Almost the Knight Watchman |

Ultraman graduated from Megaton Comics to Big Bang Comics, albeit with a slight name change to Ultiman. Dr. Weird made the jump without any kind of change. Megaton was cancelled before the Pink Flamingo made his debut, but he became a big man on campus at Big Bang. Berzerker had his own series at Caliber Press before being overrun by the back-up series, Big Bang Comics. Vanguard moved on to two mini-series and numerous appearances at Image Comics. Ethrian co-starred in Vanguard’s giant-sized special and went on to star in a 13 part back-up series in Savage Dragon. But the Crusader?

Unfortunately, the Crusader never got the opportunity to come out of retirement to avenge the murder of his grown up sidekick and successor the Sentinel. Not at Megaton and not at Big Bang. In fact, he barely made it into print at Megaton, appearing only in a flashback panel in issue #1 and more impressively in the Megaton Explosion, the 16 page full color promotional who’s who book that bragged about all the characters would have appeared in our all new line of books if we hadn’t ceased publishing due to poor sales in the great independent comics glut of 1987.

No, poor Crusader was destined to remain in mothballs. I’ve already explained in a previous post how the old-timers in Megaton were supposed to be be somewhat generic whereas my buddy Chris Ecker and I decided they needed to possess a little pizzaz and more star-power at Big Bang. The Crusader morphed briefly into the Protector, then the Night Watchman and finally into the Knight Watchman. A star was born. KW was the figurehead character at Big Bang and definitely the most popular.

However, until I shuttered Megaton in late 1987, the plan was always to continue the Crusader’s story which began in #1. A character named Feral headlined his own story in the second issue of Megaton, and reappeared years later in the Megaton Explosion and the X-Mas Special. Ken Meyer Jr., the artist and creator of Feral was intrigued by the Crusader and wanted to continue the series. Ken sent me a series of illustrations of his interpretation of the character in 1984, some of which are appearing here today, for the first time ever.

Chris Ecker, who had drawn the first story in Megaton #1 had moved on to Now Comics where he was drawing Eb’nn the Raven. Chris had no problem with us continuing on with the Crusader’s story so Ken and I gave it a shot. I recently dug through my files and came up with two scripts, both on the bright yellow Astrobright paper that I used for all things Megaton. The first was rough layouts and sketches of the potential story and the second was a nine page typed full script. I have no clue how much time passed between the two because neither are dated.

The story involved our hero Jason Thorpe hearing the news on TV that the Sentinel was killed by a costumed villain, as described by an eye-witness. There is a slight recap on the Sentinel, from his days as the Crusader’s sidekick Sparky and a bit more detail on his retired mentor who hasn’t been seen in over eight years. After the shock of the news passes, a grim Jason suits up in the Crusader’s uniform and proceeds to kick some punks’ butts. As he congratulates himself on his successful comeback he is beaned from behind and the punks gather to teach him a lesson. Headhunter, the costumed villain who had killed the Sentinel shows up and beats the crap out of the punks. Headhunter was Crusader’s first sidekick, Sparky #1 who had been crippled on the job and later replaced by Number 2. Nobody is going to kill the Crusader but him. The next morning a bloody and beaten Jason Thorpe, in civvies, is discovered in his office. He has been given time to heal.

I was intrigued but also a little concerned with Ken’s version of the character. It had a 1940’s Simon & Kirby vibe to me which I loved, but the Megaton concept was about a new generation of heroes and a new generation of artists. That style might be right for telling some of the Crusader’s old stories, but I was thinking that a modern style would be more suited to it. (Remember, this was 1984/85, two years before Dark Knight Returns rewrote the book that I was trying to get a handle on).

While searching for the illustrations that are printed here, I came across copies of five pages of the actual story that Ken had drawn, pencils and inks. I assume they just weren’t what I envisioned because the story was never finished up. Sorry Ken.

Eventually, when Chris Ecker and I revamped the character into the Knight Watchman, we threw out the existing plots and names. All that really survived was the concept that the older character was a successful businessman, now retired from the hero game who had been replaced by his now adult sidekick, Galahad (formerly Kid Galahad). The Watchman did come out of retirement to pinch hit for his partner, who merely had a broken leg. The Knight Watchman’s old stories were told in a retro style, but that of Bob Kane and his ghosts rather than in the style of Simon & Kirby.