Turns out they both have the same dentist.
The Night Man #8
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (May, 1994)
“Savagery!”
WRITER: Steve Englehart
PENCILER: Kyle Hotz
INKER: Thomas Florimonte, Jr
COLORING: Mickey Rose & Foodhammer!
LETTERER: Dave Lanphear
EDITOR: Roland Mann
While City Hall tries to figure out what to do about The Night Man and the werewolf, Night Man gives Briggs the wolf’s identity, Nikolai Apocaloff. JD Hunt is shown a potential new weapon to use against The Night Man. The wanted posters on Apocaloff pays off, as a forest ranger calls in when he comes out for a nighttime hunt. He gets his fight with The Night Man, but using trickery and a bit of modern technology, our hero manages to capture the werewolf and tie him up by tricking him back into human form. The villain is arrested while The Night Man finds a note from Rhiannon waiting on his motorcycle.
What they got right: I love when the hero uses his head to stop the bad guy and not just punch him a lot. Apocaloff has the advantages so he has to outthink his adversary and does it well. And he has an ally of sorts in Briggs.
What they got wrong: The whole City Hall scene, as well as Hunt being introduced to the Teknight armor (his company’s new answer to Prototype and one its creator assures can handle The Night Man), feels like padding out the issue and slows the story down. The art isn’t that great this issue, and I’m not referring to how extra bloody it is. (Apocaloff killing the girl he I think hooked up with is also unnecessary. He’s psycho. We get it.) That’s believable for the subject and is more a personal taste negative than a critical one. I mean the line work has a taste of the 90s extreme work but it’s not quite as bad as the 90s would get. Also, the park ranger doesn’t dress like a ranger, and with his long hair and glasses I thought it was The Night Man in disguise until he called the cops.
What I think overall: Not a fan of the art, but the story was still pretty good when they actually got to it.
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