The Hunt for the Hook

Actually, since I first posted this, these stories have been collected together in an expensive, hardcover book -- told ya they should be collected (and you doubted me). Actually, the hardcover also includes a few other stories, including Brave & the Bold #104 (by Haney and Jim Aparo...a good story) and some Neal Adams drawn shorts that were a back up feature in Aquaman that I haven't read. Frankly, I should re-locate this to my regular, TPB/GN reviews...and I will. I'm just kind of lazy for the moment.

(Strange Adventures #205-216, Brave & the Bold #79, 86 -- 1967-1969)

Written by Arnold Drake, Jack Miller, Neal Adams, Bob Haney, Robert Kanigher. Illustrated by Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino. Editors: Jack Miller, Dick Giordano.

Additional notes: The original run of Deadman stories was reprinted in a 7 issue 1985 mini-series called Deadman (not to be confused with a 1986 Deadman mini-series). In the '80s, deluxe reprint mini-series represented, not just near-classic stories, but storylines, or even short-lived cult series in their entirety. TPBs replaced these mini-series as the medium of choice for reprints, and many of the series were re-reprinted as TPBs -- Green Lantern/Green Arrow, The Life of Captain Marvel, Shadow of the Batman (as the TPB Batman: Strange Apparitions), etc. (many of which are reviewed in my TPB section). Some though, were never re-collected. This is one.

Cynical circus aerialist, Boston Brand (under the stage name "Deadman"), is murdered in mid-performance, however an Eastern-style supreme deity, Rama Kushna, "The Face of the Universe", grants his ghost a chance to track down his killer, a mysterious man with a hooked hand. Deadman will remain unheard and unseen, but can possess the bodies of living people. Thus empowered, and understandably embittered, Deadman sets out to find the Hook, following various red herrings over the course of 12 issues of Strange Adventures and two of The Brave and the Bold (teaming up with Batman) that invariably led to him helping others, before finally tracking down his killer.

This epic saga -- really a bunch of individual stories, loosely forming a story arc by the search for the Hook -- remains surprisingly fresh, thanks to its off-beat mix of ideas. The series was a blend of crime thriller (as opposed to super-hero adventure, since there were no costumed villains in sight -- an absence that was surprisingly effective), human drama, eerie mysticism with an Eastern flavour, superhero (with Deadman's circus costume providing an appropriately macabre "costume") and, of course, a premise that was a supernatural spin on TV's The Fugitive (with the Hook replacing the One-Armed Man). The circus milieu, though only exploited in a few of the stories, was also wonderfully evocative -- an environment never before or since used as a backdrop for a comic book series. The stories were a mix of anthology, with Deadman sometimes in different locations, dealing with new faces, and on-going series, with periodic returns to the circus and the irregularly used supporting players like Vashnu and Tiny.

Even Deadman himself was an off-beat personality. Hard-boiled and coarse (though with a heart-of-gold, natch), he was middle-aged, weathered (with a broken nose) and, of course, dead. His frustration and rage, often seething below the surface, made him a passionate character and his utter isolation made him one of the most poignant. And his sense of personal mission (though he was easily sidetracked by a sense of altruism into helping others) gave the character and the series a focus and an intensity. And dig that '60s dialogue, baby.

Neal Adams art and unusual panel composition, of course, added a lot to the mood. Adams, admittedly, is an uneven artist, but when he's "on", well, there's a reason he's something of a legend. Though, ironically, it's the first story, by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino (neither of whom did another, though Infantino was given story credit on a couple of other issues) that remains the most memorable, with the characters and scenes vividly realized and Infantino using striking panel composition.

Actually an e-mailer pointed out both Drake and Infantino did work on Deadman again -- Drake wrote a few issues of The Challengers of the Unknown that guest starred Deadman, and Infantino drew a Batman-Deadman team-up as one of the stories in the anniversary Detective Comics #500 (a good issue to track down, though the Deadman team-up was one of the lesser stories).

Though I was familiar with Deadman, I didn't realize the character had ever been a lead feature until I came upon back issues of a 1985 reprint series. I picked up one issue just on a whim, then another, then another -- I was, much to my surprise, hooked. IIt was intended as a slightly more "grown up" series than a lot of DC's comics at the time (I'm not judging, I'm just repeating what I've read) and the uniqueness of the series and its various ideas make it a shame that DC hasn't bothered to re-collect it as a TPB.

Back