One-Shot: Nightwatch

Sorry we haven’t been as attentive to the blog this week. John and I both got hit hard by real work that pays actual money to us for the effort. Imagine that! I haven’t even read my comics for the last two weeks. But, with the holidays fast approaching, I’m hoping we have some extra time to do a few interesting things with “Meanwhile…Comics!” Or at least the same old stuff. Either way, I promise we’ll get to the Grant Morrison critique next week.

Anyway, I’ve been threatening John with this ridiculous one-shot for a while now and I thought today was as good as any to spring it on him. I really, really, really want to know what he would do to make Nightwatch an interesting and relevant character in the Marvel Universe again. More importantly, I want John to explain how Nightwatch isn’t just Spawn with a stupider origin.

The year was 1993. The Image boom had taken its toll on the creative spark at the “House of Ideas.” And, like all good plagiarists before them, Marvel thought it would be a good idea to (almost a full year later) jump on the bandwagon and drum up a character that looked and acted exactly like Spawn, in the hopes that some overzealous, junior speculator fanboys would blindly confuse the two and maybe buy a couple dozen extra copies of the Marvel book instead. Oh, and they made the character crossover with Spider-Man in nearly every appearance, especially that god-awful Maximum Carnage storyline. Guilt by association, Spidey!

Nightwatch, I believe, was created out of sheer boredom by Terry Kavanagh (who, in the 90s, quickly became one of the most hated writers Marvel ever had on staff). His first appearance was, technically, made in Web of Spider-Man #99 and his origin was some convoluted chronological loop strategy where he came back in time to warn himself not to come back in time…or something…I dunno.

His powers were the ability to turn invisible, to glide (using his semi-sentient cape) and to suck very, very badly. Horribly, in fact. Awful enough to cause serious pain. And tears. Many, many tears.

Thankfully, Nightwatch died in the rehash of his ridiculous self-fulfilling origin. I realize that this will make any sort of revamp a little more complicated, but honestly, the character is so irredeemable that anything you come up with would be an improvement. This may be the most useless character Marvel ever created. Worse than Irving Forbush. Even if you resurrect him using a profanity-spewing unicorn and a handful of creamed corn, it’ll make more sense than this lame hero ever did.

Good luck and have fun. Hugs and kisses.

Man, when you kept threatening me with a horrible one-shot, I had no idea how cruel you were going to be.  Geez, what did I ever do to you man?  Did I run over your dog or something?  Hell, for giving me this loser, I’d think that I ran over your wife!

I’ve never actually read a Nightwatch comic, so I have no connection to this character (although it kind of sounds like no one has a connection with this character).  I’ve read the history I can find about him (surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of internet sites run by his adoring fans) and that just resulted in a headache.  I love the fact that, when he realized that he was destined to die, he ran and hid on a deserted island.  How does one do that exactly?  Can you call up your travel agent and ask for a one way ticket to whatever deserted island is in this year?  Can you buy a tour book, Fodor’s Guide to Deserted Islands?  Are they that easy to find?

The first problem in using this character today is that he’s dead.  Of course, this being comics, that’s really more of a mild inconvenience than a full blown problem, but we should attempt to work with it.  Luckily, he’s traveled through time, so the problem is almost immediately solvable through the use of a time paradox.  It seems that Nightwatch is continually living the same events over again.  He finds his dying self, uses that technology to become a superhero, then dies trying to warn himself not to do the things that kill him.  This cycle repeats ad infinitum, but it could be easily interrupted.  That’s how we bring him back. 

Kang the Conquerer is having one of his fights with the Avengers, and thanks to Thor’s hammer, the adversaries are actually moving back and forth through time, battling each other fiercely.  During the battle, the chronal energies they’re throwing around knock Nightwatch off course, and instead of landing in the past where he normall does (where he gets in a fight with terrorists and dies) he lands in the present day.  Kang and the Avengers don’t even notice what they’ve done, and their battle continues; we’ll see no more of it in the comic.  It’s inconsequential to our story.

Nightwatch is a little surprised by this, but he’s still fatally wounded (which he was when he traveled back in time originally) and he collapses on the street.  He’s found by some citizens and taken to a hospital, where we find that his wounds weren’t as fatal as he thought and that advances in medicine in the past few years means his life can be saved.  After convalescing for a few weeks, he’s released, only to learn that he has been declared legally dead and that his personal life, in many ways, is over.

Nightwatch wanders the city, trying to figure out what to do.  He’s a little shellshocked, but he learned a few things.  First, as a hero, he was horrible.  He tried to jump into the fray, fighting alongside big names like Spider-Man, but wasn’t really able to contribute much, and when he finally tried to adventure on his own, that lasted for only a few weeks before he died.  Second, he’s such a small cog in the scheme of things.  The Avengers and Kang didn’t even notice him when they saved his life, and he assumes Spider-Man wouldn’t remember his name either.  Finally, his life was saved today, not so much by the cape and cowl crowd, but by normal people and some skilled doctors.  They were the real heroes.

Now, Nightwatch is also a doctor and he decides that he’s going to devote his new life to helping people with his medical skills just as much as he does with his powers.  Unfortunately, he has no money and no identity, since the world considers him to be dead.  However, he has courage and conviction, and that’s going to have to be enough.  He spends the next few weeks prowling the back alleys of the city, using his powers to steal small amounts of food and looking for people who might need a doctor.  He’s not trying to stop crime per se; he’s trying to help victims of it.  He finds mugging victims or those injured in the passage of a superhero brawl, and he sneaks in and saves them.  Since many of his powers are stealth oriented, it means he doesn’t have to fight every villain just for the sake of it.  If he sees Shocker knocking over a bank, and it’s after hours and no one’s inside, he may not get involved.  However, if he sees someone mugging an innocent civilian, he’ll stop the mugger, and then do what he can to treat the injuries of the victim.

I’d probably run with that premise for perhaps a year, introducing some street folk as supporting characters.  Then I’d have Nightwatch save someone who has money, and who, grateful for having their life saved, wants to help Nightwatch save even more people.  It would be a slow process, as Nightwatch wouldn’t want to take the money at first, but eventually this patron would convince Nightwatch of his (or her) sincerity, and would bankroll a free clinic that Nightwatch could run.  This would give him a permanent setting, and a supporting cast, and he could spend his days healing the sick that come to the clinic, while still going out at night to find those in danger in the city.

Maybe he and Night Nurse could work together, although I see Nightwatch being less specialized in super powered injuries, and more willing to help anyone who came to his doors.  It would be a great way to involve him in plots, parading a wide variety of sick and injured people to his door.  I think it could work.