Nightman - TV vs. Comic

Nightman is a comic book character created by Steve Englehart in the early 1990s for Malibu comics. When Malibu was bought out by Marvel, all the character (and almost everyone else) went on permant hiatus.

Only nightman has resurfaced as a TV show. I never saw the first episode of the television show, but the TV origin of Nightman is relived in detail on the Nightman web site.

On the TV show, there was a freak lightning storm. Johnny Domino was struck by lightning from this storm. After being struck, his "nueral pathways" we rerouted, and he now has the ability to "hear" evil. And he no longer requires sleep. He consults with his father, a security guard, and he runs into Raliegh, an exile from a military contractor who has developed a protective suit that is bulletproof, has advanced stealth capabilities, a laser eye weapon with a targeting scanner, and an antigravity belt. In the TV world, there are no other super-human heroes or villians, so he is either going against gangsters, technology pirates, aliens, or magical/mystical beings. A strange combination, in my opinion.

In the comic book, there was also a freak lightning storm, but lots of people were struck by it, and Johnny Domino was only on the fringe of the storm. While the others developed "real" super human abilities, Johnny only got partial abilities to "hear" evil. And he no longer requires sleep. He consults with his father, a security guard, and he develops his own armored costume. Sorry - no laser or antigravity belt here! Only a night vision site in one eye. In the comic, he is opposed by people doing evil, and by other superhumans.

Both the TV show and the comic have some common villans like werewolfs, and vampires - arguably beings Nightman could easily sense with his inate ability to detect evil. The comic, strangely enough, made him seem more human while the TV show is focused on flying, his laser weapon and other special effects. The TV show also focuses on unusual, almost "myth and legend" characters to confront.

The other difference is that there is more time to fill in a one-hour TV show, and it needs a much bigger story than the book. This is an acceptable reason for adding more characters than the book has, and for developing plots in greater depth and scope. The comic pretty much focuses on the central character, what is happening to him, and how he feels about it. Actually, in the TV show - I don't get a good sense of how Nightman "feels"; it's just the way things are.

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