Night Raven: White Hopes, Red Nightmares, Part 1

How to read Night Raven

You can read Alan Moore's Night Raven stories by buying the print or digital collection here.

If you're less respecting of copyright or you just want to try it out before deciding to buy, you can follow along here.

White Hopes, Red Nightmares, Part 1

You can check out my read through of The Cure starting here. And for more background info on Night Raven, go here.

For my money, "White Hopes, Red Nightmares" is the best of Moore's Night Raven stories.

This second story starts with a big time shift, as we're now in 1957. This allows Moore to deal with the idea of Red Menace (a timely topic in the early Reagan '80s, when he was writing this) and suggests the transformation Night Raven has gone through, left for dead at the bottom of the sea at the end of The Cure.

We meet Howard Bates, who happens to find the Night Raven mask that was left on the wharf in a junk shop and buys it. The white, bone-like thing means something special to Howard:

"He would have been quite prepared to pay five dollars, ten dollars, a hundred. He knew that the pitted, skeletal mask with it's empty, sightless eyes was a genuine sliver of legend, a yellowed shard hewn from the rock of fables itself. It was the splinter of a dream, and it was priceless. Priceless."

Bates is a right-wing nutjob who hates what he sees happening to America: "There was the constant scent of foreign cooking where there should have been the warm and motherly perfume of apple pie or corned beef hash. There was distant, muffled cacophony of Negro Jazz where there should have been the uplifting, confident strains of a Glenn Miller, the pure and noble voice of Kate Smith. It wasn't right. It wasn't good. It wasn't American. It made him feel like an alien in his own home."

In his apartment building lives Minie Sapirstein, the free-thinking communist dancer, who has become Bates' obsession. His other obsession is Night Raven:

"Howard had been ten years old when he first learned of the shadowy figure that was wreaking havoc in the seedy boweries and decadent penthouses of New York's criminal class. An adventurer, resplendent in white trenchcoat and slouch hat, a creature of incredible physical and mental prowess who was repaying the tithe of misery that the Crime Barons had had so long visited upon the poor and the helpless. A character who might have stepped out of the pages of Street & Smith's Detective Story Monthly, a worthy companion to The Shadow, The Spider, to G-B And His Battle Aces, to all the wonderful fictional heroes that had helped the young Howard through many a long night, reading beneath the bed-clothes in the amber beam of a cheap dimestore torch.

"But Nightraven was real. Really really real. To the ten year old boy it had been like discovering that Santa Claus was genuine after all."

We find out that Bates supports Joe McCarthy, John Wayne and Ronald Reagan, the defenders of Bates' America.

When Bates slips on the mask, it all falls into place for him. What he must do. He orders a new trenchcoat and fedora. And nylon fishing line:

"All that remained to be done was deciding. Deciding who he was going to kill first."

Moore then switches characters. He has given up his first-person point-of-view from The Cure to this omniscient narrator point-of-view, allowing him to explore the minds of all of his characters. And so we go from the obsessive Howard Bates to Manfred the Maniac, the commie photographer, who  thinks about the happening that broke up.

Manfred discovers his friend, Mike Lawler, being strangled by the Bates Night Raven and takes his picture. As Lawler dies, he has time to think about what is happening.

"His limbs kicked and jerked feebly, made leaden by the horrifying shock of what was happening to him. He began to sink to the glistening sidewalk, tiny black suns exploding before his eyes. His lungs screamed for breath. His brain clamoured frantically for oxygen. A barely audible rasp issued from his gaping lips, small and brittle and dry as the scrabbling of a cockroach. It was not recognizable as a human sound.

"The miniscule black suns multiplied, filling his field of vision with a whole galaxy of arid, airless blackness. Swimming on the middle of that final, crushing darkness was something white. He tried to make out what it was.

"It was something like a bird, something like a Praying Mantis. Something like the skull of a steer that had bleached in the Death Valley sunshine. Set into it’s awful blank whiteness were two dark slits.

"They were eyes. And they were without mercy."

Manfred's picture of this new Night Raven ran in all the city's newspapers where everyone saw it. Including a shape living in an attic.

We'll find out how all this plays out in part two. See you then.

Youngblood: Bloodsport #2

In my After Awesome series, I talked about how Rob Liefeld and company moved on from Awesome and set up Arcade Comics (it's here, if for some reason you want to read it again). They released the Arcade comics at conventions, to prove there was still interest in Youngblood and the other series.

One of them was Youngblood: Bloodsport. Here's what I said about Bloodsport before:

...Mark Millar started writing Youngblood: Bloodsport, the worst version of Youngblood that actually made it to print. While a number of versions over the years were bad or just mediocre, Bloodsport is downright repugnant. And it revels in it. 

The series deals with a situation where there are too many superheroes and not enough job opportunities. When a new version of Youngblood is being put together, all of the various members show up to audition. The problem is this will be a group put together from superteams from alternate dimensions, so there can be only one Youngblood member from this dimension. In order to decide who it'll be, the Youngblood members have to fight each other to the death to decide who it will be.

Remember all the jokes Moore made through Suprema and the Dazzle Comics about how bad comic writing had gotten, this is exactly the kind of thing he was talking about. Everything is a bad drug or sex joke, designed to offend.

Only one full issue came out. There was a bootleg version of issue 2, but it was printed in such limited numbers it's impossible to find a scan of it online and I've never seen a physical copy for sale.

Josh Hines recently found a copy and was nice enough to send me photos of it. So if anyone has spent all these years looking to read about a fight to the death between Suprema and Twilight, your wish is granted!

Most likely Bloodsport 2 wasn’t really ready for whatever convention they were going to, so they just put it out in this bootleg edition. But because of this we get to see a bit behind the curtain.

One of the more interesting parts of this find is the bits of Millar's script. Clearly, this was intended as a four-issue miniseries. But he also wrote in cameos by the likes of Swamp Thing, the Man Thing, the Heap and even Namor. He meant this as a send-up of all superheroes and not just the Liefeld/Awesome ones. I don't know if that would have made the series any better, but it was interesting, at least.

Anyway, check it out for yourself:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What'd you think?

Professor Night timeline

If you'll allow me to pause our normally scheduled programming, Rich at Niteone9999@gmail.com has sent me a timeline for Professor Night's adventures, which seemed like a pretty handy tool. I'll let him explain more.

The timeline comes from a combination of references and appearances of Professor Night and Twilight, combined with some deductions and a dash of Fan-Fic. Since the esteemed Mr. Moore patterned Professor Night after the Golden Age Batman, some of his dates and references match up with info relating to Batman (for example: Lady Day/Shona Shane makes her first appearance the same year as Batwoman/Kathy Kane). Professor Night's age and year of birth is determined by the fact that he was 13 when he teams up with Kid Supreme to battle The Famous Monsters Mob (Supreme 52b). Since one of the mobsters is wearing a Frankenstein mask patterned after the creature's first appearance in 1931, and since Taylor wouldn't call himself "Professor" until at least he graduated college, but is Professor Night in 1940, we can work backwards and establish that he is 13 no earlier than 1931; giving him a birth year of 1918. I also chose to include bits of the "alternate History" from the fan-completed Youngblood #6 that helped add to Professor Night and Twilight's history. Any questions, let me know.  Enjoy!

 

Professor Night Timeline

1910
Pratap is born in India

1918
Taylor Kendall is born to his parents at Kendall Manor outside of Star City

1920
Ethan Crane is born and is given up for adoption by his natural parents; Ethan is soon adopted by Joe and Joanne Crane, the kind owners of the General Store in Littlehaven

1921
Taylor (3) is diagnosed with a rare form of the genetic disease, Porphyria’s Complaint, forcing young Taylor to avoid daylight completely. The disease greatly weakens Taylor during the day, but at night his strength returns to its full level; Taylor’s parents confine him to Kendall Manor

1925

Ethan Crane (5), while playing in the woods with his dog, Radar, comes across a glowing white meteor and succumbs to its energies; Young Ethan is pulled to safety by his dog, Radar, who also succumbs to the strange white energy; Both Ethan’s hair and Radar’s fur are turned white; Days later, Ethan and Radar begin showing signs of fantastic superpowers; Donning a white and red costume and dyeing his hair black when using his powers in public, young Ethan Crane becomes Supreme-mite, helping the local townspeople with amazing feats

1927
Taylor Kendall (9)’s parents are “lost in the night”; Taylor vows to train himself to be an instrument of justice, using the night as his weapon; Taylor’s grandfather moves into Kendall Manor to supervise Taylor until he comes of age; Confined to the Manor during the day, Taylor begins sneaking out of the Manor at night to train


1928

Taylor Kendall (10) ’s cousin, Philip Kendall is born to Taylor’s Uncle and his wife; Ethan Crane (8) changes his identity to Kid Supreme and continues to fight crime and protect the town of Littlehaven

1930
Taylor Kendall (12), after spending years reading detective magazines and training himself, takes on the identity of The Midnight Mask to fight crime and criminals in the night; Taylor spends his nights sneaking out of Kendall Manor to battle criminals in Star City

1931

Taylor Kendall (13), as The Midnight Mask, meets Kid Supreme (11) and the two take down the “Famous Monsters Mob”; After the adventure with Kid Supreme, Taylor begins exploring the caverns running underneath Kenall Manor to establish an underground headquarters

1933
Sally Crane is born; Her birth parents place the infant girl up for adoption and Sally is handed over to an orphanage

1936
Taylor Kendall (18), upon the death of his grandfather, fully inherits the Kendall Family fortune along with Kendall Manor; Taylor utilizes the money and resources to enhance his crime-fighting career as he begins his college studies

1937
Taylor Kendall (19), while on an adventure as The Midnight Mask in India, meets and works with Pratap (24) on a dangerous rescue mission; The two become allies and friends; Shona Shane is born

1938

Ethan Crane (18) tells his adoptive parents that he’s decided to leave Littlehaven; His parents announce that they have decided to adopt a young girl, Sally (5), to keep them company in his absence; Ethan changes his identity from Kid Supreme to Supreme and leaves Littlehaven to take a job in Omega City; Supreme builds his floating Citadel Supreme to be his headquarters and sanctuary high above the city

1939
Having graduated from Star City University, and fully embracing his role as guardian of the night, Taylor (21) changes his identity to Professor Night; Taylor Kendall creates his headquarters, The Halls of Night, in the caverns underneath Kendall Manor, accessed by The Sinking Salon, an entire room that descends into The Halls of Night

1940
Professor Night (22) joins with Supreme (20), and other heroes of the time, to form the Allied Supermen of America

1941

Supreme returns to Littlehaven to celebrate his sister, Sally (8) ’s birthday; The family is confronted with a glowing white humanoid apparently made out of the same material as the meteor that gave Supreme his powers; After dispelling the creature, the family notices that Sally’s hair has turned white; As the weeks go on, the family realizes that Sally has gained the same powers as Supreme and Radar, the Hound Supreme; Sally decides to battle evil, like her big brother, and adopts the name Suprema, patterning her costume after his

1942

With the US at war, Ethan Crane (22) joins the Army; As Supreme, Ethan battles the Axis powers overseas

1950

The Allied Supermen of America disband; Taylor Kendall (32) recruits Pratap (40), an old ally and military expert, to work as his advisor and butler in Kendall Manor and in his headquarters, The Halls of Night

1951

Linda Kendall is born to Taylor (33) ‘s cousin, Philip Kendall (23), and his wife

1952

While coincidentally travelling on the same airline flight together, Taylor Kendall (34) and Ethan Crane learn each others’ secret identities when the two change to their heroic identities to stop terrorist hijackers

1954
Linda Kendall (3) is also diagnosed with the Kendall family’s rare form of the genetic disease, Porphyria’s Complaint, forcing her to avoid daylight completely. Like her “Uncle Taylor” (36), the disease greatly weakens Linda during the day, but at night her strength returns to its full level

1956
Inspired by Professor Night (38), Shona Shane (19) trains herself and takes on the identity of Lady Day, seeking out and becoming partners with Professor Night; Professor Night and Lady Day battle injustice and evil together in Star City, becoming close partners; Linda Kendall (5) ’s parents are killed in a car accident; Taylor Kendall takes in his young “niece”, Linda, as his ward and adoptive “daughter”; The decision to take in Linda causes friction between Taylor and Shona

1957
Professor Night (39) and Lady Day (20) continue to work as partners, battling criminals in Star City; Linda Kendall (6) discovers that her Uncle Taylor is Professor Night and asks him to become his partner; Seeing her natural abilities and untapped potential, Taylor Kendall begins training Linda to be his “perfect partner”; After disagreeing with Taylor’s decision to train his “niece” to become a new partner, Lady Day breaks off her partnership with Professor Night and begins to work alone

1958

Linda Kendall (7) becomes Twilight, the girl marvel, and close partner of Professor Night (40); Professor Night and Twilight battle a number of villains while protecting Star City; Professor Night discovers that his base in The Halls of Night, in the caverns under Kendall Manor, may actually be connected to the mythical Underworld and he begins to explore the caverns further

1959
Twilight (8) meets and teams up with Suprema, who, because of her powers, is aging slower and is still physically an early teenager; The two girls solve a case together and become friends

1960

The Allies form; Professor Night (42) joins the team of heroes

1965

Twilight (14) and Suprema, sister of Supreme, join with other sidekicks, Skipper, Lamprey-Lad, Glory Girl, Dark Finger and Dandini to form the teen superteam, The Youngblood

1967
After a final team-up with Professor Night (49) and Twilight (16), Shona Shane (30) retires as Lady Day to pursue a career as a lawyer

1968

Supreme leaves the earth to seek out “the mysteries of life”; In deep space, Supreme soon confronts the mystic being, Jack O’ Lantern, and the resulting interaction leaves Supreme with no memories of his past; After the encounter, Supreme continues to travel through deep space

1969

Suprema leaves the earth to “marry” a living galaxy to spare the earth from destruction; After the loss of Supreme the previous year, and then Suprema, Professor Night (51) and Twilight (18) mourn the loss of their friends but vow to continue to battle evil together to honor them

1970
After an evening meeting with The Fisherman and his sidekick, Skipper, and returning home to Kendall Manor, Professor Night (52) and Twilight (19) are struck down in the Halls of Night by The Slaver of Souls, an old adversary of The Allies; Unable to revive them, Taylor and Linda’s bodies are carefully looked after by Pratap (60) in the Halls of Night

1992
Supreme returns from space after 24 years but finds himself on an alternate Earth with his own personality and personal history altered

1996

After battling through multiple versions of Earth, Supreme finally returns to his home world, re-establishing his base in the Citadel Supreme hovering over Omega City, now named Omegapolis; Supreme continues his never-ending battle for justice and truth as his true memories of his life and history begin to return

1997

Supreme finds and rescues his sister, Suprema, from her marriage to the Living Galaxy; Professor Night (52) and Twilight (19), after being cared for by Pratap (87) for years, are revived by Supreme and the reunited Allies; After recovering, Professor Night and Twilight resume their crime-fighting careers and their life together in Kendall Manor and The Halls of Night;

Months later, during the “Judgement Day” event, Professor Night reunites with Shona Shane (60), now a lawyer; Twilight, with input from Taylor, changes her costume to something more appropriate for the times; After working together again for the year, Professor Night suggests Linda join Suprema on the newly formed Youngblood team to “fight crime with other people”

1998

Twilight (20) joins the newest version of Youngblood and leaves Kendall Manor to live at Youngblood Headquarters

1999
After teaming up once again with Professor Night (54) on a case, Twilight (21) moves back to Kendall Manor to live with Taylor

2007
Pratap (97) quietly passes away at Kendall Manor; Taylor Kendall (62) and Linda (29) take his body deep into the caverns beyond the Halls of Night to be buried

2010
Encouraging Linda (32) to continue to fight evil as Twilight, Taylor Kendall (65) “retires” from his role as Professor Night, choosing to spend his time reflecting and exploring in The Halls of Night and the caverns beyond

2015

Twilight (37) is captured. Taylor Kendall (70) comes out of his retirement in The Halls of Night to once again become Professor Night to track down and rescue Twilight; After rescuing Twilight and recovering together in The Halls of Night, Professor Night decides to remain active and assist Twilight in battling evil and injustice in Star City

2018
Taylor Kendall (73), as Professor Night, and Linda Kendall (40), as Twilight, continue to battle evil together; When not called to action, the duo spend their time together in The Halls of Night

2023
Taylor Kendall (78) finally chooses to retire once and for all; Linda Kendall (45) takes on the identity of Professor Night

2030

Linda Kendall (52), as Professor Night, battles evil in Star City while Taylor Kendall (85) continues to advise her from The Halls of Night

Night Raven: The Cure, Part 2

How to read Night Raven

You can read Alan Moore's Night Raven stories by buying the print or digital collection here.

If you're less respecting of copyright or you just want to try it out before deciding to buy, you can follow along here.

The Cure, Part2

You can check out my read through of part 1 here. And for more background info on Night Raven, go here.

The story picks up where we left off in Part 1 with reporter Scoop Daley dealing with Night Raven having kidnapped his wife Sadie so that Scoop will deliver the cure to the poison Night Raven has in his system.

The first thing that jumps out is how Scoop's mind is terrorizing him, especially the fear of Night Raven cutting Sadie. "Because when the razor dips into flesh, flesh that offers no more resistance than ice cream, and it does that awful stuff, that stuff your mind can't swallow, and you know that whatever happens, nothing can ever make that crimson ruin look right again..."

As Scoop explains, "Your mind does bad things to you when you lose somebody that you love. Suddenly it isn't your best friend anymore."

What Moore does so well is set up the consequences and let's us stew in Scoop's fears, so by the time we get to the end, we feel like we're in his place. 

Then Moore recaps what happened in Part 1 for quite a while. Eventually Scoop goes to the wharf to meet Night Raven. Moore has always been able to capture the feeling of a setting and this wharf is no different.

"Wharves are like forgotten outposts in some terrible war of attrition between the sea and the land. The war still goes on, but it’s quieter here. Every year the algae creeps a little higher up the sodden, salt-encrusted wood of the support posts. Every two years fat, bad-tempered men who smoke Luckies come and paint it over with pitch and the sea has to start its assault all over again, slowly, steadily, an inch at a time.

"The sea creeps. You can hear it."

Night Raven shows up and confronts Scoop demanding the cure. Scoop's description of Night Raven is evocative:

"The trenchcoat was looking a lot dirtier than when I'd last seen it. The years hadn't been kind. It was frayed and grey and there were a couple of buttons missing. Over the years the posture of the body beneath it had changed, slowly knotting into the hunched crouch of an animal at bay, and the coat didn't hang properly any more. It was evolving the wrong kind of creases. The brim of the slouch hat hung defeated. It had lost its war with the rain. And beneath the hat brim was the mask. It was more or less the same as it had been when I last saw it, nearly ten years before. I still couldn’t put my finger on what it reminded me of even after all that time. Something like a bird, something like the skull of a steer bleaching in the Death Valley sunshine, and something else. Something I couldn’t quite get."

The way he describes this is the same way Moore has praised H.P. Lovecraft for his descriptions of his terrible monsters. He describes what it's sort of like but there is something missing that isn't able to be described that then gets filled in by the dark recesses of the mind of the reader.

Scoop explains to Night Raven why he can't give Night Raven the cure. It's because it's a counter disease that would spread everywhere Night Raven went, killing millions. He also can't give it to Night Raven because he already tossed it into the river, knowing he'd be too weak when confronted with his hostage wife.

Night Raven moves to kill Scoop with a scalpel but he approaches so slowly that Scoop was able to use the gun in his pocket to shoot the poisoned man. As he was shooting, the mask fell off. "I could see his face. His face. I don't want to talk about his face."

Before toppling into the water, Night Raven smiled and whispered "The Cure."

We end much later with Scoop looking at the bottle he lied about throwing into the river. And he's haunted by the thought, "What if that really is the cure in there? Just a cure. Nothing else." Could that have been Yi Yang's plan all along?

From this first story, Moore set himself up with a few threads he'd get to follow through his run and we get one of the great ones next time. See you next week.

Night Raven: The Cure, Part 1

Alright, let's take care of the first things first.

How to read Night Raven

You can read Alan Moore's Night Raven stories by buying the print or digital collection here.

If you're less respecting of copyright or you just want to try it out before deciding to buy, you can follow along here.

The Cure, Part 1

The Cure is the two-part story with which Moore dipped his toe into the Night Raven story and then proceeded to change it completely.

Previous to this, all of the Night Raven stories had started with the phrase "Night-time in the city..." but Moore quickly puts his stamp on the series by interrupting it mid-phrase and telling the reader that things are going to be different from here on. His Night Raven (or Nightraven...the proper way to spell it changes all the time) is too big and too dark for either the night or the city to contain it.

Moore goes on for a bit about mistakes and how all it takes is one slip. That'll be important, but let's get to the introductions first. Moore is writing from Scoop Daley's point of view. Scoop is a reporter  for the Daily Bugle (yes, the one from Spider-Man) who has turned up in a few strips before this. He works for Editor Jameson (I don't think it's J. Jonah, but maybe his dad since this was set in the 1930s or so?). He's married to Sadie, a woman of such education that she can't identify Shakespeare or Dickens. But Scoop loves her.

This introduction is a second break from previous Night Raven stories. Up until this point, most of the stories were written from a narrator point of view. Moore instead adds a voice in Scoop. This allowed Moore to use different voices and verbal tics, which has always been one of his strengths.

Scoop gives us the background of Night Raven as a Spirit-like adventurer out there taking on gangsters. But as Scoop points out, in real life, a guy who puts on a mask and goes out to beat people up would be called a psychopath. That doesn't stop Scoop from liking him.

I like the way Moore highlights the moral complexity of the title character. Is he a good guy? Is he crazy? Is he violently unhinged? By not looking too hard, you can see some of the seeds for Rorschach.

Scoop points out that something happened to Night Raven. He's changed. His voice has become a low whisper, "Imagine something that sounds like thousands of locust wings rubbing together, imagine the spit and crackle of a tenement fire, imagine the rasp of a straight edge razor over stubble, stuff like that. Now imagine all those things but much, much quieter and you've got something like the sound that used to come from behind that creepy white mask."

He was also much more hunched over and moving as though he were in tremendous pain. (Moore was pulling all the inconsistencies from previous writers and was going to explain how they all worked together.)

Scoop, looking for a story, wanted to find out had brought about these changes in Night Raven and found out from Willy the Lip, a minor-league gangster. Willy had some ties to the Dragon Tong in Chinatown.

Willy tells Scoop that Night Raven is after him. "'It's Nightraven.' That's what he said. Is that three words or two? I dunno. Who cares." Ha ha!

Willy tells Scoop about Yi Yang and how she had lost a lot of face after losing in her last run-in with Night Raven. Other gangs saw this as a sign of weakness and started moving in on the Tong's turf. So Yi Yang wanted to kill Night Raven.

So she sent him a note and somehow it got to him. It was a hexagram from the I-Ching which meant "Breaking Apart." But the note was laced with a poison that fills your body with pain and horror and kills you... 50 years later.

"Yi Yang wanted Nightraven dead. But not quickly." God, do I love Moore's writing on this.

Willy is afraid because Night Raven wants the antidote, and he has it. But it's more than an antidote, it's also a counter disease that could end up killing everyone in New York.

So Scoop takes it off Willy's hands. But that doesn't stop someone from killing Willy.

Scoop rushes home and finds out that Night Raven has ransacked his apartment and kidnapped Sadie. And he wants Scoop to show up at the wharf to give him the cure.

"TO BE CONTINUED"

We'll find out the rest of the story later this week. So, what did you think?