Review: Midnighter: Killing Machine Volume 1 (2006-2008)

 Story:

Midnighter is captured and blackmailed into going back in time to kill Hitler. While there he get arrested by the time travel police and has to figure out how to finish the job without the bomb in his chest blowing him up or destroying the time line.

Review:

I have never read anything with Midnighter in before. All I know about Midnighter is that he’s a gay super hero and is getting his own series in the DC universe. I bought this book because it was on sale on Comixology and I was still waiting for issue #1 of the new Midnighter series to arrive.
I wanted to know a bit more about the character and maybe I should have googled where to start because this doesn’t seem to be the best place. Although I kind of like the fact that we get very little information when usually I’m overloaded with backstory. And there are less spoilers this way than researching it.
This book assumes you know who Midnighter is and are familiar with his background so there’s not a lot explained. I learned he’s an alien or some sort of genetic experiment. He’s got two hearts and says he was bred for killing. He’s got a boyfriend and he’s part of a team.
His super powers involve knowing what the other person is going to do and healing (although if he’s an alien that might just be his biology) and probably strength judging by some of the deaths he deals out.
He also won’t kill children which is probably about the only thing he won’t do. I don’t know his actual name and if it was said anywhere in the book I missed it. I’ve started to think of him as Dave because that’s what a character who didn’t know his name started calling him.
There’s not a lot to go on but he’s intelligent and doesn’t put up with crap so I like him and I enjoyed watching him try to kill Hitler.
Midnighter even acknowledges why it’s a bad idea as he’s forced to go back in time. It’s never explained how the villain got a time travel machine or how the science works but it’s a super hero comic so you don’t need to explain this stuff just act like it’s normal and the audience will follow.
The obstacle for Midnighter achieving his goal is the time travel police. They might have an official name but I’ve forgotten it.
They are led by a woman who’s surprised Midnighter is more psycho than her and she comes from a future where sexuality doesn’t exist any more and every one just has sex with everyone else regardless of gender. So it’s the future of Captain Jack Harkness where every one is omni-sexual or pan-sexual. Its just a funny scene where she doesn’t understand what gay is and Midnighter points out that the bible belt people are losing.
The start was a bit melodramatic but now I get that that was parody, probably of Batman (Midnighter wears a lot of black), and not the writer genuinely trying to be angsty in a serious way.
His costume looks like it’d be really hot to wear. Especially at the start where he goes to kill people in a desert. Maybe he’s got super cooling powers or something.
The biggest criticism of this book seems to be the violence. Maybe I’ve watched too many violent movies but this doesn’t seem too bad to me.
The fights contain blood flying every where and he decapitates at least two people by kicking them in the head and a guy gets a fist through his face but it’s okay because he’s a Nazi. It’s all a bit cartoonish. Which isn’t a criticism it’s just not realistic to decapitate a guy by kicking him which seems to be one of Midnighter’s moves.
I noticed another criticism that him being gay was tacked on as a way to differentiate him from other characters and had no bearing on the plot. I want to examine this for a minute because I feel that this is a misunderstanding a lot of people have.
Heterosexuality is not the default sexuality. I know it seems that way because the majority of characters are straight and gay (or other sexualities) is that strange thing other people do but there doesn’t need to be a reason to make a character gay.
What I like about this book is that it isn’t all about him being gay. He doesn’t only have gay problems. Real people don’t only have gay problems or minority problems (though some days it does seem like those are my only problems).
And that’s how you differentiate characters by giving them different characteristics. Usually we have the base character of straight white able bodied cis-man and they vary it up after that point. Here we manage to get a character that is different and someone is complaining about the character being different while complaining about it being the same character the writer always writes.
Well I like Midnighter. He’s sarcastic and gets to kill people who toss slurs at him. That’s showing character. We always seem to get apologetic gay characters who question if they’re moral.
I really enjoyed this book and it didn’t fall into the trap of skirting around the main character is gay. They don’t mention it at the beginning but then again he doesn’t get an introduction.
The violence is entertaining and so are the characters. It reminds me a bit of Deadpool without all the fourth wall breaking.
You can buy the issues at Comixology.
Or you can buy Midnighter: Killing Machine volume 1 on Amazon

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