#161 The Cassandra Cain: Batgirl 19

Join us, the Cassandra Cain Podcast, as we discuss breaking the cycle of family blood trauma one layer at a time.  Write to us at www.feathersandfoes@gmail.com where we can discuss Cassandra's blood and found family, her positioning as the lead in her own book, and her direction going forward leading us to issue 25.  

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#2 The Checkmate Podcast: Vigilante 46 (Busted)

Vigilante #46 "Busted!"

 

Writer - Paul Kupperberg

Penciller - Tod Smith

Inker - Rick Burchett

Letter- John Constanza

Colorist -Bob Le Rose

Editor - Mike Gold

 

Another issue with a lot of moving parts.  Colonel Valentina Volstok is handing off the Agency to Harry Stein to run going forward.  Will he be able to stir the ship while trying to gain info on Soviet Dame Katia before she smuggles secrets and weapons to her home nation?  And will Stein and Harvey Bullock be able to work together before killing each other?  I sense a buddy comedy.  Perhaps, a bromance???   

 

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Welcome to the first episode of the Checkmate Podcast, where we are covering issue 45 of Vigilante, where we discuss the following characters: Colonel Valentina Volstok, Black Thorn, Harvey Bullock.  Save for Colonel Volstok, the other three are featured in the Checkmate series.  Please click the link below to listen to the episode

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Vigilante #46

 

Vigilante #46 "Busted!"

Writer - Paul Kupperberg

Penciller - Tod Smith

Inker - Rick Burchett

Letter- John Constanza

Colorist -Bob Le Rose

Editor - Mike Gold

Yep.  Former District Attorney turned Judge turned Vigilante, Adrian Chase, is in jail for the alleged murder of a police officer and other heinous crimes.  In the previous issue of Vigilante, #45, the Vigilante was found by police, unconscious, with the Black Thorn's darts lodged in him, rendering him down for the count.  

                                                           

Adrian's legal counsel is pleading with him to cooperate, so he can make things better for his client, but Chase is not budging, perhaps a little too reliant on his "get out of jail" free card, which is the secret government organization, the Agency, led by Colonel Volstok.  To Chase's chagrin, his one phone call to the Agency led to no where, for the line has been cut because Colonel Volstok's operation is coming to an end...for now.

Of course, news of the Vigilante being arrested and jailed is big news in the media.  Coming from wealth, good looking with  a streak of insanity sells with the public.  Three members of that audience who aren't pleased with the fanfare are the three police officers watching this media circus who knew the on duty cop killed by the Vigilante.  

Marv Wolfman and George Perez created the Vigilante series back in 1983.  Once writer Paul Kupperberg took over the writing duties along with Mike Gold as the editor, this is when the creative team really explores the psyche of a person actually performing these acts and living with the consequences of their actions.  It's done not from a "deconstructing the hero genre" or a person who doesn't like hero books writing a hero book, but from a perspective of writing a hero in a finite time line.  Over time we have learned that Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen, Oliver Queen, Diana Prince, Hal Jordan and countless others can not stay dead.  And honestly, that is more than fine and many readers have come to accept those terms when entering this realm of comic book reading…or not.  Now in this world of 50 issues of Vigilante books, the creative team really captures the madness of the 1980's/the end of the cold war.

Tod Smith captures the unraveling of these officers with Kupperberg's script when they feel left behind and forgotten, calling out that the Vigilante is an insider who comes from wealth, which would lead to him spending minimum time in an upscale prison facility. Arriving at this conclusion is not far fetch, for the Agency is going to spring Adrian Chase out of custody to keep him quiet and away from any official inquiry.  Off duty officers trekking to a correctional facility to execute a man in custody is not the way to do things, but I must admit, they are getting gaslight by employees of the government.    

There is a subplot in this issue led by Lt. Harry Stein and Gotham police detective Harvey Bullock, where the two are actually having a steak out.  Yep, they are spying on the transaction of Russian Katia and mob boss Don Carlos.  Harvey proved his detective skills by tracking this meeting down and is sure Katia is up to no good, like looking to transport weapons back to the Soviet Union.  This runner is a good one, establishing the dynamic between  Bullock and Stein and setting up a future plot point for the Vigilante to solve. Mike Gold and Paul Kupperberg's pacing and plotting are done masterfully, keeping threads going which are picked up and rewarded later.  Harry Stein was introduced back in Vigilante #23 and has made his way into a strong supporting character and will eventually play a lead in another title, Checkmate!  The thoughtfulness and subtlety of a character emerging in front of the readers' eyes back then must have been a thing to witness.  The addition of Harvey Bullock is great because it helps create an authority figure in Stein by contrast.  Stein could have easily been portrayed the way Harvey is here, crass, unkempt and loud, but the creative team took a different route with the character.

For many readers such as myself, it may come a bit of a surprise hearing Bullock being a little too Blue here.  However, I do like that he mentions that he is not allowed to be this way under Commissioner's Gordon command, but we are not in Gotham. The Vigilante book takes place in New York City which is suggested for Mature Readers, so there you have it.  

Although Black Thorn left Adrian on the roof top to be discovered and arrested by the New York Police Department, she didn't mean to cause the Vigilante any harm, so naturally she wants to bust him out of a cell.  Reading all of Vigilante, I understand now that pretty much from Vigilante Annual 2 onwards, Adrian Chase has lost it.  He is clinically insane.  At the start of this 50 issue series, Adrian Chase or even the Vigilante wouldn’t be in the same square mile radius as Black Thorn, but with our anti-hero protagonist on a downward spiral, characters like B.T., who can polarize our hero into not being dull and boring, enters the scene.  

This issue deals with confined chaos, where disgruntled officers, Kramer, Scott and Crawley are disguising themselves as on duty officers of this particular jail in order to kill Chase. Correctional officers sic'd some unsavory prisoners to attack Chase in the showers, and Black Thorn has plans of her own to rescue her lover, Chase.  All of this goes down in this issue, which makes this a hell of a penitentiary romp.  We even get a well choreographed prison fight shower scene by the art team.  Our hero without his uniform and pistol make light work out of these convicted convicts, who are use to pounding someone inferior to them in a physical sense.  

What is interesting at this point is Black Thorn, who we don't know much about yet, knew standard police procedure inside the lock up area, where one of the disgruntled cops who wanted to kill Adrian was wearing gloves and carry a fire arm.  After a couple of questions back and forth, the two get into fisticuffs.  

If Black Thorn had the time, she would have reveled in breaking these hack-like vigilantes’ bones into powder, but she’s driven on liberating her boo-thang. 

Props to all the creatives on this book for making Black Thorn interesting, the buddy cop mash up of Bullock and Stein we didn’t know we needed, and the mob stand ins fascinating to read in such a short time and space of panels. 

May the madness continue in the next issue. And it will.  

 

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Vigilante #45

 

Cover Date September 1987

$1.50

BLACK THORN

Written by Paul Kupperberg.

Pencils by Tod Smith

Inks by Richard Burchett

Lettered by Albert T. Deguzman

Colorist - Bob Lerose

SUMMARY BRIEF

    At the Police Anti-Terrorism conference in Washington D.C., former beat cop, Harry Stein, stands at the podium, delivering facts and statistics about the threats America faces domestically.  Divorced with kids, Stein is quite uncomfortable, for he sees himself more as a hands on, pound the pavement type law man, not a shirt and tie guy at the microphone leading a conference man.  In the crowd is Sargent Harvey Bullock of the Gotham City Police Department.  Harvey is depicted as a not so well put together, five o'clock shadow sporting, glazed donut eating, cheap, cold coffee having lovable Gotham bruiser type guy.   

Losing his place as he shuffles through his cue cards, Stein thinks of the person that placed him in this position in the first place,  formerly associated with the Soviet Union, Colonel Valentina Volstok, also known as Negative Woman of the Doom Patrol.  She created a super spy government agency, and now she wants Harry to lead this operation once the institution is properly installed.  Harry also thinks about how well Valentina is able to handle an operation as well as keeping the bureaucrats and politicians a stone's throw away from those serving under her command.

    One questionable player on the board is former hot shot district attorney, Adrian Chase, who moonlights as the Vigilante.  Admittingly, he confides to Harry Stein to being too much of a loose cannon.  Although he has had thoughts of ending it all, he convinces Stein and Volstok that he has everything under control.  As understanding as Colonel Volstok is, she encourages The Vigilante to lay low out of town.  The Vigilante takes this as an opportunity to head back to New York to investigate the killer named Black Thorn.  

Adrian Chase doesn't waste a moment in the Big Apple.  Immediately, shaking down shady types to get answers on this Black Thorn perp.  Reimer, Jeweler of Reimer's Jewelry, assures Vigilante he knows nothing of Black Thorn .  Too bad this information came after Chase rampaged on Reimer's goons, destroying high dollar glass items.  

         

Clumsily, back at the counter terrorism conference, Stein and Bullock become fast friends.  Reluctantly on Stein's part, the two go shopping for new suits together.  Back in New York City, things are not so harmonious.  Vigilante is really giving who he deems as lowlifes and information havers the business, extracting any information about this Black Thorn character from their backsides.  

Adrian Chase is stationed at one of his rented safe houses to rest and relax.  Unfortunately, he sifts though memories of his family who were killed by criminals in order to get to him.  His wife Doris and two sons, Adam and Drew, were victims of a fatal bomb blast. One can see how Adrian Chase could slip from grace going from well-respected Judge to the murderous Vigilante. Before Adrian could continue to feel pity for his station in life, he hears a knock at the door.  On the other side is a woman who seems to be speaking Spanish.  Adrian assumes she has the wrong room, alerting the woman in her native tongue she has the wrong address.  Suddenly, the door kicks in, knocking Adrian to the floor.  It wasn't a Spanish speaking woman at all.  It was this Black Thorn character he was looking for all along.  And this Black Thorn figure is all woman.  

Yes, the creative team of this comic gifted/cursed Vigilante a female counter part for the last six issues of this 50 book run.  Sexy, psychotic flirtations are hurled back and forth leading to a night of intimacy.  Of course when the Vigilante wakes the next morning, Black Thorn is no where to be found.  Taking a shower, Adrian admits to having a good time with Black Thorn, but he's also real with himself about how crazy the situation is and how he knows nothing about her, Black Thorne. 

Debrief

Even though this is a Checkmate blog, I wanted to start with Vigilante #45 for the four supporting characters in the book, Colonel Valentina Volstok, Harry Stein, Black Thorn and Sergeant Harvey Bullock of the Gotham Police Department.

Valentina Volstok, Black Thorn, Harvey Bullock, Harry Stein

Valentina Volstok is a character created by writer Paul Kupperburg and artist Joe Staton, debuting in Showcase #94 back in 1977.  In December of 1982 she made an appearance in DC Comics Presents #52: Superman and Doom Patrol, where the new Doom Patrol is introduced to Superman.  Unfortunately, the circumstance is Negative Woman going berserk, wrecking the Metropolis Parade, where the citizens are celebrating its 309th year as a city. This story leads to Volstok having to wear the bandages.    

In addition to what was mentioned above, the character of Negative Woman appeared in season 2 of the brilliantly crafted Doom Patrol, where actress Mariana Klaveno gave a textured, lived in performance of the character.

Mariana Klaveno as Negative Woman

On Mission

Paul Kupperburg is definitely adding and moving pieces around on the chessboard, bringing the Vigilante series to an end, and ushering the debut of a book called Checkmate.  Going forward for the next few blog posts, we will follow the development of Harry Stein as a reluctant leader of the so-called Agency, a government organization, and how this Catwoman like character, Black Thorn, who has a penchant for murder, becomes a deputized member of Checkmate.  

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