "I'm sorry the incantation ended where it did-and only hurt Lord Varnae, rather than destroying him". To Zula the words appeared in Stygian, but it has long been known that Chthon cast a spell that makes the Darkhold appear intelligible in any language. In any event, Varnae fled.[2]
[edit] Red Sonja
Zula also used the Darkhold against the Set-worshipping sorcerer Thugra Khothan. Later Red Sonja and Zula traveled to Zamboula, Zamboula serving as the western part of the Turanian empire. Totrasmek, the priest of the deity Hanuman (note that Hindus also worship a simian deity called Hanuman), came into possession of the Chthon Scroll/Darkhold. Totramesk had been searching for years for the Darkhold. Zula recovered the Darkhold and used the scrolls to transport himself and Sonja away. Zula noted that the scroll disappeared as a result of the spell.[3]
Later historians in the Vatican would note that at some point scrolls of the Darkhold were taken East during the Hyborian Age.[4]
[edit] Morgan Le Fay
After the Hyborian Age, Egyptians, Babylonians and Hebrews came to possess the Darkhold scrolls. Morgan Le Fay bound the scrolls into book form for the first time circa the 600's. It is around this time they were translated from Chthon's arcane script into Latin. Saint Brendan tore them up. Numerous pages from the Darkhold have been scattered across the globe by cults of Chthon-worshipping Darkholders. The usage of a page of the Darkhold would summon the Darkhold Dwarf, a minion or manifestation of Chthon, who would attempt to manipulate and corrupt the page's invoker.
In the 1100's, a heretical monk named Aelfric had reformed the Darkhold. This monk was burnt at the stake, the Darkhold with him. However, the Darkhold reformed itself, and was purchased by a trader, who was then murdered. By the 1600's, the Vatican came to possess the Darkhold. Dracula sent a thief to acquire it for him, but Cagliostro slew the thief and took it for himself.
At some point the vampire Lord Ruthven may have possessed the Darkhold.
[edit] Werewolves
The Darkhold was also responsible for the curse of the werewolf; an 18th century man named Grigori Russoff had been tainted by the Darkhold, and was subsequently bitten by a werewolf who served Dracula. Grigori passed this curse of lycanthropy onto his descendents, including eventually Gregor Russoff and his son Jacob Russoff. Taboo, the sorcerer, claims to have found the Darkhold in an old Balkan castle. He used to taunt Gregor Russoff with a possible cure.[5]
Gregor Russoff came to possess the Darkhold. He would later copy much of its content into the journal of his ancestor, and used it as a journal for himself. Accounts vary as to how he came to possess it. Some say he purchased it, while others say he took it from the sorcerer Taboo. Two accounts say that Russoff bought it. In an event, when he read of the origin of lycanthropy in the Darkhold, Gregor Russoff (whose ancestor Grigori had been a werewolf) also contracted lycanthropy. During this time, Dracula shadowed Russoff.
Gregor Russoff attempted to raise Chthon hoping he could cure him of lycanthropy. Chthon instead apparently struck Russoff dead, though Russoff evidently somehow revived. The High Evolutionary and Magnus managed to defeat Chthon at this point. Presumably, the revived Gregor Russoff recovered the Darkhold and somehow managed to hide his activities from the High Evolutionary and Magnus for some time. He was later slain by villagers no earlier than approximately 20 years ago.
Later, Russoff's son Jack also became a werewolf. Recovering the Darkhold from Miles Blackgar, he gave it to a Father Jacquez to translate. Aelfric's ghost possessed Jacquez. At the end of this struggle, Russell erroneously thought that the Darkhold was destroyed. Later, Russoff traveled to Transylvania with the Indian woman Topaz to visit Russoff Manor. There they found Gregor Russoff's diary. Dracula came to possess the diary and left it behind in a blizzard in the Alps (since the diary contained a copy of the Montesi Formula to destroy vampires). However, Morgan Le Fay later recovered the diary.
The Darkhold contains the Vampiric Verses, which were used to create the world's first vampire, Varnae, near the end of the time of Atlantis. It also contains the Montesi Formula, which could destroy one or even all vampires. The formula was named for the medieval Catholic priest who discovered it; as only he and his bloodline were immune to the Darkhold's corrupting power, the Church gave him and his male descendants the right to marry while remaining in the priesthood. The Montesi Formula was used by Doctor Strange in the modern era to destroy all vampires on Earth save for Hannibal King, who was instead cured of his vampirism. The sorceress Marie Laveau later used the Vampiric Verses to resurrect Varnae, which apparently negated the Montesi Formula. The Darkhold is currently in the custody of Doctor Strange.
At some point Doctor Doom found a part of the Darkhold that allowed him to cast a spell to access Belasco's Limbo. Also at some point, Mephisto imprisoned a demon called Darklove into a page of the Darkhold. Also called the Shiatra Book of the Damned, the Darkhold has served as the source for the Necronomicon.
[edit] Midnight Sons
During the "Rise of the Midnight Sons" -- when Lilith and her offspring, the Lilin were released into the world once more -- the Darkhold went missing from the Vatican. At that time, the Darkhold Dwarf began appearing to people around the world, giving them pages from the Darkhold and enticing them to use its forbidden spells. Victoria Montesi -- reluctant heir to the Montesi responsibility of safeguarding the Darkhold, as well as the prophesied Montesi "incorruptibility" -- began having visions as the pages were used. When she herself was attacked by the Darkholders, she resolved to hunt down the pages of the book with the help of Interpol agent Sam Buchanan and occultist Dr. Louise Hastings. These Darkhold Redeemers (as Lilith once called them) managed to collect a number of the pages before they eventually disbanded.
A group led by Victoria Montesi, the last member of the Montesi family, attempted to curtail the effects of the lost pages of the Darkhold. The group starred in the series Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins. Many pages of the Darkhold were being passed around by a demonic dwarf. The recipients of the page could use them to grant a wish at the cost of their soul, though of course the wish tended to go horrifically wrong. Although the group was dubbed the "Darkhold Redeemers" in out-of-continuity material such as trading cards, the name was later officially applied via the Marvel Encyclopedia and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, although the group never went by a name during their series. The group's other members were the occult scholar Louise Hastings, her magically-proficient grandson Jinx, skeptical policeman Sam Buchanan, and the ancient wizard Modred the Mystic. The group was loosely affiliated with Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, the Nightstalkers, and the other "Midnight Sons".
Victoria Montesi, after an attack that injured her and disabled her girlfriend, had the ability to sense the use of the pages. Over time, they neutralized many pages, including one that caused a demonic recreation of Pearl Harbor. Sometimes they had help, such as from Sabretooth.
The group suffered its first major setback when much of Sam's agency, Interpol, was revealed to be corrupted by agents of evil. Sam eventually came to his senses.
Despite this, the group soon fell apart. Louise Hastings was killed by Blade while he was possessed by a Darkhold page, and was resurrected only to die again thanks to Morbius the Living Vampire. Both Jinx and Modred were corrupted by using the Darkhold pages to save their loved ones. Buchanan's increasingly rabid loathing of the supernatural, coupled with his inability to deal with Victoria's lesbian nature, made him unreliable, and later led him to battle Ghost Rider's temporary successor Vengeance. Montesi herself almost became corrupted by a page because she was tempted with the possibility of curing her handicapped lesbian lover.
Victoria soon learned that she had been created by her impotent father via a spell from the Darkhold in order to carry on the family line. She was unwillingly mystically impregnated with a child that would have served as Chthon's vessel on Earth. Doctor Strange exorcised the demon from the child during Victoria's labor.
