"eight million mortals.. eight million hearts.. eight million souls to ride into oblivion. I am power, you know.. and can not.. will not.. be halted, you understand.. yes?"
Darklove is a demon from the Marvel comics that exists to force lovers into killing one another, this behavior stems from personal tragedy brought upon him by the arch-demon Mephisto.
History[]
Millennia ago, Darklove was part of Mephisto's army. He was in love with a beautiful demoness, but Mephisto didn't like the feelings between them and made her his betrothed. Darklove waged war against his former master to free his beloved from the betrothal and after centuries of war he seemed victorious. With Mephisto's head in his hand Darklove celebrated the victory with his followers only to learn that he was tricked by Mephisto. His beloved standing next to him turned into Mephisto and the head in Darklove's hand became the head of his former love. Mephisto laid a curse on Darklove to always perform the opposite of love and imprisoned him in a "love spell". The page became part of the Darkhold and Darklove stayed within the book for a very long time.
A group of smugglers brought the page with Darklove to New York City and sold it to someone, who soon summoned Darklove.
Darklove began to possess different people in New York and made them kill their lovers. Ten days later he had already murdered four people. The last of those victims was the super-model Harmony Young who had strong ties to Luke Cage. Another woman was not far away from death because her lover Ken was already in Darklove's possession for five days.
Ghost Rider tried to save Marisol from her possessed lover Ken. Darklove took possession of Marisol too when Ghost Rider tried to get her out of the car. Ken and Marisol died in a car crash and the heroes Luke Cage and Ghost Rider saw Darklove for the first time when his spirit rose from the burning car.
Darklove attacked the heroes. Ghost Rider grabbed the hand of Darklove with his chain and stopped the demon from touching Cage. Darklove tried to possess Ghost Rider through the chain, but he failed to do so. In this moment a psychic connection was established between Ghost Rider and Darklove. At the same time he made Luke Cage go to his knees by making him remember all the deaths of his loved ones. Darklove took possession of the homeless woman K.C. and got away while the heroes were down. He was just killing K.C.'s lover Toby when Ghost Rider found him again through their psychic connection. Darklove hit Ghost Rider with an arrow of hellfire which knocked the hero out. Meanwhile Cage was investigating the crime scene of the first murder. He saw the page of the Darkhold, heard the voice of Darklove and suddenly it became dark.
Luke Cage was once again tortured by Darklove with memories of his past. Cage caught the Darkhold page and Darklove told him that only people who were in love could read it and Luke only knew hate. Ghost Rider found them through his psychic connection with Darklove which him unable to turn back into Dan Ketch. Darklove fled and told the heroes that he wouldn't get away so easily the next time.
Ghost Rider and Cage found the smugglers who brought the page which contained Darklove to NYC. Ghost Rider tried to get answers from them, but Darklove took possession of all the smugglers before any could tell Ghost Rider where the caretaker of the Darkhold was. He overpowered the heroes and told Cage that he didn't want to possess him because he was too entertaining for him as he was. Darklove took Ghost Rider with him in his page of the Darkhold and they flew to the World Trade Center.
From the WTC Darklove started to take possession of all the citizens of NYC. He made Cage's taxi driver crash into a gasoline truck and told Cage once again that he couldn't bluff a telepath. Meanwhile Darklove told Ghost Rider his origins and explained his plan to steal the souls of all New Yorkers from Mephisto by possessing them while they killed each other. Darklove thought that Ghost Rider would understand him, but he didn't.
Darklove tried to possess Ghost Rider once again to get him out of his way. He fought within Ghost Rider's mind against Dan and the Spirit of Vengeance and defeated him. Cage arrived on the rooftop and saw that Darklove was now in Ghost Rider. He wanted to stop Darklove by killing his new host, but Darklove heard Cage's beeper and realized the threat to his existence. He took over Cage who tried to contain him within his mind, but Darklove was too powerful for him. Darklove celebrated the start of his reign and didn't pay attention to his defeated foes anymore. Ghost Rider took the chance to use his penance stare against Darklove. The psychic connection between the archdemon and Ghost Rider was broken and Darklove exploded when he experienced the pain he had inflicted on all his victims.
