Deadman (
Boston Brand) is a
fictional character, a
comic book superhero in
the
DC Comics universe. He first appeared in
Strange Adventures #205 (October
1967), and was created by
Arnold Drake
and
Carmine Infantino.
Publication history
The series is most associated with the art of
Neal Adams and the writing of Jack Miller, who
took over from Drake and Infantino after the first story. The first
story and all of the Adams stories were reprinted in 1985 as a
seven-issue series. Although he appeared from time to time in the
1970s and 1980s as a supporting character in various comics,
including Jack Kirby's
Forever
People, Deadman did not get his own series again until
1986, in a four-issue
limited series
written by Andrew Helfer and drawn by
José Luis
García-López, which picked up the story where Adams left off.
Deadman's next major storyline was in
Action Comics Weekly, in 1988-89. After
this, he starred in the two-issue series
Deadman: Love After
Death, drawn by
Kelley Jones and
written by
Mike Baron. This was followed
by the limited series
Deadman: Exorcism in 1992, also
written by Mike Baron and drawn by Kelley Jones. Jones' gaunt,
zombie-like rendition of the character would later appear in the
pages of Batman. There was a Deadman
ongoing series in 2002, which lasted nine
issues, as well as a couple of standalone issues. His cameo
appearances also continued, including several issues of
Alan Moore's run on
Swamp Thing, and
Neil Gaiman's
The Books of Magic. He had a cameo
in book two of
Batman: Gotham County Line, which was
released in November 2005. In 2009, Deadman was a featured title in
the
Wednesday Comics.
The character and self-titled series have won several awards over
the years, including the 1967 Alley Award for Best New Strip (by
Arnold Drake and
Carmine Infantino in
Strange Adventures), and the 1968 Alley
Award Hall of Fame (for
Neal
Adams).
DC Comics published a slipcased hardcover edition collecting the
original Deadman stories in December 2001, which remains in
print.
Fictional character biography
Deadman is a
ghost, formerly a
circus trapeze artist named
Boston Brand who performed under the name Deadman,
a stage persona including a red costume and white corpse makeup.
When Brand is murdered during a trapeze performance by a mysterious
assailant known only as the Hook (in fact his last words were "Gee,
from up here it almost looks like that guy with the hook for a hand
has a gun..."), his spirit is given the power to
possess any living being by a
Hindu goddess (created for
the purposes of the story) named
Rama
Kushna (a corruption of
Rama-
Krishna), in order to search for his murderer and
obtain justice. It is established in
Green Arrow Vol 4, #4, that Deadman
believes Rama is the supreme being of the universe.
The origin story involved the hero fighting
narcotics smugglers, in the first story to involve
drugs with the permission of the
Comics Code Authority. The criminals
used the traveling circus they worked for to smuggle "snow" --
either
heroin or
cocaine.
In the pages of
Nightwing (issues
#102 and #103, respectively) it is implied that Brand got the idea
for his costume from "Johnny" Grayson, father of Dick
Grayson.
At the end of the Neal Adams story line, Deadman seems to discover
the truth behind his murder and we learn the ultimate fate of Hook,
who killed Deadman as part of an initiation into a society of
contract killers who then kill him to silence him. However, in 1972
writer/artist
Jack Kirby was told by the
DC editors to put a Deadman crossover into his book
The Forever People. Kirby had never
heard of Deadman, but he obligingly included the character in
The Forever People 9 and 10. In reading the Neal Adams
issues to understand the character, Kirby noticed something that
had apparently slipped by everyone else. In the origin story, Hook
has his hook on his right hand. Yet in the penultimate Neal Adams
story, where his secret is revealed and he meets his fate, the man
we think is Hook has his hook on his left hand. This was probably
just an artist's error -- in the final Neal Adams
Deadman,
in the synopsis of the previous issue, the hook is back on the
right hand again. Kirby, however, uses this clue to reopen the case
of Deadman, with the real Hook one among many one-handed men who
work for an organization known as "The Scavengers".
Various missions
Over the course of several years, Rama Kushna has Deadman confront
the sorcerer Caldera multiple times over the fate of the souls of
several deceased superheroes. Two of them are
the Flash and
Robin. During the Robin incident, he tries to
possess the
Joker but was driven out
by the man's insanity.
Rama also maintained a city for some time, called
Nanda Parbat. The most evil people in the world
came to live there, where Rama's power kept them sane and good. One
of the worst was Darius Caldera, who almost destroyed the world
when he left the city. Unfortunately, Nanda later fell due to a
combined military and mystical force. All the evil people are now
back in the real world, still a danger.
His twin brother, Cleveland, is killed while possessed by Boston,
while doing Boston's circus act. The killer was out to kill Boston
Brand. His "benefactor," Rama Kushna, also dies in order to defeat
Jonah, a spirit similar to Deadman.
Around this time, Deadman assists the
Spectre in defeating a newly formed demonic
being (and werewolves). Formed from the skeletons of many souls in
hell, this blue-eye, blonde-haired being comes to Earth to foment
chaos and death. It manages to actually remove much of the
Spectre's substance. Deadman is forced to merge with Spectre until
things are stabilized.
Later, Deadman receives a birthday present from his diminutive
friend, Max Loomis. Max places himself in a trance so he could
"meet" Deadman and the two take a pleasant journey down "memory
lane," mainly Deadman's more pleasant memories of Nanda Parbat.
Soon after, Loomis meets with old circus friends and Deadman
involves himself in a case of suspected murder. Deadman wants to go
after the escapees of Nanda Parbat, but Max thinks pursuing the
murder is a better course.
Youth and Hell
In the "Sins of Youth" incident, Deadman is one of the dozens of
heroes reduced to a preteen age by
Klarion the Witch Boy and an alien
machine owned by
Doiby Dickles. He is
still a spirit, now with a small d on his chest. He assists
Secret in confronting Teekl,
Klarion's companion, in an effort to restore everyone. He also
joins in the fight against mystically created and mystically
altered villains.
During the "
Day of
Judgment" incident, Boston Brand travels with a group of heroes
to the frozen wastelands of Hell. Their goal is to restart the
demonic fires, thus recalling all the demons from the earthly
plane. An accident strands Brand and the others under the frozen
waters of the
River Styx, forcing them to live
out what would be to them, Hell. For Brand, it is that the
sharpshooter hits him in the shoulder, thus he survives. Brand
feels he needs to die in order to learn 'how to live'.
His battles against the demons would come back to haunt him. In the
four part
Black Baptism miniseries, Deadman and several
other "
Sentinels of Magic," the
magical group formed out of the "Day of Judgment" incident, are
hunted by the Diablos. Partly fueled by revenge, they subdue many
of the Sentinels and drain their magic. The JLA eventually rescue
them all and destroy all the Diablos.
Blackest Night
In
Blackest Night #2, Boston Brand begins to hear the
voices of the dead and his own remains calling for him to protect
them. Being a spirit, he is unable to stop his body from being
raised as a
Black Lantern. He
attempts to possess his own body but is ejected after experiencing
extreme physical and emotional pain during the attempt. He is
currently assisting
Batman,
Robin, and
Red Robin
in repelling the invasion of the Black Lanterns. Deadman manages to
save
Commissioner Gordon from
the Black Lanterns by possessing the body of
his daughter, spiriting them both to
safety.Deadman is later sent by Batman to possess the body of Jason
Blood, invoking the power of
Etrigan. Deadman uses Etrigan's demon
flame to hold back the Black Lanterns, but struggles to maintain
control over the demon's body, finally being forced out. Deadman
then frees Batman and Red Robin, who had frozen themselves to
escape the Black Lanterns' onslaught.
Powers and abilities
Being a ghost, Deadman is granted intangibility, invisibility, and
flight. He also can possess any sentient being.
Other versions
- Deadman was in issue #6 of the comic book Batman: Gotham Adventures (based
on Batman: The Animated
Series) where his origin was very much alike to his
mainstream comic except he was in the Haley Circus and Rama Kushna
was male. He was friends with Dick
Grayson, and he was in an issue before he gained his powers in
The Batman and Robin Adventures #15.
- Deadman appeared briefly in Mark Waid
and Alex Ross' Elseworlds story Kingdom Come, where he offered
some words of encouragement to Norman
McCay. His appearance is notable because by the time of the
story (set 10 years in the future) he has either lost or foregone
his normal appearance, and appears as a skeleton wearing his
Deadman uniform. He introduces himself as simply "Boston," and also
appears in the sequel The
Kingdom as a guide to time-lost, deceased versions of
Superman. This version of Deadman was made
into an action figure by DC Direct for
Series 3 of their Kingdom Come line. Ross states that
Brand's more skeletal appearance was a result of Brand accepting
his role as a spirit.
- Deadman also appears in Neil
Gaiman's story The Books of
Magic, looking very similar to his appearance in Kingdom
Come. He possesses the body of several people throughout the comic,
trying to warn Timothy Hunter about a coming danger.
- In 2006, Vertigo a DC Comics
imprint, announced that it would trade some of its trademark
characters with others of DC's. Among the swaps was Vertigo's
Jonah Hex in exchange for Deadman. The
result was a continuing series
published later that year.
- Deadman also had a brief comic in the DC published book
Bizarro World where he was interested in meeting girls and
dating while in Limbo.
- Deadman appeared briefly in Jeph Loeb's Superman Batman: Absolute Power,
where he attempted to possess Superman after he and Batman killed
off all the monks of Nanda Parbat (under orders from their adoptive
parents, who saw the monks as a threat to their plans in an
alternate timeline). Deadman is prevented from using Superman's
strength to kill Batman when Batman uses a spell from Zatanna to trap Deadman inside a crystal.
In other media
Television
- Deadman appeared as the champion of the Goddess Rama Kushna in the third season of Justice League Unlimited in
episode "Dead Reckoning" voiced by Raphael Sbarge. It is stated that Batman
already knew Deadman, having helped Boston solve his own murder. He
resides in a temple in Nanda Parbat
that the Legion of Doom invades and robs a specific artifact.
Deadman heads to the Watchtower and possesses Superman to ask for
help from the Justice League. When he saw Devil Ray aiming at Wonder Woman, he possessed Batman and shot him
with a gun accidentally killing him when he was sent flying into
electric wires. For this mistake causing the scales to become
unbalanced, Deadman is denied his sought after termination of his
ghostly obligation and required to continue his duties.
- A live action TV series for TNT was under development in 2000,
but was eventually shelved.
- Deadman appears in the Batman: The Brave and the
Bold episode "Dawn of the Deadman!", voiced by Michael Rosenbaum. In the episode,
Deadman finds the spirit of Batman in London
, England
when
Gentleman Ghost buries him
alive. Still depressed because of his condition, he is
convinced by Batman to help him stop Gentleman Ghost from raising
an army of the undead to destroy London, while Green Arrow and Speedy try to dig out Batman's body. Deadman
helps the heroes thwart Craddock, and embrace his destiny as a
hero. His origin is almost exactly the same, right down to the
hook-handed killer,(Clubfoot), with the exception that Rama Kushna
is not mentioned at all; he does not know how or why he was kept
from "crossing over", which fuels his melancholic self-pity. Also,
it's revealed that Batman has been working his case, since Brand's
demise.
Film
Miscellaneous
- The French musical duo Cassius
did music videos for "1999" and "Feeling For You" that featured a
character similar to Deadman.
- In the Something Positive
Halloween comic for 2007, Davan is dressed as Deadman while taking
Rory (who is dressed as Etrigan)
trick-or-treating (also, Peejee appears in a Zatanna costume).
References
Other sources
- Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams, The Deadman Collection,
DC Comics, 2001, ISBN 1563898497 ISBN 978-1563898495.
- Jack Kirby, Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Volume
Three, DC Comics, 2007, ISBN 1401214851, ISBN
139781401214852.
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