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 in the Marvel Comics universe. It was co-created by Gerry Conway and Mike Ploog and first appeared in Werewolf by Night #1.
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 was millennia later that these scrolls were assembled into a book and translated from Chthon's arcane script into Latin. 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.
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.
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 abillity to sense the use of the pages. Over time, they nuetralized 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 possibillity 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.
