Last Issue Special # 20: Night Force (v. 1) [Comics]

SERIES: Night Force (v. 1)

DATE: 1983

CATEGORY: DENIAL

Night Force was an interesting title. The one persistent character was a mysterious master of the occult, Baron Winter, who was perpetually trapped inside his own mansion. Each story arc, the Baron would put together a team of investigators to look into some sort of supernatural phenomenon. There was thus a rotating cast, as the casualty rate for characters was higher than in super hero comics, but from time to time the survivors returned for later missions. I always thought Night Force had a great feel to it, very much how I imagine the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game would translate into comics form.

Issue # 14, the "Final Fear-Fraught Issue!" of the first series, does a reasonable job of wrapping things up, as the Baron makes amends with his son for past wrongs and takes on a new assistant to help in the struggle against evil. The text page is optimistic: "We leave this title with great regret and sorrow, but we are all overjoyed that we will return, even in truncated form, as a mini-series sometimes within the year. There may be other news concerning The Night Force coming from DC within the next few months, so please keep alert. If things pan out, the best is yet to come." Well, there certainly weren't any news in the next few months, nor was there a mini-series the following year, but I guess arguably things "panned out" as the series got another chance fourteen years later (though volume 2 only lasted for twelve issues . . .).