The Night Man I

1-24, Vol. 2: 1-4, The Night Man vs Wolverine

This page: 1-11

I'd done the definitive Batman, and I'd co-created Shadowman, but when Malibu asked me to co-create the Ultraverse and help populate it, I decided to go for the ultimate expression of the dark loner theme - the man who comes around at night - The Night Man.

He existed in a "San Francisco of the mind" - SF the way it would be if the cool things from all its past, like Playland-at-the-Beach, still existed today. It's the SF that held the Maltese Falcon, and the one with the Transamerica Pyramid.

The NIGHT MAN villains were one strong creation after another: Deathmask, Mangle, Guy Hunt, Rhiannon, Nicolai Apocaloff, Chalk, Rigoletto, Bloodyfly...

The wonderful thing about the Ultraverse was that it was a collaborative effort. Mike Barr, Steve Gerber, James Hudnall, Gerard Jones, James Robinson, Len Strazewski, and I (plus Larry Niven for a time) all agreed from the outset to share the playground and join in each other's games. Thus it was that THE NIGHT MAN debuted at Hallowe'en and immediately got caught up in the company-wide BREAKTHRU crossovers. But that was what made Malibu unique to the public and a family for us Founding Fathers.

The Night Man starred in an episode of the UltraForce animated series. Unlike The Strangers, it was not the pilot for his own animated series, but unlike The Strangers -

- he soon got a live-action series, NightMan (note the spelling change). He was the only Ultra to make that leap. I wrote three episodes of that series, making it five Hollywood productions I've generated directly to this point (Dr Strange, Batman, Batman: The Animated Series/The Adventures of Batman & Robin, and The Silver Surfer are the others), plus Guardians of the Galaxy, UltraForce, Justice League, and Captain America.

I
Written by Gerard Jones
IWritten by Gerard Jones
I
IWritten by Gerard Jones
I
I
I
I

I

INightMan, the live-action seriesI
IUltraForce, the animated seriesI

COMICS

THE NIGHT MAN 12-24


NOTES:

1: Art by Darick Robertson. The cover shown is the special limited edition with silver lettering and a stamp; there was a more conventional one as well.

2-3: Art by Gene Ha.

4-10: Art by Kyle Hotz. With all due respect and appreciation to everyone else, Kyle, to me, had the perfect style for this series.

11: Art by John Dennis. He was my choice to follow Kyle but unfortunately, he was too new to comics and couldn't meet deadlines. This issue's story remains one of my favorites, however.

If Malibu had any flaw at this time it was an inability to hang onto artists.