Two Past Midnight

Dark Horse Heroes

by Duane Swierczynski, Eduardo Francisco (Illustrations), Stefani Rennee (Illustrations)

A madman is on the loose. His Shock, awe, panic, and hysteria. Can three disparate heroes—an investigative specter, a psychopathic vigilante, and a time-traveling genius —put aside their differences to defeat this terror-focused sociopath? Find out what happens when Ghost, X, and Captain Midnight meet up in the first crossover of Dark Horse’s new superhero comics! Collects Two Past Midnight #1–#5  from Dark Horse Digital . 
Written by X scribe Duane Swierczynski ( Bloodshot, Birds of Prey, Harbinger Wars ) with art from Captain Midnight's Eduardo Francisco ( Mass Homeworlds ), this fast-paced, action-packed story is superhero team-up action at its finest!

Genres: Comics, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 24, 2014

About the author

Duane Swierczynski is an American crime writer who has written a number of non-fiction books, novels and also writes for comic books.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghost, X, and Captain Midnight team up to fight this mad scientist who has created technology that allows him to mess with the fear centers of the brain. The story moves along at a fast clip and Eduardo Francisco's art is solid.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I've been watching too much 24, but this little series reads like a season of 24. It'd make a really good TV movie I think too, like the direct-to-DVD stuff that DC do all the time. The three characters get to share their screen time quite well, and Swiercynski captures all of their voices equally well. Francisco's artwork is solid throughout if a little plain, but it does the job well. Considering I started reading Ghost, and then realised that this crossover existed, so I started to read Captain Midnight and X too, so it's nice to see that now that I've eventually read the main reason that made me read them, it held up to all my expectations and more.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a team-up book featuring three unlikely companions, X, Ghost, and Captain Midnight. It's not a bad story and the art is pretty good, but I didn't think there was anything special about the book. Perhaps a little more explanation about how all of the characters came together or where they came from would have helped; Captain Midnight was the leader of the Secret Squadron in World War II, Ghost is an attractive undead young lady, and X (with whom I was previously unfamiliar) seems to be a one-eyed Frank Castle wannabe. It's a fun read, but not especially memorable.

[Alex Sarll]

Lots of publishers did pandemic ebook giveaways, comics publishers included. For Marvel, that included big stories which have since become hit films - Civil War, the first volume of Spider-Man, stuff along those lines. But for Dark Horse it wasn't the prestigious likes of Concrete or Hellboy, it was collections such as this - a team-up between three characters who must presumably have fans, but I'm pretty sure I've never met one. Ghost (she can turn insubstantial), X (the Punisher in a gimp suit), and also-ran pulp hero Captain Midnight are thrown together in a story packed with enough misunderstandings and mind control to make sure they fight each other lots in between sort-of dealing with the actual villain. Which is to say, the absolute will-this-do structure for a team-up. Not even the timeliness of the villain's plot to destroy America by weaponising anxiety and paranoia can stop this feeling like very thin gruel.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this because honestly it came across better, or at least as good, as any of the X or Ghost solo comics I've read. (I haven't read any Captain Midnight yet but I will.) The storyline was a little far fetched as far as the science fiction plot and villain go, but really considering what the author was working with it was more realistic than you'd expect. The characters also meshed well together, although this may have been out of continuity as none of the characters had interacted before. Overall a really good action comic in the pulp tradition. If you like Doc Savage and The Shadow with a slightly more modern take, you'd probably like this one.

[Roberto Diaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A race against the clock in the Project Black Sky universe

For the ones that lived in the early 90s, Dark Horse Heroes was a shared universe that the editorial wanted to create to bring classic superhéroes tropes with sensibilities of the decade, it was an interesting take for a publisher know for their top talent creators' work. It came and went, but by the beginning of the 2010s, some heroes came back, along with some forgotten classic characters in the Project Black Sky, a revamped shared universe. Two Past Midnight is a crossover between Ghost, X, and Captain Midnight that starts fast as a violent incident occurs and Capt. begins an investigation that lead him to cross path with the other to.

As a standalone volume, Swiercynski establishes the dynamics as the story goes, trying to let you know how each of the characters operates. It feel like a complete one and do mission, that can be enhanced by reading previous volumes of the characters in this iteration, but is something that you can do after.

To its detriment, even with the action, really well done by the artist, the characters could be swapped with any other similar on other publisher.

[Colin Oaten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent story from the Dark Horse Project Black Sky imprint returning to some of the characters from Dark Horses superhero universe. Hadnt read X or Ghost for ten years and it was a pleasure to read their new adventures.

[DOUGLAS J BERRY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three independent heros hunt a supervillain.

Good color artwork,image freebie. Swiercynski brings together characters from three of his series. Ghost,X and captain midnight are an unworkable team, and it takes too much effort for the author to force this along.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first time I was introduced to each of these "heroes," I really enjoyed "x".

I really enjoyed the story in general. :)

[Johan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a big fan of these heroes, but the three of them together made for a got story.

[Anchorpete · Rating 2 out of 5]

This comic feels like the majority of Superhero comics that has been published over time- filled with ridiculous lines of exposition that sound clunky as hell when they come out, heroes thrown together by unbelievable coincidence, who bicker and fight at first but then learn to work as a team. Everything about this book falls flat. If I were to rank the characters by how interesting they are in their own books, I would most likely put Ghost first, Captain Midnight second and X, third. This book is written by the writer of the X books, which kind of shows you why I am just not feeling it.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Combining characters from three separate books, it was interesting to see their interactions, especially how they got in each other's ways. The police woman they were trying to help did tie things together, but it seems unlikely that the heroes would be forming a more permanent team.

[Brendan Mckillip · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a pull quote on the back cover of this book where the New York Journal of Books compared the writer of 2 Past Midnight, Duane Swierczynski, to Elmore Leonard.

Wow.

I’ve read a lot of Elmore Leonard. Mr. Swierczynski is no Elmore Leonard.

The characters’ motivations did not make sense. The plot did not make sense. The story jumped around sporadically. The action was only mildly entertaining.