Midnighter #1
Published by: Wildstorm
Writer: Garth Ennis
Penciller: Chris Sprouse
Inker: Karl Story
Colorist: Randy Mayor
Letterer: Phil Balsman
Assistant Editor: Kristy Quinn
Editor: Scott Dunbier

22 pages

Rating: 4 out of 5

Premise: The Midnighter wanders away from the rest of the Authority only to be captured and given a mission he doesn’t really want to do.

Synopsis:

The Midnighter doesn’t really fit in with a team (No, really? A Batman pastiche not a team player? Get outta here!), so he goes off-ship looking for trouble in Afghanistan. On his way back, he’s captured between teleportation doors by guys in weird suits. He’s held against his will, has lost is precognizance, and is told he must kill the baddest guy in all of the twentieth century, or he’ll be killed.

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Review:

I like the Midnighter. Back when I was reading Warren Ellis’s run on The Authority, my favorite character was the Midnighter. Perhaps it was his witty banter. Perhaps it was his antisocial bent. Perhaps it was his unadulterated ass-kicking ability. I don’t know. Whatever it is, he’s my favorite.

And now he’s got his own monthly book!

In the first half of the book, he single-handedly takes on four main battle tanks, kicks a guy’s head OFF, and kills a guy with his staff-thing in a particularly gruesome and painful way. All the while, we know that this is necessary. The Midnighter is making the world a better place, even if the Authority has kind of stopped doing that sort of thing.

Garth Ennis’s writing is what I’ve come to know and love. It’s a story that kept me reading all along, and waiting for the next issue. I love the art in here, too. I really find no fault with it at all.

There is a bit of a strange twist at the end. We’ll see how it plays out. It can either be great, classic Ennis, or it can be disastrous. I’d bet on the former, but you never know.