2015 comic book
Midnighter is an American comic book series published by DC Comics and written by Steve Orlando that ran for twelve issues (plus an un-numbered preview issue) from June 2015 to July 2016, featuring Midnighter as its protagonist. The series is also known as Midnighter (Volume 2) to differentiate itself from the character's previous series first published by WildStorm in 2006.
The release of "Midnighter" marked the first time a gay man was the protagonist in an ongoing series released by one of the "Big Two" comic book publishers (Marvel and DC Comics). Despite its underwhelming sales, "Midnighter" met with critical acclaim from professional critics, who praised among other things the series' fast-paced events and its portrayal of queer characters. The series appeared on numerous publications' end-of-year lists, and won "Best New Series" from Broken Frontier's 2015 awards program. Two "Midnighter" trade paperbacks were released in 2016, with seven and five issues each. A 6-issue miniseries sequel titled "Midnighter and Apollo", also written by Orlando, ran from October 2016 to March 2017.
Background.
In September 2011, after the conclusion of the "Flashpoint" story arc wherein The Flash caused irreparable damage to the DC Universe's timestream in an attempt to prevent his mother's murder, DC merged the universe of its WildStorm imprint into a rebooted DC Universe in a relaunch known as The New 52. The character's first appearance in New 52 continuity was in a "Stormwatch" series released as part of the first wave of titles, and was a younger, single version of the character, replete with a new costume. Intended to be a significant part of this new universe, "Stormwatch" was a commercial and critical disappointment. Midnighter's characterization was criticized for being too distant of his WildStorm version and his costume, which included a chin spike, was so disliked that it was even referenced in the comic itself. After some relaunch attempts, "Stormwatch" was cancelled at issue #30.
Publication history.
The series was released as a part of "DC You", a marketing campaign to reinvigorate DC Comics' image. In May 2015, during the "Convergence" event, the publisher released digital sneak previews for several of its current and upcoming titles, all featuring a new short story. Titled "Perdition Pistol", the "Midnighter" preview appeared in the comic book "Nightwing/Oracle" #2. Series promotion included video interviews with Steve Orlando and Jase Peeples, entertainment editor of "The Advocate", which also presented a short history of DC's LGBT characters to celebrate the release of the series and LGBT Pride Month. "Midnighter"'s first issue was released in June, together with twenty other new DC Comics' titles. The series had a traditional publication, with a 20-page issue priced at $2.99 released monthly, and is codified in comics tracking as "Midnighter Volume 2" to avoid confusion with the character's previous series.
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 "[Midnighter is] a version of Batman who’s not Batman, and by pairing him with Dick Grayson, Batman’s partner, we can highlight aspects of both characters that I think people haven’t seen before. You get these two together and a thousand Freudian issues will instantly flow into a pretty awesome super hero fight".
 — Tom King on Midnighter inclusion in "Grayson" series.
Conception and development.
"Midnighter" represented both a new path and a return to the character's roots. It re-established his over-the-top acts of graphic violence and focused on his community work with everyday people, a similar scenario to the character's early days in the WildStorm Universe before joining Stormwatch. This Midnighter, however, is considerably younger than his WildStorm counterpart, and desires to have a more social life. According to writer Steve Orlando, he began writing "Midnighter" after Mark Doyle, "Batman"'s editor, asked if he wanted to "pitch" any character. In an interview with "Comic Vine", Orlando described Midnighter as:
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ACO, the title's main artist, brought to the comic a characteristic style, which features a large number of small panels to highlight the constant action scenes present in the story. He formed a collaboration with Hugo Petrus, who was co-credited as an inker for all of their issues and as a penciller for the last four issues. Stephen Mooney, who also pencilled "Grayson", was the artist of issues #4 and 5.
The series had a close relationship with "Grayson", a rebooted Dick Grayson solo comic. The characters Midnighter, Dick Grayson and Helena Bertinelli frequently feature in both comic books. "Midnighter" begins shortly after the end of his relationship with Andrew Pulaski, known as the hero Apollo. This decision, according to Orlando, was made to define Midnighter as a stand-alone character with his own sexual experiences with other people, while slowly building both characters' new interactions. The writer cites Christopher Marlowe, Orlando Cruz, Tab Hunter, John McClane, Emile Griffith, John Woo and Melvin Van Peebles as inspirations for the title character's personality.
Plot.
New in the city of Oakland, Midnighter arranges a date with a man called Jason. Suddenly, the restaurant where they are is invaded by Modoran mercenaries searching for three of their countrymen, making Midnighter reveal himself and beat them in a fight. Afterwards, Midnighter takes Jason to his apartment and installs a "smartalk" in him, in which Jason can contact him wherever he is. He also talks about his recent breakup with Andrew Pulaski (Apollo), saying he could not handle pretending to be a normal human and that Andrew is too good for him. Feeling too intimidated, Jason prefers to be just friends with Midnighter.
Called by The Gardener, Midnighter discovers the God Garden was robbed by a mysterious intruder who took several weapons and also a file containing his past memories before he was genetically enhanced. He starts a search to recover everything that was lost while beginning to date Matt, whom he met during the Modoran attack. Midnighter finds the first weapon, a powered necklace, with Marina Lucas, who was using it to avenge her husband's death by food poisoning. He finds another weapon while saving Amanda Riley, a little schoolgirl kidnapped by Multiplex, a villain in the employ of Mr. Rohmer, a corrupt businessman who sought the power of the God Garden. Rohmer reveals that he pretended to use Amanda as a guinea pig for a machine he built using God Garden technology. Beaten by Midnighter, he revealed that he acquired the tech from a Russian man named Noi Akakievitch.
Midnighter then abducts Dick Grayson to help him with his mission in Russia. There, they go after a secret inn administered by Guire Grando, an employee of Akakievitch. Grando takes homeless people from the streets and makes them go through a treatment with reprogrammed martian cells (originally from the God Garden) that transform them into vampire-like creatures, who are murdered for entertainment by the hooligan youngsters that frequent the inn. Midnighter and Grayson succeed in taking down the place, attracting Akakievitch's attention, who wants to have the Midnighter's computer brain technology. Then, Midnighter and Grayson go to his lair, where they fight and beat martian cells manipulated beasts, defeating Akakievitch, who reveals that he received the technology from a mysterious supplier.
Back home, Midnighter celebrates Thanksgiving for the first time with Matt, when they are attacked by Multiplex. Midnighter manages to defeat him, only to find out a few days later that Matt's father was also attacked. He and Matt go visit the man, who lives in a small town in Connecticut, and Midnighter begins investigating the place. While investigating at a nearby bar, he is attacked by a gang and during the fight, he discovers they are not humans, but rather androids created with God Garden technology. Midnighter then goes back to Matt's father's house and attacks him, revealing him to also be an android. Matt stabs Midnighter, revealing himself as the supervillain Prometheus and confessing to stealing the tech from the God Garden with the intention of taking down all superheroes, starting with Midnighter. They begin fighting and Prometheus reveals he downloaded all of Midnighter's origin file into his brain and destroyed the original, so if Midnighter kills him, all his early history would be destroyed. Midnighter does not mind and beats down Prometheus, who manages to escape severely injured. After that, Midnighter goes to take a drink with his friend Tony.
Setting.
Oakland, California and Boston, Massachusetts, are the cities where most of "Midnighter"'s action happens. This breaks from DC tradition, as most DC stories take place in fictional DC locales. Thanks to the door technology, however, Midnighter can easily travel to any place in the world. Cities Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Rochester, New York, Richmond, California, Tacoma, Washington and Detroit, Michigan, as well as Florida Keys, Baffin Island (Canada) and the Darvaza gas crater (Turkmenistan) are also depicted through the series. Fictional Opal City is often shown during scenes with Apollo, who lives there. Porter, a fictional small town located in Connecticut, was also depicted, as well as another fictional country named Modora.
Much of the series takes place in Russia. Steve Orlando, himself a Russian culture admirer, explained the connection made between Midnighter and the place:
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Cancellation and DC Rebirth.
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"I’ve said it before, but working on "Midnighter" has been an honor. Getting to take a character that helped me when I was younger and boost the signal to a new generation has been an honor. And honestly, to beat the odds with a character people that people doubted ["sic"], or didn’t know what to expect from, has been an honor".
— Steve Orlando considerations after "Midnighter"'s finale.
In February 2016, DC Comics announced another relaunch, DC Rebirth, which mostly consisted of relaunches for their traditional titles like "Batman", "Superman" and "Wonder Woman". "Midnighter" and other DC You titles like "Starfire" and "Black Canary" did not have new series announced, and ended their runs at the twelfth issue, a decision criticized by some media outlets. Oliver Sava, writing for "The A.V. Club", said that "it’s unfortunate that ["Midnighter"] is heading to its conclusion when it feels like this creative team still has so much more to offer", adding that "DC hasn’t done much to increase [Midnighter's] profile. [They] could have used this critical acclaim to promote the book". Jon Erik Christianson from "Panels" lamented the lack of representation that would happen with the cancellation of one of the few mainstream LGBT comic books.
Midnighter's first DC Rebirth appearance was in a flashback in "Nightwing Rebirth" #1, released in July 2016. DC announced a miniseries titled "Midnighter and Apollo" later that year.
Reception.
The announcement of "Midnighter"'s release in February 2015 generated instant media interest due to the premise of the series being the first to prominently feature a gay superhero. "The New York Times" referred to Midnighter and the new wave of gay characters as ones who "zap stereotypes", calling it "a golden age for queer characters in comic books". Its writer, Gregory Schmidt, also expressed a belief that Midnighter's popularity "stems in part from efforts to make his sexual orientation just one aspect of his character".
Critical response.
Upon release, "Midnighter" issues received widespread acclaim from comics critics. At the review aggregator website Comic Book Roundup, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 10 to reviews from comics critics, the series received an average score of 8.2 based on 158 reviews. Reviewing the first issue, David Pepos from "Newsarama" gave it a maximum score, saying that "there aren't many books out there that I'd call perfect, but when you can see 10 steps ahead, it's perhaps not surprising that "The Midnighter" earns that praise. This book looks great, reads great, and is easily one of the best debuts from DC since the soft relaunch of "Batgirl". If you've been skeptical about this character - and believe me, I was one of them - get ready for a spectacular change of heart". Keith Dooley of "Multiversity Comics" opined that ""Midnighter" is imperfect, has emotional issues, and yet has a hero’s heart. Darkness and light concurrently mingle to create such a promising and exciting opening chapter to what has the potential to be something great". Writing for "PopMatters", Matthew Fay felt the debut was a "reassuring and faithful reintroduction to the character" that "leaves open a lot of room for exploration".
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"Probably the best matching of character and writer that we saw in comics in 2015. Steve Orlando came determined to take Midnighter and drag him straight to the top of DC’s characters.