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 knocked out.
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 Vostok. To Chase's chagrin, his one phone call to the Agency led to no where, for the line has been cut because Colonel Vostok'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 doing these things 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.
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 the him out of a holding tank. 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 not 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.
