Super-Powered Pulp Prose: Resurrecting Midnight by Eric Jerome Dickey

This is the fourth in a series of novels by Dickey featuring his character Gideon, an international assassin whose mind has been utterly messed up by years of killing, sex, and living on the wrong side of the law. I have long considered reviewing the previous books in this series as I read the, but never did. I think its time to remedy that.

Eric Jerome Dickey has been writing fiction for fifteen years now, but perhaps more people in superhero circles would know him as the writer of the 2006 retcon miniseries Storm that established a larger back story between Storm and Black Panther leading up to their soon to be totally perfect marriage. I was by no means a fan of that storyline, though I am unsure how much of the mess that was the Black Panther plot can really be put on Dickey. He did what he could with the project he was given, and did an all right job with it.

I bring up Storm simply as a way of pointing out the clear comic book inspiration that Gideon clearly originates from. Though still human, Gideon has become almost a superman over the four books he has appeared. Though beaten, he always perseveres, does what it takes to survive and win the day. Dickey actually acknowledges his comic book influences in the bakc of Resurrecting Midnight, mention crime and superhero writers like Ed Brubaker, Brian Azzarello, Frank Miller, and Garth Ennis. He also shows it in the casual mentions of characters and locations from many of his other novels. The Gideon novels actually extends out of a previous set of character’s from his novel Thieves Paradise so I guess you can say this brings it altogether.

I could also argue Resurrecting Midnight’s pulp influences. Gideon is clearly a descendant of morally ambiguous characters from Arsene Lupin to The Avenger. He seems to want to do the right thing, even when his profession constantly forces him in to a path of murder and destruction. There essentially lies the conflict deep in Gideon’s soul that Dickey has played out over four novels.

This novel takes the character and his extended supporting cast farther down the path tread by the previous three books, even as Gideon is drawn by his old friend and lover Arizona in to a bloodbath in Argentina. In the process, he meets Medianoche, the resurrected Midnight of the title, and learns that the enemy assassin has far closer ties to him than Gideon could ever believe. Gideon ends up once again embroiled in a world of sex and violence, two things Dickey can write better than many other authors.

My praise heaped on already, I will get at the flaws of the novel. I have to limit the plot synopsis to one paragraph for a very important reason: without reading Sleeping With Strangers, Waking With Enemies, and Dying For Revenge any reader would be utterly lost by Resurrecting Midnight. Any details of the plot are just building on previous established character interactions but for the added new enemies in Medianoche and the Four Horsemen. While Dickey created a great character with Gideon, his continuing adventures are anything but new reader friendly. Much like Sleeping With Strangers (a novel designed as a beginning of a duology), Resurrecting Midnight also ends on a far two open ended note, especially when its been a year without a sequel (and his newest book Tempted By Trouble a new standalone). It would be one thing if we were left with a solid place to stop, but instead the reader is pretty much hanging along with all of Gideon’s life.

Still none of that takes away from how good Eric Jerome Dickey is at what he brings to the page here. Very few modern authors can combine sex, violence, action, and dialogue as beautifully as Dickey puts it on the page. Much like Stephen King, I find a lot to study in just the formation of the words he puts on the page.

In case you don’t know it yet, Resurrecting Midnight (and the three novels that come before it) comes Highly Recommended,. Whether a fan of the pulps or the supers, you will find something to love in these pages.

Super-Powered Comics: X-Men Misfits

A couple years ago, Marvel teamed up with Del Rey Manga to bring its X-Men franchise to manga. The results were the abysmal Wolverine: Prodigal Son, a dismal attempt to tell a Wolverine story without all the concepts and ideas that make him Wolverine. I don’t care how much you like Wolverine, do not read it. It is an act of utter terribleness.

On the other hand, X-Men: Misfits is a much cleaner, more focused product. The concept is simple, young student Kitty Pryde learns she is a mutant. It causes her life to become miserable in her ordinary school, until the staff of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters invites her to come to their special academy. The kicker, though, is she doesn’t realize until she arrives that she is the school’s only female student.

She quickly ends up as an object of desire for both the super cool Hellfire Club and the more stable forces of the X-Men, but she faces the terrors of pre-pressure in the process.

What makes Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman’s story work so much better than Wolverine: Prodigal Son is that they understand that they need to alter the X-men story without losing the themes of the book. Much like the animated series X-Men: Evolution, their focus on a high school setting helps fit the idea perfectly, even as we redesign the characters in a shojo-style.






That’s the Beast. And yes, I am pretty sure he is supposed to bear an uncanny resemblance to Totoro. But he is still Hank McCoy with all the personality traits of the character we know. It makes it easy for us to continue in to the story while chuckling at the redesign of the character.

It’s fun and it carries some of the silliness of true manga, but it never loses sight of its story and the X-Men. It does pull a regular manga move and ends on a cliffhanger, but the plot is just thick enough to carry the reader through. It is by no means perfect. Artist Raizu sometimes makes the art just too damn busy. But it still features just enough fun to keep things interesting.

Need more?






Storm has a mohawk again.

I rest my case. Recommended.

Super-Powered Comics: Diamond Destinations for March 2010

I have wasted not an ounce of time this month and can proudly say I have brought my monthly Previews recap to you literally a day after its release. Here are the new and continuing superhero series I find most notable, as well as some of the zanier item you might come across. As always, your comments are welcome.

p. 56: Ghost 12” Action Figure: A beautifully sculpted figure, but I can’t really say I see a lot of demand for a comic character Dark Horse hasn’t even published for the better part of ten years. Especially with a $100 price tag.

p. 73: DC Universe Legacies 1 (of 10): This is Len Wein’s new take on the History of the DCU aiding in the first issue by Andy and Joe Kubert. The art is sure to stun, but Wein’s writing left me flat recently on Human Target and Justice League of America. This could be really hit or miss.

p. 82: Mighty Crusaders Special 1: “The Red Circle” has been hit or miss so far. Sales haven’t been too good either. But DC is trying to push the line further with this special. I actually hope that we don’t get a Crusaders team out of this book. I think many of the reimaginings DC has created have been weak at best, and neither Inferno nor Hangman seem designed for super-team use. I hope this book succeeds and for $5 for 56 pages, it seems to be a pretty good deal.

p. 83: Legion of Super-Heroes 1: My only complaint with this issue as with the debut of the new Flash book is that they didn’t resume the old numbering. But Levitz made this team what they are today and if anyone can keep that spirit alive, it will be him. Yildiray Cinar is a great artist. His work on Noble Causes was nothing short of amazing. This book has the potential to launch him in to superstardom, much as the Legion did for Olivier Coipel several years ago.

p. 113: I, Zombie 1: I am still not sure what to make of this book. The story in last years House of Mystery Annual didn’t give much of a hint of the book’s direction. But with Mike Allred art for $1, no one should pass up the first issue of this!

p. 148: Shadowhawk 1: The dead have risen in the pages of Image United and it seems in the aftermath of that event, Paul Johnstone, the classic back-breaking Shadowhawk is back. The book promises to almost certainly have a dark tone as horror writer Dan Wickline and former Violent Messiahs artist Tone Rodriguez are the creative team. Steve Niles and creator Jim Valentino provide the back-up story. I would have preferred a full book from Valentino, but this book definitely has an interesting concept behind it. How it plays out will determine how long this new take on the character can survive.

p. 154: Astounding Wolf-Man 25: It is by no means the book to start reading the title with, but the adventures of Wolf-Man come to an end with this issue. Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard did some crazy things with this title, but I don’t think it ever reached the heights that most of Kirkman’s work can reach. Instead it just felt like Invincible-light. But even Invincible-light is better than many of the books on the stands. Goodbye, Wolf-Man. Let’s hope Kirkman & Howard’s next project can top you!

p. 172: Velocity 1: I am usually generous with Top Cow, but this book is a load of crap. Over two years after being selected for Pilot Season, over a year since Joe Casey and ChrisCross were unceremoniously dumped from the project while somewhere on issue two, Top Cow introduces the four issue limited series with the new creative team of Ron Marz and Kenneth Rocafort. While I like most of Marz’s Top Cow work, his previous Cyberforce work felt phoned-in. And I just cannot get behind the art style of Rocafort. He may be someone’s cup of tea, but he isn’t mine. And to make me just a little more grumpy, we included ChrisCross cover from the previous series as the variant. Classy, Top Cow. Classy. (FYI: When this comic was solicited fifteen months ago, the ChrisCross cover was the regular cover and the Rocafort was the variant. Glad to see they didn’t let them go to waste.)



p. M8: Astonishing X-Men: XenoGenesis 1 (of 5): The idea of running this book as a series of miniseries is a good one, but that isn’t the reason I posted this. I mostly wanted to show off the cover image by series artist Kaare Andrews. While the vagina-exposing costume of the White Queen seems a bit preposterous, I have much respect for the return of mohawked Storm. Bravo, Mr. Andrews. Bravo.

p. M34: Atlas 1: In case you haven’t heard (and if you are a comics fan I can’t imagine how you missed it), May begins the Heroic Age at Marvel. They have promoted a whole bunch of new titles for this month, but the one everyone really needs to buy is this one. Agents of Atlas was probably the greatest concept Marvel has released in the last five years, and the death of the last book still irks me. Now here is your chance to rectify that mistake. Go buy the new book, complete with new member 3-D Man! Finally everyone can experience the awesome.

p. 232-233: Green Hornet Strikes 1 and Kato Origins 1: Hi, Dynamite, nice to see you today. I have something to tell you for the sake of honesty. You may be producing too many Green Hornet titles. With these two books, the total comes up to five. And honestly, we all know Kato does not need two books. Now let’s get it under control, especially since you seem to think they are all worth $4. (They’re not.) Thanks for your time, see you later.

p. 242: Wild Cards: The Hard Call 6: Damn it, it may be over a year later, at a new publisher, and a $1 more expensive, but I have much respect for Dynamite when they made sure they got this book out. I dreaded the thought that I would have to get a collected edition just to read this, so despite my mockery of your Green Hornet obsession above, thank you, Dynamite Entertainment.

p. 277: Tales of the TMNT 70: This right here is it. The end of TMNT as we know it. The final issue of Mirage’s book takes us back to the time of the epic “Return to New York” storyline. The issue is totally standalone, so I highly recommend everyone go out and buy it, just to celebrate the decades of Turtle action Mirage has given us.

p. 292: WWE Heroes 3: Did WWE not learn when Benoit died that having a death storyline in a world where death comes far too often isn’t so hot an idea? Apparently not from the look of this cover.

p. 319: May looks to be a good month for super-powered fiction with two new titles, the steampunk hero of George Mann’s Ghost of Manhattan and Chelsea M. Campbell’s super-villain fueled Rise of Renegade X. So be sure to flip to the Book section and give these titles a once over.

p. 380: Tru Blood Soda: Proof that there is such a thing as too many marketing tie-ins. And it’s only $6 a bottle!