Night Raven is a fictional superhero appearing primarily in Marvel UK Comics, a division of Marvel Comics. Night Raven first appeared in Hulk Comic #1 (March 7, 1979).
Originally created by editors Dez Skinn and Richard Burton, the early Night Raven stories were written by Steve Parkhouse with art by David Lloyd. Dez Skinn's immediate superior, Stan Lee, did not like David Lloyd's "blocky" artwork and John Bolton became Lloyd's replacement artist towards the end of the strip's initial run. The original Night Raven strip was greatly influenced by the pulp characters of the 1930s (the time period in which the strip was set), especially The Shadow and The Spider.
Night Raven was one of the few original characters created for Marvel UK in the 1980s, and quickly became a fan favorite. During the decade, Night Raven appeared in various Marvel UK titles, including a run of text stories beginning in Marvel Superheroes (#382-386) by Alan McKenzie and continued in The Daredevils (#6-11) by Alan Moore and Jamie Delano. His period setting was gradually moved from the 1930s up to contemporary times by the plot device of having him rendered apparently immortal and indestructible but in constant pain and gradually losing his sanity as a result, due to the machinations of his equally immortal arch foe, the Oriental female crime lord Yi Yang.
In the 1990s the character had only a handful of appearances, most prominent of which was a graphic novel, Night Raven: House of Cards. The character's first American appearance was in a supporting role in the graphic novel Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty. In Death Duty, it is revealed that he is unable to die. Night Raven's immortality was contradicted later in the 1995 Marvel US miniseries Nocturne, in which it was revealed that the original Night Raven had died after being poisoned in the 1950s. One of his last acts was to create a battlesuit which was later donned by Graham "Gray" Poldark to become a new hero known as Nocturne. It has since been confirmed that the Nocturne story did not take place in the main Marvel comics reality.
Night Raven is glimpsed in the first issue of the The Twelve, where he is one of many costumed heroes pictured in Berlin in a scene dated April 25, 1945. He plays no part in the subsequent story and it is unclear whether or not the creators realized that this would appear to contradict the character's existing continuity.
History: The half-Mohawk boy who would become Night Raven was born in Canada in 1900, and orphaned as a child. He was placed in an orphange until his uncle in New England took him in, and he grew up to be an idealist, determined to make the world a better place. In 1915 he lied about his age to sign up for the Canadian army, determined to fight in World War I, and proving a dangerous opponent during basic training, because, despite being of slender build, he would not yield in a fight so long as he was physically capable of continuing. Finally shipped to the Belgian front, the young soldier's idealism was shattered by the realities of trench warfare, and after Ypres he was shipped home with shell-shock, and spent some time in an asylum.
Towards the end of the 1920s the
former soldier had become a vigilante in New York, Night Raven. preying
on criminals who he branded with a chemical logo to inspire fear in
them. He became infatuated with singer Inez Pearl, and tried to protect
her when crooked congressman Harold Chase tried to force her into a
relationship, using his connection with crimelord Tall Saul Konig to put
pressure on her, despite the fact that she was already involved with
one of Saul's enforcers, "Soldier" Jack. When Jack went against his boss
for this, he was murdered, and Inez was delivered to a brothel run by
Chinese crimelord Yi Yang's Dragon Tong to await Chase's pleasure. Night Raven rescued Inez, but not before Yi Yang gave her a lethal drug overdose.
After this Night Raven's war on crime stepped up, as he killed mob bosses, slew the protection racketeer known as the Taxman, and eliminated wheelchair-ridden mob boss Mr. Big and the Assassin that Big had hired to kill him, all the while evading capture by the police. These high profile incidents brought Night Raven to the attention of Sentinel reporter Scoop Daly, who soon encountered Night Raven face to face after beginning an investigation into the vigilante. In 1931 Night Raven clashed directly with the Dragon Tong, finally coming face to face with Inez's murderer, though he remained unaware of Yi Yang's part in the singer's demise. Secretly immortal, Yi Yang faked suicide to evade Night Raven, but remained enraged at his interference and her resulting loss of face, and so plotted a terrible revenge. She tricked him into unwittingly exposing himself to a poison that rendered him undying as she was, but also caused his flesh to corrode and waste away slowly and unceasingly painfully; Yi Yang wanted him to have eternity to suffer and go insane.
Initially Night Raven was unaware he had been exposed, as the poison acted slowly. He battled more colourful foes such as the Chess Master, the Armorer, the Death Master and the serial slayer the Numbers Killer, sometimes using Scoop, who now worked for the Daily Bugle, tipping him off to expose various crooks. But gradually Night Raven's condition worsened and his grip on sanity loosened. In 1941 he discovered Yi Yang had a cure, and ruthlessly pursued small time crook Willy the Lip, who had come into possession of it, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. A terrifed Willy handed the cure over to Scoop, informing him that the cure carried a side-effect Night Raven was unaware of - it was also a deadly plague, which Night Raven would be immune to but which would kill millions if he used it. Learning Scoop now possessed his precious cure, Night Raven kidnapped the reporter's wife, Sadie, holding her hostage in return for Scoop handing the cure over. Realising he could not do so even to save his beloved wife, Scoop tried to reason with the vigilante, telling him of the plague, and when a disbelieving Night Raven attacked him, Scoop shot him. Night Raven fell into the river, and when only his mask surfaced, a guilt-stricken Scoop believed he had drowned, and hung on to the cure to his dying day, suspecting Yi Yang had lied about the plague as another step in tormenting her adversary.
An amnesiac Night Raven survived, living as a down and out until 1957, when psychotic collector Howard Bates, who had procured Night Raven's mask, began wearing it to commit a string of murders, gaining the moniker the East Side Strangler. Seeing pictures of the Strangler in the newspapers reawoke Night Raven's memories, and he killed Bates to reclaim his mask, and much of his sanity with it. Deciding to live with the pain, he again dropped out of sight. In 1965 a dying Scoop, now sure the cure was safe and desperate to make up for what he had done, placed personal ads trying to contact the vigilante. The day of Scoop's funeral Night Raven visited Sadie Daly, who forgave him for what he had done in 1941 and passed on a note from Scoop and the cure. Just in case Scoop was wrong, Night Raven travelled to Antarctica to isolate himself before taking it. Once he was sure it had worked and that he was not a contagious threat, he returned to civilisation to begin hunting down Yi Yang.
In the 1970s he clashed again with her Dragon Tony, and Yi Yang fooled him with a double into thinking she had been trapped inside liquid concrete in a trap she had set for him. In the 1980s he discovered her deception and resumed the pursuit, killing her assassin the Ghost Tiger. When he temporarily lost her trail, he returned to being a vigilante, determined to prey on modern criminals as he had those in the prohibition era, taking down Magia bosses and rogue ex-soldiers building their own private armies. Wanting to end his pursuit once and for all, Yi Yang lured him to Michigan, where she waited for him on a boat in the Lake, but Night Raven used a nuclear rocket launcher stolen from his recent paramilitary foes to destroy her vessel. Though the vigilante believed their vendetta now over, Yi Yang secretly survived, albeit badly burned down one side of her body.
Without the purpose that had ruled him for decades, Night Raven was aimless for a time, not actively seeking to fight crime but stopping any that happened in his vicinity. Eventually, however, Yi Yang captured him, but, now understanding something of his pain thanks to her own yet-to-heal wounds, she did not attempt to slay him, instead offering him a chance at a new life with his scars hidden beneath plastic surgery. Night Raven rejected this offer, and renewed his pursuit. In recent years he tracked her to Russia, where he slaughtered his way through local crime families looking for a lead to her exact whereabouts. To try and stop him, Yi Yang framed him for murdering a diplomat, which put SHIELD and the Black Widow on his trail, but Night Raven made an ally of the Widow and again confronted Yi Yang. The Widow lost track of both of them when a burning helicopter exploded on top of them, but both presumably survived, and Yi Yang subsequently resurfaced as part of Contagion's Unkillables. - FOR MORE HISTORY.
Powers: Initially a very athletic costumed vigilante
who had no powers. He used two guns, stalked the rooftops and marked
his enemies with a bird-brand from his ring. However after being exposed
to a mysterious toxin by his nemesis, the immortal Yi Yang he was
drastically altered becoming apparently indestructible but hideously
scarred and in constant pain.After this Night Raven's war on crime stepped up, as he killed mob bosses, slew the protection racketeer known as the Taxman, and eliminated wheelchair-ridden mob boss Mr. Big and the Assassin that Big had hired to kill him, all the while evading capture by the police. These high profile incidents brought Night Raven to the attention of Sentinel reporter Scoop Daly, who soon encountered Night Raven face to face after beginning an investigation into the vigilante. In 1931 Night Raven clashed directly with the Dragon Tong, finally coming face to face with Inez's murderer, though he remained unaware of Yi Yang's part in the singer's demise. Secretly immortal, Yi Yang faked suicide to evade Night Raven, but remained enraged at his interference and her resulting loss of face, and so plotted a terrible revenge. She tricked him into unwittingly exposing himself to a poison that rendered him undying as she was, but also caused his flesh to corrode and waste away slowly and unceasingly painfully; Yi Yang wanted him to have eternity to suffer and go insane.
Initially Night Raven was unaware he had been exposed, as the poison acted slowly. He battled more colourful foes such as the Chess Master, the Armorer, the Death Master and the serial slayer the Numbers Killer, sometimes using Scoop, who now worked for the Daily Bugle, tipping him off to expose various crooks. But gradually Night Raven's condition worsened and his grip on sanity loosened. In 1941 he discovered Yi Yang had a cure, and ruthlessly pursued small time crook Willy the Lip, who had come into possession of it, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. A terrifed Willy handed the cure over to Scoop, informing him that the cure carried a side-effect Night Raven was unaware of - it was also a deadly plague, which Night Raven would be immune to but which would kill millions if he used it. Learning Scoop now possessed his precious cure, Night Raven kidnapped the reporter's wife, Sadie, holding her hostage in return for Scoop handing the cure over. Realising he could not do so even to save his beloved wife, Scoop tried to reason with the vigilante, telling him of the plague, and when a disbelieving Night Raven attacked him, Scoop shot him. Night Raven fell into the river, and when only his mask surfaced, a guilt-stricken Scoop believed he had drowned, and hung on to the cure to his dying day, suspecting Yi Yang had lied about the plague as another step in tormenting her adversary.
An amnesiac Night Raven survived, living as a down and out until 1957, when psychotic collector Howard Bates, who had procured Night Raven's mask, began wearing it to commit a string of murders, gaining the moniker the East Side Strangler. Seeing pictures of the Strangler in the newspapers reawoke Night Raven's memories, and he killed Bates to reclaim his mask, and much of his sanity with it. Deciding to live with the pain, he again dropped out of sight. In 1965 a dying Scoop, now sure the cure was safe and desperate to make up for what he had done, placed personal ads trying to contact the vigilante. The day of Scoop's funeral Night Raven visited Sadie Daly, who forgave him for what he had done in 1941 and passed on a note from Scoop and the cure. Just in case Scoop was wrong, Night Raven travelled to Antarctica to isolate himself before taking it. Once he was sure it had worked and that he was not a contagious threat, he returned to civilisation to begin hunting down Yi Yang.
In the 1970s he clashed again with her Dragon Tony, and Yi Yang fooled him with a double into thinking she had been trapped inside liquid concrete in a trap she had set for him. In the 1980s he discovered her deception and resumed the pursuit, killing her assassin the Ghost Tiger. When he temporarily lost her trail, he returned to being a vigilante, determined to prey on modern criminals as he had those in the prohibition era, taking down Magia bosses and rogue ex-soldiers building their own private armies. Wanting to end his pursuit once and for all, Yi Yang lured him to Michigan, where she waited for him on a boat in the Lake, but Night Raven used a nuclear rocket launcher stolen from his recent paramilitary foes to destroy her vessel. Though the vigilante believed their vendetta now over, Yi Yang secretly survived, albeit badly burned down one side of her body.
Without the purpose that had ruled him for decades, Night Raven was aimless for a time, not actively seeking to fight crime but stopping any that happened in his vicinity. Eventually, however, Yi Yang captured him, but, now understanding something of his pain thanks to her own yet-to-heal wounds, she did not attempt to slay him, instead offering him a chance at a new life with his scars hidden beneath plastic surgery. Night Raven rejected this offer, and renewed his pursuit. In recent years he tracked her to Russia, where he slaughtered his way through local crime families looking for a lead to her exact whereabouts. To try and stop him, Yi Yang framed him for murdering a diplomat, which put SHIELD and the Black Widow on his trail, but Night Raven made an ally of the Widow and again confronted Yi Yang. The Widow lost track of both of them when a burning helicopter exploded on top of them, but both presumably survived, and Yi Yang subsequently resurfaced as part of Contagion's Unkillables. - FOR MORE HISTORY.
Fun Fact: Night Raven derives from the Shadow by Maxwell Grant and the Spider by Grant Stockbridge, both pseudonyms for, respectively, Walter Gibson and R.T.M. Scott/Norvell Page. Accordingly, writers of Night Raven text stories signed the tales as Maxwell Stockbridge.
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