DC Histories: Night Force

Welcome back to another DC History. Although the New 52 is still where the DC offices are training most of their efforts, they are releasing a few titles outside of that group. This week, we’ll be taking a peek at the history of one such title. Only by looking back at what came before can we understand where we’re going.

This week, we’re looking at the Night Force. Created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, Night Force is the story of the enigmatic Baron Winters and the people he can goad into helping him.

The Baron and his Night Force first debuted in the pages of the immensely popular New Teen Titans (Vol. 1). In 1982, New Teen Titans was a major hit. It made sense that a new series by Marv Wolfman, the writer of that Titans title, would be advertised in that series. Readers of New Teen Titans #21 got more than just a simple in-house ad for Night Force when they opened their issue. They got a whole 16 page introduction to that title right in the middle of their normal 23 page story for free. The nearly double-sized comic book cost the same as a normal issue.

In this introductory tale, Baron Winters made his debut. Based out of Wintersgate Manor, the Baron was shown to be a semi-omniscient figure who knew more than he should about the people around him. Winters always lived alone, save for his leopard companion Merlin. Wintersgate Manor, located in the outskirts of Georgetown, was an elaborate structure which indicated that the Baron came from money, though details on his past weren’t forthcoming. It became obvious early on that the Baron couldn’t leave the confines of his mansion. It was essentially a prison for the Baron, but the mansion had secrets that came out after the series officially got started.

A month after the sneak peak, Night Force hit store shelves. This series was not Wolfman and Colan’s first collaboration. For eight years, the pair worked on Tomb of Dracula, a well regarded horror title published by Marvel. It was relatively big news that DC was able to get the pair of them to work on a new horror series together. Sadly, it didn’t have the legs on it that Dracula had.

In the first issue’s letter column, Wolfman told readers that each arc in the series would consist of a different set of characters. Each group would be the Baron’s new Night Force that he manipulated into doing his bidding. Not every member of the Night Force would survive each adventure.

Wolfman began Night Force with an elaborate opening story. Counting the preview, the first story arc took eight and a half issues to tell. This is a very long tale, especially for 1982 when the idea of waiting for the trade hadn’t been invented yet. Readers had to really be invested in the characters that Wolfman and Colan presented to them. If they didn’t care for the tale being told, they dropped off and probably didn’t return.

If readers did drop off during the first story, they were really missing something. Read all together, ‘The Summoning’ is a real corker of a tale. The story concerned two men, Jack Gold and Donovan Caine, who tried to help Vanessa Van Helsing from being overcome by her evil psychic powers. This involved a race around the world. It all came to a head in the Soviet Union but not before Vanessa’s powers really broke lose.

The next tale was a short one at just two and a half issues long. In a story that had the tone of an old Twilight Zone episode, the Baron tricked a murderer into being locked in an apartment building with an alien who was slowly eating the tenants. It, too, is a solid tale though the moral of the story is a bit on-the-nose.

Sadly, Night Force was cancelled due to sales just a few issues later. In the letters column, Wolfman expressed the hope that the Baron and his cast would return in an annual line of four issue miniseries but that plan never materialized.

This wasn’t to say that the Baron was completely forgotten. Over the next several years, whenever a group of magical characters banded together to face a common threat, the Baron tended to be involved in some way. In fact, when John Constantine called the various mystics together to combat a threat begun in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, he came to Wintersgate Manor to get the Baron’s help first.

I enjoy that the Baron called Constantine a “jumped-up London street-thug.” Oh, Alan Moore.

Winters is eventually talked into allowing his house to host the seance that Constantine is attempting. It is at this seance that Giovanni Zatara, father of Zatanna, would lose his life. But then, that’s already been covered in DC Histories: Zatanna.

Later, readers would come to see many similarities between Constantine and Baron Winters. Both have various degrees of magical abilities but both men would rather not get their hands dirty if at all possible. Both have a propensity for using people to reach their goals. Many times, these subordinates are worse off after their interactions with the magicians. The Baron is just a little less mobile than Constantine.

Years later, when showing Timothy Hunter around the magical end of the DCU, Constantine would let his feeling about Winters be known.

Baron Winters wasn’t seen again until Night Force got a new lease on life when a second ongoing series launched in 1996. Just like the original series, this too was written by Marv Wolfman. The Baron was once again up to his old tricks, using other people to deal with the problems of the world. Of course, he wasn’t against being paid for his efforts.

This second series focused on short stories. The longest tale during this series’ twelve issue run was only three issues long. Sadly, this compressed bit of storytelling meant some of the tales felt rushed. Others had curious leaps in logic that didn’t completely make sense. The very best storyline in the dozen issues was the final three-parter. In it, the Baron was presented with a man who had no soul. This man was thought to have been dead for several years. Since his apparent death, this man’s body had been possessed by the souls of a million people, unclaimed by Heaven or Hell. This man was Richard M. Nixon. It’s quite the surreal moment.

Sadly, Gene Colan was too sick in 1996 to join Wolfman in this second volume. He did manage to do the pencils for the cover of the series’ final issue. This would be the last time that Colan commercially drew the Baron.

In the series’ final issue, it was revealed that the Baron’s true purpose in all of his adventures was to keep the universal balance between good and evil maintained. Whenever a conspiracy threatened to tip the balance one way or the other, the Baron would intervene, keeping everything in check. The payment from people was just a nice bonus but really, Winters would have done everything he did for free.

Since this last series ended, the Baron hasn’t been seen too much. He’s in the occasional group shot of the various mystics in the DCU, but he hasn’t been an actual character in years. All that changes today with the release of another volume of Night Force, which is once again written by Marv Wolfman. Has the Baron’s role in the DCU changed in the last 15 years? Is he a bit more kind to his Night Force now? Will he ever be able to leave his mansion? I guess we’ll find out together.

For those interested, the complete first volume of Night Force is being released in trade in June. It’s worth a read, especially for fans of classic horror comics. It doesn’t seem like the New Teen Titans preview is included, which is kind of weird. Here’s hoping that gets added before the book is released.

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Jeff Reid has never be a pawn of wizards or magicians but this one time he was hypnotized. He hopes he didn’t do anything unsavory while he was under but you never know. Keep a close eye on him on Twitter.