Here's an interesting development from the world of music videos: a pair of techno-musicians calling themselves 'Cassius' has a video in rotation on MuchMusic (and presumably elsewhere) for the song 'Cassius 1999'. This video prominently features a bleached-white bald man wearing an oddly familiar red spandex costume. Hmmmm. On the Cosmic Coincidence Scale, going from one to ten, this one peaks somewhere near Avogadro's Number. (That's right - I have a chemistry degree, and I know how to use it!)
Deadman was one of the funkier heroes to come out of the late sixties; in Hollywood terms, you might pitch it today as 'Ghost meets the Fugitive'. Before his death, Boston Brand was a circus aerialist, and the 'Deadman' outfit, with the costume and white make-up, was his persona while performing. During one of his stunts, he was shot and killed by a man in the audience wearing a metal hook instead of a hand. Railing against the injustice of his death - being killed for no apparent reason - Brand was subsequently permitted to roam the Earth as a spirit to avenge his death and those of others. (There are similarities to the Spectre's origin here; presumably the latter helped inspire the Deadman concept.)
Arnold Drake (writer) and Carmine Infantino (artist) created Deadman, but Neal Adams jumped in as artist after the origin story with a run of stories that were a visual treat. Adams had already stretched the medium in other titles to indulge his experiments in design and perspective, and the concept in the Deadman stories really let him go to town, with a lead character who, as a ghost, was not bound by conventional physics. Very 'ooh ahh' stuff.
Story-wise, thing got weird, with Deadman trying to track down the guy with the hook, eventually discovering that his murder had been nothing more than an initiation test for 'Hook' to join the so-called 'League of Assassins'.
Like I said, weird.
Deadman's primary power, apart from existing as an immaterial ghost, is the ability to 'possess' people, taking over a person's body for unspecified periods of time. When he leaves a given body, its nominal tenant has the equivalent of a mental black-out regarding Deadman's squatting activities. Basically, the only way Deadman can interact with people is by stealing slices of time from the living, which has got to have a significant novelty factor to it.
So what does his list of credits look like? Okay, a limited run in 'Strange Adventures', a couple of mini-series, and assorted guest appearances and team-ups with the some of the larger lights of the DC Universe. Not as much exposure as Aquaman, perhaps, but still more than Brother Power the Geek.
Good thing, too.
- NP
