Whether you know and love him from The Authority and elsewhere within the WildStorm Universe, the New 52 volume of Stormwatch or heās brand-new to you, Midnighter is a character that knows your every move, knows if youāve been good or bad and he is most definitely not Santa Claus!
To celebrate writer Steve Orlandoās run with one of the greatest champions of the WildStorm pantheon (and someone whoās often called the āBatman of WildStormā), check out whatever you like (be it the entirety or just a few issues, here and there) of his fun-filled, ass-kicking series that debuted as part of the DC You campaign of 2015:
Youāre welcome to chit-chat about this series as you like. Are you a Midnighter fan? Do you want to see a Batman and Midnighter team-up at some point?
Iām going to bump this up my to read list. I havenāt always been a Midnighter fan. His and apolloās early appearances were very derivative, but I hope thereās a Batman & Superman/Midnighter & Apollo crossover
Actually, there kind of is! Thereās the Batman/Superman: Authority Special #1, which is a sort of sequel to Superman & The Authority and part of Phillip Kennedy Johnsonās run on Action Comics, where Batman enlists Superman and his new Authority team, which includes Midnighter and Apollo, on a black ops mission on one of the worlds of the Multiverse trying to invade theirs. I donāt remember how much interactions they all have, but it was a fun story.
And hereās the Superman & The Authority series:
@Vroom did recently cover that story over at his Modern Superman Fan Club:
Superman and The Authority wasnāt as bad as I thought it was going to be, but too me the authority is quite a bit more than Midnighter and Apollo. Every time regular DC crosses paths with Wildstorm killing is off the table. Even though thatās what Midnighter is good at. Iāll give the Batman book a go just for laughs.
I read Midnighter as it came out, and really liked it.
When the debut DC You titles were announced and I saw Midnighter was among them, it was one of my most-anticipated of the bunch, and it didnāt disappoint.
āMoving on.ā
My favorite scene of the series is in Midnighter #10, when Harley sees Midnighter and says āLeatherman!ā, followed by Midnighter kicking Parasite in the jaw and saying āSmile, a$$hole.ā
Its got Harley, a Superman villain getting trounced by someone other than Superman and Midnighter just casually drops āa$$holeā so well in the process of giving Parasite some amateur dental work that I canāt help but love that scene.
Its understandable they get the spotlight (much as Superman and Batman do in Justice League titles), but The Authority really does have more to offer than their versions of Superman and Batman.
Iād love to see a Black Label series that mixes regular DC with WildStorm.
We kind of got that in Superman vs. Lobo #3 (not a spoiler), but I want a full-fledged book that is a hard āMature Readers Onlyā tale with DC and WildStorm characters.
I can see this. The solo title with his name, which I only read heavily recommended issues from people whose taste I really trusted and nowhere near the entire run, is what sold me on him as a character and then his backup role during Grayson, which for all itās flaws (and there were many), I really enjoyed as a fun, breezy, read. Which is, frankly, sometimes all I want in a comic, as long as it doesnāt insult my intelligence. And the parts of Grayson that were stupid or lazy, at least didnāt come across as insulting to the reader as they do with some other creators. I guess if Dick had not been drawn like a little stud muffin, I may have been less forgiving, so there is also that I must own up to as well.
But I would recommend you check out that run, at minimum the issue which takes place in Shogun era Japan. Itās excellent and well done, the type of thing that would make an excellent Elseworld movie for HBO Max, and which Gunn could take and build into the intro of his The Authority movie if they had the balls to make it mostly about Apollo and Midnighter, which is not at all what will happen. They will be the Rick Flagg and someone similar of the film, which will focus on people like the Engineer and the Doctor, IMHO.
It might be easier to talk about the first series and then the second, but I would vote for talking about both, since Orlando did write them as a continuation.
Iāll start with a brief negative on the first series, which is that I was disappointed in the art. It was sufficiently adequate and, I remember having this conversation on an image heavy anonymous board where people were accusing me and two other anons of simply wanting sexy art work (especially because someone brought up Rocafortās art for Superman as being an example of what would have been nice for the DC You Midnighter and I chimed in to the effect, that āyes, his talent is what made the Lobdellization of Clark at least tolerable.ā And we got accused of being the same person and sockpuppeting. Anyways, the art was competent, but could have been better and I think would have helped with the casual crowd, in the same way that you can sell a Prestige Limited Series with Jeff Lemire art because certain fans will fall all over themselves for it, but can you sell this to a broader audience the way you could sell say Sejic on Harleen (and please note I say this as someone who does not the Mrs. Doctor Clown Princess, even when sheās leveled out by Ivy).
Iāll also briefly add without getting into specifics that Orlandoās scripts were good, but itās obvious that he wanted to do more than six issues and some somethings did not get as explored as they maybe should have and then the follow-up ended up being about something else. Although, at least unlike other people who also did mini-series at that time, he didnāt lard it with OCs that no one else was interested in, so that Orlando was forced to bring them back himself in something else, where they didnāt really belong.
Overall, I enjoyed it and am glad it exists and would have preferred the first run be 10 issues, and then followed by the story we got as the second run, which also could have used a special, I think, or maybe two more issues in total.
I read a lot of Grayson. Liked what I was reading and then somehow I was reading Robin War, got shuffled into a couple other books after that and got lost. So I stopped.
I vaguely remember a samurai story between Midnighter and Apollo. Donāt ask me where though. I know it wasnāt in new 52 Midnighter because Iāve stopped reading all books with the new costume. Refuse to find out who created it, because if I knew at some point Iām going to encounter that artist.
The art inside, even though I really like Sprouse, is a bit OTT, but the story is excellent and, as I said, itās a very self-contained AU that apparently that 2007 run never explains or otherwise refers to, that I think would make a great thing to adapt. So someone such @ this cover art and stuff about it to Gunn!
shebang
