Journey into Darkness is a 2005 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 written by Michael Chiappetta and David Stern and published by Pocket Books

Pocket Books

Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...

 for World Wrestling Entertainment

World Wrestling Entertainment

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...

. The book is a fictionalized history of the professional wrestling

Professional wrestling

Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...

 character Kane

Kane (wrestler)

Glenn Thomas Jacobs is a Spanish-born American professional wrestler and actor better known by his ring name, Kane. He is signed to WWE, appearing on its SmackDown brand, but is currently inactive due to injury....

, portrayed by Glen Jacobs. The story ties together pieces of the real life Glen Jacobs with Kane, such as giving the character the name Glen Jacob Callaway, and the idea that he took the name 'Kane' from his mother's maiden name, as she was referred to several times as 'Susanna Kane'. The story also deals very sparingly with the character of The Undertaker, Kane's storyline brother. This was the first WWE fiction novel, the second being Big Apple Take Down

Big Apple Take Down

Big Apple Take Down is a 2006 fictional WWE Books novel set in New York City. It was written by Rudy Josephs. This is the second WWE fiction novel. The first is Journey into Darkness.-Plot:...

.

Continuity

The Callaway name is spelled with two L's in the book, which runs contrary to the spelling of Mark Calaway (the wrestler who portrays The Undertaker), as established by the caption to a high school yearbook photograph and his father's obituary. This may have been done for the purposes of kayfabe

Kayfabe

In professional wrestling, kayfabe is the portrayal of events within the industry as "real" or "true". Specifically, the portrayal of professional wrestling, in particular the competition and rivalries between participants, as being genuine or not of a worked nature...

,

The alteration of the Undertaker's real life last name in the book is therefore understandable as a mixture of real life and the fictional history which involves both Kane and The Undertaker, as well as Paul Bearer. In addition, Glen Jacobs possibly because of this. Jacobs also had the 's' dropped to simply become Jacob, which makes sense for a middle name.

Kane spent time over in Spain learning his craft. Jacobs was born in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, Spain, perhaps explaining why this place was chosen. It also goes on to state that Kane is the victim of a rare disorder called "Hereditary Sensory and Autonomic Neuropathy". This meant that Kane was incapable of feeling pain, but could still feel other sensations through touch. It also attempts to explain how Katie Vick came into contact with Kane — a massive continuity gaffe at the time the storyline was introduced.

Loose ends

The story deals very little with some of the much larger components of the Kane character, such as how and when he gained ability's similar to The Undertaker's ability's. It also does not explain where The Undertaker gained his abilities. It does claim that Kane has a condition called HSAN (Hereditary Sensory and Autonomous Neuropathy) which, although it does not remove the ability to feel tactile sensation, renders Kane incapable of feeling pain unless it is in great amounts, as an attempt to explain why Kane seemingly feels no physical pain in the early days of his character's career unless he sustains large amounts of punishment during matches. This creates a plothole in that it does not explain why the Undertaker seems to have the same ability to shrug off or outright ignore pain in his early incarnations despite not having the same condition as Kane.

This in itself is a continuity gaffe because the Undertaker character has been shown to be capable of utilizing supernatural powers, which Kane was supposedly capable of matching due to having similar and in some cases identical abilities. The two characters are supposedly able to sustain enormous amounts of physical punishment and had various other abilities which included mind manipulation, teleportation, a form of energy manipulation which seemed to include the ability to control both fire and electricity, and seemingly superhuman agility for men their size as both are nearly seven feet tall in real life and are in fact billed as seven feet tall in kayfabe. The Undertaker could possess people and cause them to have hallucinations and even cause vehicles to move on their own. Kane, by comparison, was shown to have a superhuman ability to survive damage that should have killed him in very brutal ways, such as being thrown into a dumpster engulfed in flames and being trapped inside a limo that was driver into the underside of a truck as extreme examples. It also does not explain why both Kane and the Undertaker seemed to suddenly lose their inability to feel pain and then partially regain it. Also, it mentions that the fire happened on May 19th, on an episode of RAW

WWE RAW

WWE Raw ) is a sports entertainment television program for WWE that currently airs on the USA Network in the United States...

, the official date was May 19. As May 19 was the release date of the film See No Evil

See No Evil (film)

See No Evil is a 2006 horror film directed by Gregory Dark, written by Dan Madigan, produced by Joel Simon, and starring professional wrestler Kane. It is the first major film produced by WWE Films and was released by Lions Gate Entertainment on May 19, 2006.The film went through many different...

, the date of the fire is probably a retcon, as the date which Kane battled someone supposedly from Kane's past who had begun impersonating him. It is also the date his parents died.

It also does not explain why the parents of the Undertaker (his mother being Kane's blood relative) were buried on Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, rather than in Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 where the two characters were supposedly born and for the most part, grew up (Mark Calaway is a Texas native in real life). However the book does detail the backstory of Kane with a partial filling of some, though not nearly all, of the larger plotholes behind the character introduced after the events of the Katie Vick angle, and the subsequent unmasking of Kane.

The one thing it does explain is the exact reason why the Callaways died in the fire which supposedly scarred Kane. This does more or less confirm comments and assertions by the Undertaker that he had set the fire, but his reasons for doing it were entirely skewed, apparently for the purpose of causing emotional harm to Kane himself later on in WWE storylines, but this little tidbit does dispel some theories that Paul Bearer had somehow brainwashed The Undertaker into saying that he had set the fire. (Though the book makes vague allusions to the idea that Paul Bearer MAY have in fact somehow brainwashed the Undertaker prior to the events of WWE's Judgment Day even in October 1998, in which the Ministry of Darkness storyline began, explaining his sudden heel turn.) It does however, completely invalidate the earlier story The Undertaker had told about the events of the fire. So the book at the same time upholds and yet debunks certain parts of existing WWE canon

Canon (fiction)

In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...

. Specifically, the changes made to the canon state that what happened was a complete accident, and that Undertaker had fled the house in fear. In previous WWE canon established from the days of the Ministry of Darkness storyline, Undertaker still asserts to having set the fire, but claimed originally to have done it because Kane was 'Weak as a child just like [Kane] was weak now'. Despite this Kane and the Undertaker later joined forces two years later, during which Undertaker still boasted about setting the fire, but also claimed a protectiveness of his family. The Undertaker & Kane were also friends back in High School.