During the mid-’80s, the comic book industry went through a period where a large number of new comic books came out that glutted the market. A lot of these were black-and-white titles, inspired by the success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and things were not helped by the speculators that also entered the market.
Most of these comic books were pretty bad, and so a very large number of titles (and publishers) came and went.
As a comic book fan I was a little more discerning about what I got, especially as I didn’t have a lot of money at the time. One title I did notice, and would have liked to have gotten, was the short-lived The Twilight Avenger created by John Wooley and Terry Tidwell. It was, to me, a character clearly inspired by both pulp and movie serial heroes. And now thanks to Pulp 2.0 Press, we can once again check out this character.
The Twilight Avenger is really ex-college football star Reece Chambers. When his fiancee is injured and put into a coma by gangsters, he teams up with his future father-in-law to fight back. Dr. Herth outfits Reece with a variety of items, including a gas gun which shoots both gas and gas grenades, a blinding chest light, and more. He wears a cloak, hat, and a mask with goggles that includes a gas mask. They are soon joined by reporter Joan Casey to fight against the mysterious Centipede in the first storyline.
The first storyline saw print from Elite Comics in what was supposed to be a four-issue series. Instead they came out with two issues in 1986, with the third issue and concluding issue being more or less self-published as Miracle Comics.
After that in 1988-90, a second series was published by Eternity Comics that ran eight issues. I never got those issues, so don’t know what storylines ran in that one.
The Pulp 2.0 Press edition contains the first Twilight Avenger story from Elite/Miracle. In addition is information on the creation of the character, we also get the creators’ “adventures” getting him published and extra artwork. There is a short prose story, and a mock up of what a Twilight Avenger serial might have looked like, with possible actors from the movie serial era. Overall, it’s a very nice collection. I do hope they will be doing a second volume to collect the rest of the Twilight Avenger material.
There are too few original pulp-inspired comic book heroes, and this one is pretty good. Check him out.
UPDATE: Pulp 2.0 Press is working on the second volume, will will reprint #1-4 of the followup series from Eternity Comics, hopefully a third volume will reprint the remaining 4 issues.
