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Night Force

Sax

08:03 / 09.09.05

Anyone remember this short-lived series by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, which ran in the Eighties? I was clearing out some stuff for E-Bay this week and found the complete 14-issue run.

Pre-Vertigo DC horror, lovely art by Colan, no-one in silly costumes, character led horror stuff, ranging from moody urban creepiness up to full-blown demon-on-the-loose-at-Soviet-base crash-bang-wallop. Had some interesting ideas about spooks and paranormal energy.

Baron Winter has been used fairly extensively since, especially in the Swamp Thing/Hellblazer corner of the DC Universe, and I vaguely recall a Nineties re-boot that wasn't much cop.

Anyone else?

_Boboss

08:54 / 09.09.05

that sounds ace. show off.

Lord Morgue

09:37 / 09.09.05

Yeah, I got the last issue when I was a kid, but the logo had been cut off the cover, so it took me fucking ages to work out what this great comic was, and by that time, it was well gone. Way ahead of its time, gorgeous artwork, yum.

Sax

09:40 / 09.09.05

DaveBCooper

09:48 / 09.09.05

I remember getting the first issue at the time for 20p from my local newsagent, and it kind of intrigued my young mind with its general weirdness, and if memory serves the journalist character thinks ‘ah, how the almost are fallen’ or something like that, a phrase which appears to have stuck with me over the decades…
Only read that first issue, but was Winter always 'housebound'?

Silver

10:48 / 09.09.05

Only read that first issue, but was Winter always 'housebound'?

As I recall, he was housebound in the present, but was able to leave the house in other time periods (ie. the past, although it is never stated that he cannot travel to the future).

Great, great book. Far ahead of its time. Not too surprised that it only lasted 14 issues -- I imagine the length of the first storyline (seven and a half issues) would have turned off a lot of readers.

The nineties revival was bad. I can't think of a better way to describe it. Only read the first issue, but it seemed like the true horror trappings had been jettisoned in favor of a slasher film. It didn't feel like the same writer.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

19:34 / 12.09.05

A LOT of Wolfman's stuff after Crisis doesn't work for me. It's strange that someone who used to be very good at character building so completely lost his skills in that regard. It's pretty well know that the wheels came of his New Teen Titans stuff in the late 80's, but I haven't read anything from him in years that was worth the paper it was printed on.

matsya

03:14 / 13.09.05

So who's in the team?

The Falcon

17:33 / 08.03.06

I meant to link this article at the time this topic was posted, but it wasn't available on the website it was formerly on; since transmigrated.

I do fancy this book.

matsya

23:12 / 08.03.06

I actually picked up ish 1 at a secondhand store a while back, wasn't too impressed with this (maybe because ish 2 wasn't around), but I was left a little disinterested and confused. Didn't like the red-on-purple-on-yellow phantams (found them hard to see) and the rest of it was a little to reminiscent of Marvel horror histrionics. I don't think I like Gene Colan's art that much, actually.

Dr Strange

08:14 / 12.03.06

Thanks Duncan for the link !
I have a very found memory of Night Force, which I read way back then when it was first published.
Now I must confess that I am a big, big fan of Gene colan. He is for me the best artist working in the field in the early sixties, along John Romita maybe.
Way, way above John Buscema for instance (of course Jack Kirby was WAY above anybody else !).
But Night Force, well, I thought it was pretty cool then (but that was 24 years ago...).
There was a follow up a few years back, but I didn't like it as much...

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