What is with nighttime heroes and gargoyles? The PJ Masks don’t stand around on gargoyles.
The Night Man #1
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (October, 1993)
WRITER: Steve Englehart
PENCILER: Darick Robinson
INKER: Andrew Pepoy
COLORISTS: Paul Mounts and Foodhammer!
LETTERER: Dave Lanphear
EDITORS: Ulm & Kanalz
Spinning off from events in The Strangers, the jazz musician whose car was hit by the cable car during the incident that created the Strangers is finally out of the hospital. The shard in his brain doesn’t seem to be affecting his mental capacities and removing it would kill him. Whether it’s the shard or the ultra-creating energy blast from the cable car incident, something did happen to Johnny Domino: he can hear evil thoughts, though there are limits. Overhearing one such thought, Johnny decides to save a young waitress’ life using his martial arts skills and a special costume he starts developing. Unfortunately he’s too late…and the man he thought was the killer was another victim of a serial killer who makes himself into his victims, who Johnny dubs “Deathmask”. He defeats the killer, unless he escaped that shark in the water, and Johnny decides to use his power to help others, dubbing himself The Night Man.
What they got right: Over the course of the story we see Johnny refine his costume, and get a reason for the cape that will debut I’m guessing with his next appearance. He’s not perfect, but he’s learning to be a hero, using his power to hear evil thoughts and finding an advantage in his eyes being better in the dark due to being sensitive to light, forcing him to wear sunglasses in the daytime. We also meet his dad and a potential future nemesis in a Mister Peters, who claims to want the land of the theme park Johnny’s dad (a former cop) owns for an extension to his own estate. Having a former cop dad also explains his access to certain police records…
What they got wrong: …since unless I’m wrong about the former part they apparently let him keep his codes to access the police computer from another system. There’s a lot of exposition dumping, and some of it feels forced in, the “as you know” type of backstory telling to the readers. It would also have been nice if he saved the waitress. She seemed nice, though I think it was too show what a rookie Night Man was at this point as he still needs to learn how to use his talents both normal and ultra to be a superhero–but saving a life would have been a good start to his crimefighting.
What I think overall: The Night Man may be the biggest breakout for the Ultraverse, which isn’t saying much. He had his own live-action series produced by Glen A. Larson (and featured a strange cameo with 80s NBC crime show Manimal), hampered by a syndicated show’s budget, and made an appearance in an episode of the Ultraforce cartoon that redid his origin without face-wearing serial killer. This is one of the comics I was looking forward to and exposition dumping aside it has a good starting point. I hope it keeps up.
BW Media Spotlight 