A Blue Moon Comics Event

Night Spider and Midnight Stranger: Mind Over Murder #1

For the last two years, JW Erwin and I have been working on a mammoth 48-page team-up between our two “creature of the night” heroes, Night Spider and Midnight Stranger. Our goal was to stretch our storytelling and, at the same time, to give our readers a “Halloween Treat” of a sort, in the form of what amounts to be our version of an old school comicbook annual—but one that would combine the sensibilities of both the Bronze and Modern ages of comics.

We also wanted to play up the differences between our two crime-fighters. Night Spider is a deputized special-ops member of the New Constantine police force, while Midnight Stranger is a cosmic being who inhabits the body of a comatose earth man. Night Spider is a straight-up superhero who stands for Justice. Midnight Stranger is a nigh-omnipotent alien anti-hero who calls himself “the embodiment of Vengeance”. He works outside the law, killing criminals in such a way as to make the punishments fit the crimes. What a team, right?

So, to allow us to play the characters differences against each other, we came up with a plot involving a series of murders committed by random, innocent men who were actually being manipulated by a human criminal—through the power of an Ancient Evil bound to an idol found in a Middle Eastern desert. A mix of Street and Cosmic. A chance to compare and contrast Night Spider’s beliefs and methods against those of the Midnight Stranger. Will two characters whose codes of ethics are so incompatible be able to team up, solve the mystery, and end this murderous reign of terror?

JW and I know the answers to those questions, but we’re not telling yet. You can find out Halloween Week when Night Spider and Midnight Stranger: Mind Over Murder #1 goes on sale digitally at DriveThruComics and GlobalComix.