My Rating
“(The) Hell (I Suffer) Seems Like A Heaven”
Baron Winters sits behind his Victorian-era desk, staring at a recently delivered package. His faithful companion Merlin, an African leopard, paces impatiently nearby. The animal seems to sense what his master already knows. It is time once again.
The Baron thinks back to a promise made long ago. It seems like eons have passed since he spoke the words and entered into the mysterious agreement. Yet the contract remains binding. Now the box has returned, sitting innocently upon his desk. As before, Baron Winters must find someone plagued by doubt, tempt that troubled soul, and send them on a journey into the unknown. Once his part has been played, the box must be returned to its owner within the allotted time.
Elsewhere
Inside a Catholic cathedral in Washington, D.C., Father Timothy Sanchez attempts to console fifteen-year-old Deborah. Tears run like torrents down the young girl’s cheeks as an impossible decision hangs like an anchor upon her soul. She is pregnant, frightened, and desperately searching for guidance. Should she have an abortion?
Father Sanchez finds himself nearly as conflicted as the teenager sitting before him. In truth, the priest has wrestled with his own doubts for years. What words of comfort can he possibly offer Deborah when his own faith has begun to crumble? Does God even care anymore? Why does it seem as though the flock has been abandoned without a shepherd?
After deep reflection, Father Sanchez finally gives Deborah the answer expected of a Catholic priest: taking the life of the unborn is a sin.
Deborah attempts a counterargument, but the priest has already turned away. Sanchez may still wear the collar, but somewhere deep inside, his faith in humanity—and perhaps God Himself—has nearly disappeared. What good are religious answers when the man delivering them no longer knows if he believes?
Later that evening, a telephone call interrupts the priest’s solitude. The voice on the other end belongs to a man he has never met.
Baron Winters?
Who is Baron Winters? Why does this mysterious stranger want Father Sanchez to deliver a box to someone he doesn’t know? Is this some elaborate joke? A test of faith? Or has the troubled priest just been recruited into something far more dangerous than he could possibly imagine?
Collect the series to find out!
Review
Marv Wolfman continues to focus heavily on biblical mythology, faith, and moral conflict during this second volume of Night Force. There is certainly nothing wrong with exploring those themes—especially in a supernatural horror series—but I find myself missing some of the stranger horror and science-fiction elements that originally made Night Force so intriguing.
Father Sanchez’s crisis of faith gives Wolfman plenty of serious material to work with, while Baron Winters remains the wonderfully mysterious puppet master operating somewhere in the shadows. Still, I am hoping the series eventually wanders away from the pulpit and back into the bizarre corners of the supernatural. Give me occult conspiracies, impossible creatures, strange dimensions, and things that go bump in the night. That is the Night Force I came looking for.