For my next entry, I'd like to look at an example of the dangers of peaking to early, in a series.
Manhunter (1988) #1-4So, a little background, for those of you who came in late or are confused as to which Manhunter is which.
Manhunter debuted in in Adventure Comics #58, in 1941.....
Sort of.....
You see, it was actually Paul Kirk, a detective, who debuted in that issue, in a feature titled Paul Kirk, Manhunter. Kirk specialized in missing persons cases, hunting down the missing man (or woman). It wasn't until issue #73 that Paul Kirk went out and bought some long johns and a pair of swimming trunks nd became the costumed mystery man, Manhunter.
Except, he isn't Paul Kirk, he is Rick Nelson....
The issue was from Simon & Kirby and I'm fairly certain they were introducing a brand new Manhunter and wanted it to be totally new; but the editor wanted it tied to Paul Kirk, Manhunter; so, with the next issue, Paul Kirk is the masked Manhunter. Rick Nelson went off to a garden party, to reminisce with his old friends. And so, Paul Kirk was the One and Only Manhunter.
Apart from Dan Richards.
Quality Comics introduced a new feature, in Police Comics #8
Manhunter, where patrolman Dan Richards, armed with his index file of criminals, fights crime as the masked Manhunter.
Apparently, someone stepped on his costume, before he put it on.
Dan didn't make the cover (since Plastic Man was the lead feature) or the opening story (Reed Crandall's Firebrand). Instead, he followed Dewey Drip and Steele Kerrigan....names to reckon with, in comics. His adventures were created by Tex Blaisdell and Alex Kotzky. Blaisdell would go on to work on Prince Valiant, doing backgrounds and figures, except faces, then as artist on Little Orphan Annie, before working at DC, on Batman (and others) and teaching at the Kubert School. Kotzky would go on to create and draw the newspaper soap opera Apartment 3-G, of whose praises I have sung, on this board. Richards changed costumes a bit, but not his central gimmick and later joined DC, after they bought out Quality. He would reappear in All-Star Squadron, then Infinity, Inc, as an old man, and in Young All-Stars, as a young man, where he encounters Paul Kirk, both of whom are dupes of other Manhunters, who will turn up in a minute.
Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson brought Paul Kirk back, as a backup feature, in Detective Comics, with their legendary epic, as Paul Kirk is back from the dead, fighting a battle against The Council, a group of scientists and others, who seek to save the world from itself, whether it likes it or not. Paul Kirk appears to die at the end of the story, which featured a crossover with Batman, for the final installment.
Where our subject enters the picture is next, in First Issue Special #5...
Here, Jack Kirby returns to Manhunter and seemingly an aged Paul Kirk, who didn't die in Australia, or fight alongside Batman. He is never named, but seems to be the Simon & Kirby Paul Kirk. he is old and not up to the task anymore; but, a new recruit for the Cult of Manhunters, district attorney Mark Shaw, awaits his chance. He gets it and becomes a Manhunter.
No series followed, as First Issue Special had a weak track record on that one, launching one new series (Warlord) and testing the waters for a revival (Return of the New Gods). Manhunter did turn up in JLA #140-141...
...where we, and Mark Shaw, learn that the Cult of the Manhunters is actually a band of renegade android agents of the Guardians of the Universe. They broke programming and rebelled against the Guardians, falling under the spell of their power. They were defeated by the Guardians' new agents, the Green Lantern Corps. Shaw is devastated, at the end of the story and gives up being Manhunter. He soon reappears in a new guise, as The Privateer, a swashbuckling hero, who doesn't need depth perception, since he wears an eyepatch. Shaw hangs around with the JLA, when a new villain turns up, the Star-Tsar. The identity of this villain remains mysterious, as he has inside knowledge of the JLA and is eventually revealed to be....
Snapper Carr.
Except, he was a dupe and Red Tornado uncovers the real Star-Tsar: Mark Shaw. It seems he was corrupted by the influence of the android Manhunters and their lust for power. So, off to jail for him.
Which is where he was, when Millennium went down, as the Manhunters, through their agents, seek to prevent a new group of Guardians from being formed. Given that they turned out to be pretty lame, hthey needn't have bothered. The crossover event was largely forgettable (downright awful, in parts), except for one week, where the story centered around the swamps near Belle Rieve prison. Mark Shaw joins the Suicide Squad on their mission to destroy a Manhunter base and its bomb, which they do (at a cost) and Mark Shaw gains his freedom, after treatment by Dr Simon La Grieve, to break the Manhunter conditioning. Mark Shaw goes off to start a new life...
...as Manhunter, super-villain bounty hunter.
This is where we pick up the story.
DC actually made a sizeable deal of launching a new Manhunter series, on the heels of Millennium, with a house ad, with which you can order your own Manhunter mask.....
This was our first look at the new Manhunter. The first thing we notice is that it is vastly different from most superhero costumes of the era. There are hints, in the coloring and styling, on the chestpiece, of the Kirby Mark Shaw Manhunter, and hints of Paul Kirk's stylized samurai outfit. The mask is a radical change. I was stuck by it, when I first saw the ad and I later got to meet artist Doug Rice, who filled me in on his design inspiration.....
Kamen Rider was a superhero show, from Japan, which started in 1973 and continues (with some interruptions) to today, with new Riders appearing with each new generation show, much like the Super Sentai series, which spawned the Power Rangers. Kamen Rider is a human, who is kidnapped by an alien criminal organization and transformed into a cyborg. He rebels against the group and escapes, then takes the fight to the criminals, battling one of their henchmen each week, until defeating the bosses. Rather like Paul Kirk.
So, we start with issue #1.
We begin with Mark Shaw surveilling a suspect, who turns out to be noted criminal, Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin. Shaw slips on his mask, powers up his staff and follows Pengy to his lair, then breaks in and captures him....
...in his bathtub.
This establishes that he is now a bounty hunter of super villains, mixing his old callings, as both detective in missing person cases and as a masked hunter of criminals. Penguin has fought the Batman and nearly killed him, which sets up Shaw as a pretty big deal, since he catches him with his pants down...or even off. We then meet Lt Best, a police officer who doesn't like bounty hunters, especially masked ones.
This sets up the basic hardboiled private eye dynamic that permeates the series. Shaw is a private operative for pay. He goes after super villains, because he is paid to do so.
We then see Mark put on a chauffer's uniform and fake mustache and assume he is hunting another criminal, but it turns out that he is visiting his family, who are celebrating his niece's graduation from law school. Mark is still an ex-con and the black sheep of the family, of old money and status, yet some of the family still cares for him.
This sets up the background detail and supporting characters for the series. Along the way, we meet an assassin for hire, known as Dumas, who wears a mask, inspired by Alexandre Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask (or, to be technical, the third volume of the Vicomte de Bragalone, usually split off and titled The Man in the Iron Mask). Dumas murders a South African Anglican priest (inspired by Bishop Desmond Tutu, no doubt), for a white benefactor, with a very Dutch name. This was still the era of apartheid.
After some family drama and a recap of Mark's past (from First Issue Special, JLA and Suicide Squad/Millennium), Mark goes after his next target. We see him, in New York, watching his target enter Shea Stadium, to watch the Mets play his team, the Chicago Cubs. His target is Leonard Snart, aka Captain Cold. Apparently, he is a Cubs fan, which matches the personality of a guy who has been put down by the Flash more times than we can count. Here, we establish that Shaw looks to catch his prey on his terms, not fight them head on. He knew about Snart's passion for the Cubs, from his time in jail, as Captain Cold never missed an opening game. This being the 80s, the Cubs lose...again..and Snart is POed and goes off to pull a job. Shaw follows, which leads to a ride on top of an El train and an interruption by a tabloid reporter busting up a drug deal. Shaw takes down Captain Cold, using his baton.
The sequence serves up to demonstrate the tech in both the mask and the baton. The mask has lenses that have night vision and telescopic capabilities and his baton can fire energy beams which can vault him or blast through objects, depending on the power. Manhunter is seen on television, taking down Cold, which brings his name to the attention of an eccentric collector, Olivia Vancroft, who collects masks and her unique home features hundreds, including those of Sandman, Plastic Man's goggles, Commander Steel's mask and cowl, Mister Miracle's mask, a cowl of Batman and three Manhunter masks, including Dan Richards' domino mask, Paul Kirk's blue face mask, fromt he 40s, and his red mask, from the 70s. Vancroft wants to add Mark Shaw's mask to her collection. She tells an underling to go through the normal channels; but, have Dumas on standby, if her offer is rejected.
This first issue establish Mark Shaw, back as Manhunter, with the trappings of a private eye and a bounty hunter, though less Dog the Bounty Hunter and more Ralph "Pappa" Thorson....
I should have asked John Ostrander, when I met him, about the inspiration; but, I am pretty sure this film was a partial influence, especially the bounty hunter angle. Ostrander is from Chicago and the El chase and the parking garage stunt were all shot in Chicago, to much fanfare. The rest is hardboiled detective fiction tropes, the history of the comic character, and basic comic book plots. The twist is in giving the characters more personality than usual, in comics. Shaw is trying to atone for his criminal past, but is cynical enough to know he isn't a white hat hero. His shades of grey make him an interesting character and leave you wondering if he is truly free of the Manhunter conditioning. Penguin and Captain Cold are formidable threats; but, they have weaknesses and Shaw, based on his time in prison, knows about some of them and exploits them, to his benefit. He's a thinker and a planner, rather than hired muscle. That sets him apart from a lot of comic heroes.
Dumas is mysterious, and we only get a glimpse of the helmet-mask. He is disguised as a bishop, when he kills the South African priest. We know he is deadly and expensive. The name is perfect, as it involes adventure and intrigue, by one of the greats of literature.
Issue 2 finds Mark in his father's law office, as he offers him a commission to serve a subpoena on a target, in Tokyo, for which he will have to get him to the American Embassy, to make it stick. Mark takes it for the free trip to Japan. His brother then tells him he has been approached by an anonymous client to purchase the Manhunter mask.
Mark refuses because he doesn't want to give up the tech and reveal trade secrets and he finds it a bit strange. Mark's brother calls Mr Devree, Olivia Vancroft's lawyer, and tells him no deal. Devree passes on the message and receives the order to give Dumas a commission, to obtain the mask by any means necessary.
Devree and an aid are in Tokyo, where he fills in the underling about Dumas. he is Stephen Forrest Lee, a southerner, age unknown, whose face is malleable, allowing him to disguise himself as anyone, giving him masks to carry out assassinations, without suspicion. He is obsessed with masks and collects Japanese kabuki masks, as well as takes his name from Dumas' surname and the novel, The Man in the Iron Mask. The meet with Dumas, who wears a traditional samurai robe and jacket, and one of the kabuki masks. They pass along the commission and the aid asks about the connection between Dumas and Vancroft. Dumas allows him to live, but does not answer.
Mark Shaw arrives in Tokyo, does some sightseeing on the Shinjuku, then goes after his target. it is then that he runs into Dumas. Dumas hurls throwing daggers at Mark and only the armor of his chestpiece and his baton save his life. They play cat and mouse across Tokyo, until Shaw runs into police. he tries to explain and Dumas kills a cop, with a dagger, thrown at an angle to make it look like it came from Manhunter. Now the cops want him for the attack on the police and he is forced to flee, on the back of a car. Dumas follows and the battle amid traffic....
Mark is nearly killed by a truck, but survives and is forced to flee when police arrive. Bystanders think that a revival of an old tv show is going on, like 8 Man, Kamen Raider or Dynamo Joe.
That last one isn't a tv show; but a reference to Doug Rice's sci-fi mecha series, Dynamo Joe, from First Comics.
Dumas, disguised as Mark Shaw, pulls out the pistol of one of the cops and shoots another, incriminating Mark Shaw, as his passport is left behind.
The pair of masked men meet again and battle and it doesn't go well for Mark. he is cornered on a rooftop and in desperation, he pops a needle out of his baton and hurls it as a spear, to distract Dumas and leaps over the edge, to catch the rigging of a building cleaning scaffold, and escape. he gets to a construction sight and uses and electrical cable to zap Dumas and briefly incapacitate him, allowing Mark to disappear. Mark follows back alleys, in cvilian clothes, but runs into a gang of yakuza, who want a word with him.
This issue, after the opening set-up, is almost wall to wall action, as Dumas and Manhunter battle across Tokyo. Ostrander and wife Kim Yale and artist Doug Rice send us on a rollercoaster ride, from rooftops, to the streets, to fights on vehicles, long before The Matrix. This would be great action movie stuff, if DC/Warner had any guts to try a superhero movie with a different character.
Issue #3 finds Mark Shaw facing the yakuza
oyabun....
It seems that the master, Eiji Hasegawa, is acquainted with Mark's stepfather, Eliot Shaw and owes him a debt of honor. He extends his resources to Mark, to pay that debt. Eliot Shaw intervened when Sangokujin (foreign black market gangsters, from China, Korea and Taiwan) gangsters tried to rape and murder Eiji's wife. He brought a prosecution against them and secured a conviction, despite political pressure from their connected friends.
Hasegawa gives him the location of Dumas and an escort to go there. They have a meeting and Dumas is told that Shaw is protected by the Daiichi Doku clan. Dumas asks if that extends to America and is told no. He stands down, not wanting a war with the yakuza and tells Shaw they will meet again, in the US. The yakuza help Mark get to Taiwan and help him set up a fake identity and a plane ticket home. he knows he was set up by a member of his family and goes to confront them. He returns and confronts his younger brother, Jaimie, about the fake subpoena, but Eliot reveals the client, Olivia Vancroft. She was a noted New York society woman, who, in 1950, had a house built in Wisconsin, mixing western and Japanese styles, moving in to live a live of seclusion, with her collections. Eliot knew her in her society days and dated her and accepted the subpoena request out of friendship.
They are interrupted by a call, from Mark's mother, who is being held, at knifepoint, by Dumas. Mark goes to confront the assassin, alone, but Jaime tries to help and is killed by Dumas, who flees. Manhunter pursues and they end up in a standoff, until his niece fires a small frame pistol at Dumas, driving him away. Mark vows to settle things.
The opening of the issue and the backstory of Eliot Shaw and Eiji Hasegawa were inspired by the film, Yakuza, from director Sydney Pollack, starring Robert Mitchum, Brian Keith, Richard Jordan and Takakura Ken...
This film's story also greatly influenced the relationship of Wolverine and Mariko, as seen in the Wolverine mini-series, with Frank Miller and Chris Claremont.
Like Mitchum's character, Eliot Shaw was in Japan, during the Occupation, where he encounters the Yakuza and aids a Japanese woman. In the kilm, Ken owes Mitchum a debt of honor, though their relationship is far more complex than at first it seems. Here, Ostrander and Yale make it more straightforward.
Dumas withdraws, as war with the Yakuza is a different thing than a contract and the fights shifts to the New York area and Mark's family. We also learn there is a family connection to Olivia Vancroft, Dumas' patron.
Issue #4 brings the final confrontation between Mark Shaw and Dumas, as Shaw decides to give Vancroft what she wants, in exchange for his family's safety. He goes to Vancrofft's Cliff House, and meets with the woman, but then smells a rat.
She shows him her collection of masks, all authentic, though some obtained through dubious means. She explains the reason behind her obsession.....
Mark offers his mask, for free, provided Vancroft calls off Dumas. She says she cannot, as once he takes a contract, he will see it through and nothing can dissuade him. She returns Mark's mask and apologizes. Shemakes one request, that he don the mask and he agrees, then gets a shock, while looking through the lenses. Vancroft returns the baton he lost in Japan, saying that it came from Dumas. She hopes it will help him when he again faces Dumas.
Mark leaves but knows the truth and he thinks he has Dumas' numbers. he makes preparations, then returns to Cliff House, at night. He observes Olivia, via night vision, then uses the baton to propel him up the cliff, to a window. He enters the house and confronts Vancroft. he says he is there to reopne negotiations and she threatens to call the police. he then reveals he knows her secret....
His mask can detect heartbeats and Vancroft's is a male ratio. He also has voiceprint recordings from their fight in Tokyo. Vancroft admits that she is Dumas....
Dumas created the Olivia persona to have a woman he could love and be his feminine ideal, but it took over his being, as others saw what he saw. His condition and abilities meant she didn't age and he was born near the turn of the century, so she became a recluse, while he continued a life of adventure. She threatens to kill Shaw, but he reveals he passed on that information to the tabloid reporter, to be released if anything happens to Makr's family. He leaves, but runs into Dumas, in armor. He reveals that he can take Mark's face and regain the letter, then kill Mark's family and the fight is on. The fight rages through the house, which is filled with deathtraps and weapons, collected over the years. Dumas has the upper hand and only an instinct for survival saves Mark, as Dumas disappears into smoke, after being blinded, temporarily. mark decides to go on offense and starts smashing the mask collection to draw Dumas out.
They battle and Mark uses the baton's magnetic field, though Dumas' armor cannot be affected by it, but the collection can and he launches the helmet of the Peacemaker into Dumas, at high speed, which imbeds him into the stone wall and kills him, with the trauma. He removes Dumas' mask to see the true face of Stephen Forrest Lee, then places his own mask with the collection, and leaves.
The revelation that Olivia Vancroft is Dumas is telegraphed, a bit, but the fact that Dumas has created a female persona is not. It fits within the noir world of crime fiction, as such sordid details were often center to mysteries. Dumas was born with a condition that made him a master assassin, but denied him love. So, he created his own perfect woman, out of his own body and lived as that person, drawing love from others. There are elements of Buffalo Bill's confused transgendered status, in Silence of the Lambs, or Michael Caine's murderous psychologist, in Dressed to Kill, which also revolved around transgendered themes. The negative transgendered myth is also perpetuated in the Bruce Willis film Color of Night, which swipes quite a bit from dePalma, who was referencing Psycho through much of that film.
Dumas was a tremendous creation and a terrific villain and the story really needed death to bring an end to it. The unfortunate part is it then denied Manhunter a decent adversary and trhe series struggled to produce another, mostly borrowing villains from other series, until Dumas was reborn in the finale of the series.
The action and intrigue made this a fantastic read and one that still holds up well. Ostrander & Kim Yale create a great crime thriller and a memorable cast of well rounded characters and one of the best villains to emerge from the 80s. Sadly, Dumas would end up mostly being a legacy to the worst excesses of Batman, via the creation of Azrael and the Order of St Dumas, which drew inspiration from Mark Shadw, the Manhunter cult and Dumas, the assassin. Mark Shaw ended up reborn, thanks to nanites which duplicated Dumas and a whole mess that gives me a headache.
Why is it cool? The debut storyline for Manhunter was a thrill ride of action, intrigue and interesting characters. It featured excellent writing and let Doug Rice go to town with the action and play with his influences from Japanese sci-fi entertainment, like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, as well as other tokusatsu shows and films. The intrigue propels the plot along and lets the action flow naturally. It never seems contrived, though Dumas' set up of Mark, to go to Japan, seems a bit overly complex, given he could have just faced him in America. He was already shown operating in the UK, in the first issue. Still, they couldn't then play in Doug's fantasy Tokyo and invoke The Yakuza.
The comic wears its influences on its sleeves, but they are excellent influences and it made this a cut above, for a debut.
Sadly, it was also the peak for the series. it never built on the momentum here, and was further inhibited by being pulled into other events, like Invasion and the Janus Directive crossover. Ostrander & Yale were more interested in exploring Mark's family dynamic, while Doug Rice was more interested in the action and adventure, as that is how Ostrander described his ideas to him. Rice grew bored with the series and drawing a lot of dialogue scenes between Mark and his family, where they stood and talked. His departure really took the visual element out of the series, as his art showed the manga influences of some of his favorites, before that became a big deal. Rice could do action, though his figures sometimes seem a bit off model, from certain angles. However, his layouts were innovative and exciting. Grant Miehm followed as regular artist and he wasa good artist, but lacked the stylization of Rice, which made the action flow. Miehm used more conventional layouts and tended to simplify the details that Rice placed on the costume. In the end, it didn't work and DC killed the series after two years.
The conceit was supposed to be that the super villains that Mark Shaw captured would be filtered to the Suicide Squad; but, it never really worked out that way.
These 4 issues show what could have been, if the team had been able to follow up on this debut, but they couldn't and it stood as the apex of the series and the character. Mark Shaw turned up again, at the end of the next Manhunter series and in its follow up, with Kate Spencer. That one was better done than the mid-90s one and Shaw made for a good character. He was used in the Arrowverse, though not as Manhunter, sadly.
If you take these 4 issues as a mini-series, it is a terrific crime thriller, with superhero trappings, which was more than enough to make it cool to me. These were the issues I got signed by Rice and a sketch of Mark Shaw, as Manhunter, hangs on my wall, between a Tom Lyle Sgt Strike (from the short-lived Eclipse superhero series) and a Joe Staton Captain Marvel (the real one, not the alien dude or the chicks). I also have a Doug Rice sketch of Pvt Pomru, the feline Tavitan character, from Dynamo Joe, which is another cool comic, from Doug Rice.
Rice ended up leaving comics and working in animation, for Star Toons, a firm which worked on Pinky & the Brain and Hysteria, for Warner Bros. He also designed an unproduced comic series, set in a pulp aviation world of an alternate 1930s.....
Sadly, that never saw the light of day.
If there is a drawback to this storyline, it is in the nature of Dumas and Olivia Vancroft. It does perpetuate transphobic stereotypes as being mentally ill and psychotic, though I think that Ostrander & Yale, based on their body of work, were more using it as a noir trope, rather than intentionally using that idea. Both came from a theatrical background and seemed pretty friendly to the LBGT community, though they were also fans of mystery and crime fiction and that may have blinded them a bit. Still, I'd rather have Ostrander & Yale handling Madame Fatal than James Robinson, based on his use in The Golden Age and cracks in JSA.
It was the 80s, though that doesn't really excuse things. I think if they were to have done something like this today, they would have felt compelled to have a trans counter-point to Dumas, to illustrate that he was a psychotic who happened to have a trans facet, but that his psychosis was unrelated to being trans. It is the same kind of problem you face with an Asian or African-American villain, as the stereotype is so prevalent that you have to juxtapose such a character with a hero (preferably several) to show they are the aberration, not the representation.
If you have never read Manhunter, I recommend these 4 issues unreservedly. After that, it is still an interesting series, while Rice is on it and they are not in the middle of a crossover event. After that, other then the series finale, with the return of Dumas, it ends up being a bit disappointing.