Midnighter #1-20 (2006-2008) Complete.txt
Midnighter is a fictional, comic book-based superhero, best known as a member of the rogue superhero team, The Authority. Created by writer Warren Ellis and artist Bryan Hitch, he first appeared in Stormwatch (vol. 2) #4, before appearing in various Authority books and series and his own eponymous ongoing series. He and his husband, Apollo, have also been interpreted as a parallel of the Batman/Superman World's Finest partnership. Unlike Batman, Midnighter has superhuman abilities, and generally kills his opponents. In an interview for Comic Values Annual (1999), edited by Alex G. Malloy, Warren Ellis described Midnighter as "The Shadow by way of John Woo". Midnighter is rarely seen without his costume and mask. Recurring themes in Midnighter's adventures are his love of violence and killing, as well as comments on his sexuality.
On November 1, 2006, an ongoing Midnighter solo series began, with an initial creative partnership of Garth Ennis and Chris Sprouse. The book was part of the 2006 "Worldstorm" soft reboot of the Wildstorm universe, which saw several books relaunched, but which faltered when flagship titles The Authority and Wildcats suffered serious delays and were cancelled after two and one issues respectively. The series was originally intended as a six issue mini-series but ran for 20 issues and was cancelled in June 2008.
The first story arc saw Midnighter attacked and kidnapped by agents of a man named Paulus while passing through the Carrier's teleportation portal. Paulus told Midnighter that he had replaced Midnighter's secondary heart with a remote-detonated bomb, and challenged him on pain of death to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Time-travelling back to the First World War trenches, Midnighter encountered Hitler as a young corporal in the German army, but was apprehended by 'time police' officers from the 95th century before carrying out his mission. In his struggle to escape, he crashed the officers' time machine at the year 1945, shortly before Hitler's expected suicide. Eventually Midnighter allied himself with the police and returned to his own time, where he threatened to erase Paulus from history by killing his kidnapped younger self; he secured Paulus's surrender without having to kill the child. Midnighter then returned to the Carrier, but was apparently just as listless as before, immediately sending himself on another mission in Iraq.
This first arc was followed by four single-issue stories. Midnighter #6 featured an apparent alternate-universe Samurai Midnighter. Midnighter #7, by Brian K. Vaughan and Darick Robertson, explored the way Midnighter's brain processes combat by running the story backwards. Midnighter #8, by Christos Gage and John Paul Leon, dealt with Midnighter's attempts to connect better with humans after a graphic and public battle with the Suicide King.
A second story arc (issues #10-16), under new creative team Keith Giffen and Jon Landry (with ChrisCross pencilling later issues), detailed Midnighter's attempts to rediscover his life before becoming superhuman. Files given to him by Jenny Quantum identified him as Lucas Trent, born July 14, 1967 (making him 40 years old in 2007), a native of Harmony, Indiana. On visiting the town he found it was the hub of a paramilitary patriotic organization named Anthem, with ambitions to take over the United States and provide the country with the conscience they felt it had lost. While battling Anthem and its superpowered operatives, including Dawn (a reference to the phrase "dawn's early light" in the "Star-Spangled Banner"), and Rosie (patterned after Rosie the Riveter), he discovered that Jenny had falsified the documents she gave him, and that he had never been Trent - but decided to stay on in Harmony nonetheless.
The final storyline, again by Giffen, featured a Midnighter imposter attacking the Carrier and the Authority, and Midnighter's fight to defeat him.
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