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Jan 1, 2021

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2137: Midnighter #1, August 2015

 For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 


 Warren Ellis' Stormwatch, in which The Midnighter makes his debut, and The Authority, are amongst my favourite superhero comics. Setting aside, for just the moment, the problems we now face in taking in Ellis' work, he and artists Tom Raney and Bryan Hitch created perhaps one of the best politically-inflected superhero books of the current era. Stormwatch uncovers, in a much different way than Ellis and Cassaday's Planetary, a superheroic history for the Wildstorm Universe (which is likely all moot these days, sadly), while The Authority depicts superheroes doing all of those things that I've never understood them not doing in less...um...brutal superhero stories.

Anyway, this series is great. I laughed out loud, I was surprised, I was entertained. Equal parts brutal superhero story and gay dating narrative, I'm saddened that it only runs 12 issues, but very happy that I have them all. This run was part of the large collection I bought last October, though I only opened up the chunk I'd set aside in the last few days. I'm intrigued at jumping back into this particular corner of the DCU, especially since my last exposure to this character was when he existed in a separate continuum from the mainstream DC heroes. I know he's had some run-ins with Dick Grayson prior to this series, but I'm curious to see him versus Batman (which I'm sure will never happen), or standing up to Superman. Or hitting on the Martian Manhunter. I think that'd be right up The Midnighter's alley.

More to follow.

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