My Rating
“Born Again”
Wintersgate Manor – 2012. Baron Winters and his leopard Merlin stand watch over the rescued Jim Duffy and Mia as they recover from the Washington, D.C., mansion fire earlier that evening.
The creatures known as the Gatherers had intended to eliminate Mia and her Generation Two Darkling baby, but Jim’s unexpected search of the Greene estate distracted the Nurses long enough to disrupt their plans. Even then, survival came down to a matter of minutes. If the firefighters from Engine Company 32 hadn’t reached them when they did, Jim, Mia, and the child would have burned alive.
The Gatherers may have suffered a setback, but their centuries-long experiment is far from over.
Zoe Davis discovers that firsthand.
She awakens imprisoned inside some type of biomimetic incubator cocoon. The disgusting compartment clings to her naked body like an unbreakable rubber membrane. Zoe twists and struggles against the oozing material, but every attempt to escape proves useless.
Voices echo from somewhere outside her prison.
She recognizes some of them.
In her growing panic, it hardly matters.
Gathered around the incubator are the Gatherers, Harvesters, and Nurses responsible for maintaining the bloodlines necessary to create their Darkling offspring. Standing front and center are Senator Brian W. Greene and his wife, Sela.
Sela desperately tries to convince her husband to participate in one final insemination ritual.
Greene has endured the process against his will before, but his wife insists this will be the last time. She pleads with him to cooperate.
Just once more.
The senator staggers backward as something about the woman suddenly changes.
Her face begins to move.
The features of the middle-aged brunette he loves twist and melt away. Flesh transforms before his eyes until the familiar face of Sela Greene has been replaced by that of a hideous old hag.
Greene stares at the creature in horror.
This isn’t his wife.
It never was.
Kassandra Fey!
The witch has returned, and apparently everyone—including the Gatherers—has underestimated just how deeply she has buried herself inside their plans.
Now every piece Wolfman has scattered across seven issues begins moving toward the same destination. The Gatherers’ centuries-long breeding program, the Darklings, the Dormants, Simon Talman, the Duffy family, Zoe’s abduction, Senator Greene, Kassandra Fey, and the mysteries hidden inside Wintersgate Manor are finally converging.
Can Sergeant Jim Duffy Jr. return once again to his father’s home in 1956 and stop the Gatherer known as Simon Talman? Can Zoe Davis escape the Nurses before they impregnate her with another Darkling child? What does Kassandra Fey really want?
And is Baron Winters powerful enough to cleanse the dark souls infesting Wintersgate Manor?
Collect the series to find out!
Review
Boom! What an ending.
After reading all three volumes of Night Force, I have to say that Volume 3 delivered my favorite overall storyline of the series.
Volume 1 introduced Baron Winters, Merlin, Wintersgate Manor, and the basic concept behind the Night Force. I enjoyed that original run, even if the series never received the longevity I would have liked. Volume 2 had some great ideas and expanded Wolfman’s supernatural corner of the DC Universe, but the storytelling sometimes felt scattered. Volume 3 feels different.
This one has focus.
From the opening issue, Wolfman establishes the Gatherers and then slowly works backward and forward through history to explain their plans. George Washington, the Duffy family, Simon Talman, the Dormants, the Darklings, Senator Greene, Zoe Davis, and Kassandra Fey all initially seem like separate pieces of a supernatural puzzle. By the finale, Wolfman finally snaps those pieces together.
And yes, Marv made us wait for it.
Seven issues.
Come on, man!
But the payoff works.
The horror elements are also right where I want them. We get monsters, witches, psychic bloodlines, grotesque experiments, shadow creatures, serial killers, time travel, historical mysteries, and a supernatural mansion filled with doorways leading across time itself. This is the kind of bizarre mixture of horror and science fiction that made me interested in Night Force in the first place.
Kassandra Fey turned out to be one of my favorite characters in the entire series. Every time she appears, the story becomes more unpredictable. Baron Winters usually acts like the master manipulator who knows exactly where every piece belongs on the chessboard.
Kassandra flips over the damn board.
I also can’t say enough about the visual team on Volume 3. Tom Mandrake’s dark, shadow-heavy artwork fits Night Force beautifully, while the colors give the supernatural scenes an atmosphere that separates this run visually from the previous volumes. Marv Wolfman was in the right place at the right time in 2012 to get a production team that understood exactly what kind of comic this needed to be.
I’m giving Night Force Vol. 3 #7 four out of five stars.
As for Volume 3 as a whole?
Five out of five stars.
This is one of those story arcs I can see myself rereading several times. In fact, knowing the answers makes me want to go back to issue #1 and look for all the clues Wolfman planted along the way.
If you’re a horror-comics fan—or simply a DC Comics reader looking for something beyond the usual superheroes—I recommend checking out Night Force Volume 3. It’s strange, dark, occasionally confusing, and filled with exactly the kind of supernatural insanity I want from this title.
Apparently, Baron Winters and his Night Force weren’t finished quite yet. In 2018, Wolfman brought Winters and company into Raven: Daughter of Darkness, beginning with issue #7 and continuing through issue #12.
Looks like I know what I’m reading next.
See you next time.