Matt Wagner (1) (1961–)

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

The original Doctor Mid-Nite was Charles McNider. Eventually he retired from superheroing (I think, it's been a while) and was replaced by Beth Chapel in Infinity, Inc. (see #10 below). She, being black and female, was eventually killed off to prove the situation was serious. This left the stage open for a third Doctor Mid-Nite to debut, in a three-issue prestige format miniseries. I've spoken in the past about my love of show more this form, where DC would hand a somewhat moribund property over to an interesting creator (or creators) and let them run wild. Mostly these were released in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so 1999 is a bit of late manifestation of the concept, but the foreword to the trade does note it was originally supposed to be released in 1994, but was delayed!

Matt Wagner and John K. Snyder's version of Doctor Mid-Nite is Doctor Pieter Cross, of the depressed coastal city of Portsmouth. Cross is mostly seen from the outside in the first issue, which is told from the perspective of Camilla, a young woman addicted to a steroid that Cross helps, and then employs to help him. Cross is no superhero at first, but a wealthy doctor who spends his time and money helping the poor and the downtrodden. In the first issue, he ends up angering some powerful people, whose agents spike his drink; he crashes his car, and when he awakes from the accident discovers that he's blind... except he can see in darkness. Hence, now that his enemies think Pieter Cross is essentially incapacitated, he takes inspiration from the superheroes of old and reinvents himself as "Doctor Mid-Nite."

This is one of those comics where writing and art come together perfectly. Both are dramatic, occasionally grotesque, and privilege the interplay between light and dark. This isn't the grounded noir sensibility Wagner brought to Sandman Mystery Theatre: the corporate villains of the piece, for example, dress up as a shark, a vulture, and a rat for no readily apparent reason; their plan involves massive underground bases of steroid-powered soldiers used in pursuit of a real-estate scam. Cross and Camilla inhabit a larger-than-life world, where darkness predominates, but provides a space for heroism to skulk but sometimes shine. Pieter is a distant but well-drawn character, superhuman even before he becomes a superhero. There's a whole gang of people who assist him, with exaggerated personalities and intriguing backstories. I feel like Wagner must have had the creation of an ongoing in the back of his mind, even if none ever eventuated.

I really enjoyed reading this overall. Superhero comics are a strange medium, and I think the best ones lean into that: they commit to being completely and totally themselves, and that's what Doctor Mid-Nite is. There's nothing else quite like it... which is great. show less

The original Hunter Rose story that kicked off Grendel always seemed more like an elegant, well-drafted curiosity than anything else, compared to some of the meatier later incarnations of the spirit of violence. An abbreviated biographical summation of an anti-batman - gifted, wealthy young man dons a costume and runs around the streets of a bustling city, except Hunter Rose is a sociopath who seeks to dominate all those around him. It really is a fantastically strange story, particularly show more the inevitable nemesis in the form of a brutal immortal werewolf/wedigo named Argent. But the whole tragedy is executed in a masterpiece of design and layout.

Wagner returned to Hunter Rose years later in a series of anthologies published by Dark Horse, scripting by hm and illustrated by him and a host of incredible artistic talent. I read them all, but out of order. technically impressive, often gorgeous, marrying writing and art in a wide variety of moods and styles, this is the first time I've read them all in one sitting, along with the original, and it really is an amazing achievement, building up into an epic of crime and violence with sinister supernatural elements that come into full flower in the final chapter. It's novelistic, albeit a novel of thematic progression rather than linear, layering stories and viewpoints to create a vision of an elegant brilliant monster brought low by his one concessions to the softer human emotions.

Anyway, a major achievement in the field of comics. Wagner's abilities and skills have grown impressively since that first impressive experimental exploration of evil. show less

In the Grendel Cycle, the spirit of Grendel is the spirit of violence, passing down through generations, spoiling and corrupting everything around it. In the case of Stacy Palumbo. Grendel's adopted daughter, there is no escape from horror and trauma in her life after Grendel, and the opening story in this collection is profoundly horrible, graphic and disturbing, featuring rape and abuse and severe mental breakdown. it's a stark, brutal nasty story, far from the sleek, smooth, sinister and show more seductive design of Devil By The Deed, utterly stripping the entire concept of Grendel of any hint or shred of romanticisation. With that nasty bitter taste in the reader's mind, it's onwards chronologically though backwards in print order to Devil's Legacy, and Christine Spar, Stacy's daughter, who goes from chronicling to embracing the Grendel legacy in her efforts to first recover and then avenge the son stolen from her by a monstrous vampire. Despite her good intentions, Grendel takes over her life and the lives of those around her, drawing the fatal attention of Hunter Rose's nemesis, Argent.

The Devil Inside is a bleak tale of urban alienation and obsession, as Christine's lover descends into a hellish world of hostility and sleaze, battling with tangled, jagged emotions he tries to channel into a misguided and self-destructive effort at revenge.

Devil Tales revisits the heyday of Hunter Rose once more, albeit from the point of view of characters almost too minor to be noticed by him. A cop stumbles on a tangled and complex family conspiracy in a claustrophobic noirish tale of tiny panels and small print that reads like a classic piece of detective fiction. The story of Tommy Nuncio, a stoolie who hears something he shouldn't - or does he? And ends up in a state of almost existential terror and dread, is another kind of classic crime fiction, as the walls slowly close in around a hapless small-fry caught up in something way bigger than him. show less

I liked this volume much better than the second one. In this one, there is a female serial killer targeting and killing men in extreme and weird ways. Once again, Wesley a.k.a. the Sandman is on the job to find out who the killer is and bring them to justice. This time I figured out the killer pretty early on but it was still a great story. Good graphics. The only thing is that Dian is getting a wee bit annoying in this one and I hope she calms down in the next volume.