Warning!
This is undoubtedly the longest – mostly due to the insane amount of images added – post this blog should ever dare to post. The smart thing to do would have been to cut it down and treat both titles in the more general sense, but I went whole hog and never intend on touching on either title ever again.Real comic book geeks can speak volumes about the various publishers, artists, and writers that have made a true impact in the field. I am not one of those people. Sure, I could tell you that Spawn is – or was – an Image Comics title, or that Robocop verses the Terminator came from Darkhorse (and I never read either of these). I followed some of the X-Men and X-Factor story arcs that Marvel put out there. But I tended towards less successful publishers. That could mean following The Justice Machine from Comico to Innovation – I got started too late to be reading it from its days with Texas Comics or Noble Comics – or ElfQuest on WaRP graphics. And in 1993 it meant I went and found a title from Malibu Comics to follow, and it was The Night Man.
Now, one does not have to be an avid fan of the graphic arts to be a fan of Batman. Because Batman is cool, right? Unless we want to imagine him as Adam West or a member of the superfriends. Or if we want to ignore that he is little more than an update on Zorro, because Zorro – I do not mean Antonio Banderas Zorro – is cooler than Batman. Still, Batman is mostly cool, and he is a compelling superhero. But is is also one with a lot of backstory and an established stable of villains. What would someone do if they wanted a Batman-like character, starting from scratch, and done right?
They would have picked up The Night Man.
