Today, we look at the tragic ending of Adrian Chase, Vigilante (currently co-starring in HBO Max’s Peacemaker), in the comics.
This is “Death Takes Its Toll,” a feature spotlighting comic book deaths that I thought were particular wastes of a worthwhile character. This is sort of like my feature, As Cold as Ice, about notable examples of characters being “fridged,” except that this is open to all sorts of characters and not just those that have been fridged.
This is a tricky one, in the sense that I really DO like that not only did Paul Kupperberg come up with such a dark ending for a comic book series but, more importantly, that DC actually allowed him to carry out such a dark ending to a comic book series. I think Kupperberg is a fine writer and I don’t even necessarily think the logic behind the ending of Vigilante was out of whack….and yet…I don’t think it was ultimately the right decision.
The world of anti-heroes is an extremely tricky one to handle in comic books, because it basically boils down to a simple dichotomy – is the anti-hero evil for murdering bad guys or is the superhero who doesn’t kill a sap for not killing bad guys? This was something that was particularly tricky in the Teen Titan comics of the early 1990s when Deathstroke became even more of a big deal than he already was. If we posit that Deathstroke is a good guy, then what are the Titans doing, if they’re not willing to kill while Deathstroke is?
However, that dichotomy specifically did NOT exist with the Vigilante at first, which is why I take some issue with the decision to use it to ultimately lead to the Vigilante’s demise. Introduced by Marv Wolfman and George Perez in the pages of New Teen Titans, District Attorney Adrian Chase was someone who decided to work outside the law when his wife and kids were murdered. The Vigilante initially took painstaking care not to kill anyone, as a way to differentiate him from other similar vigilantes (like the Punisher). This continued past his original New Teen Titans appearances into his Marv Wolfman-penned ongoing series. The Vigilante was a lot of things, but he was not a murderer. Then Paul Kupperberg took over the series and he first had Adrian retire as Vigilante to become a judge, but a new Vigilante took over and began murdering bad guys. Chase brought him to justice but then retired again, with his bailiff, Dave Winston, taking over as the new Vigilante, while Chase was exonerated after he was charged with being the killer of the cop that the first Vigilante replacement killed.
Chase was prepared to ride off into the sunset with his girlfriend, Marcia (who had also been his lawyer during his trial) but, as is always the case, their plane was hijacked.
HOW ADRIAN CHASE, VIGILANTE, BECAME A COP KILLER
As I noted in a piece about Peacemaker and Vigilante’s first meeting, both Peacemaker and Chase’s Vigilante replacement showed up at the plane in Vigilante #36 (by Kupperberg, Denys Cowan and Kyle Baker) and took out most of the terrorists, but then Dave Winston pushed Peacemaker the wrong way and Pacemaker murdered him.
Adrian then attacks Peacemaker, totally weirding Peacemaker out, as Adrian was a hostage that he just saved, so why would he be attacking him? Peacemaker wins the fight and leaves. Adrian takes Dave’s mask and vows to avenge his death, even as a distraught Marcia realizes that she has lost Adrian for good to his quest for revenge…
In the next issue, Chased headed to Winston’s place to get the Vigilante gear and weaponry, but the cops had gotten there, too, and Chase had to decide whether he would let the cops get in his way and he decided that, nope, he couldn’t stop for fear of hurting the cops…
And sure enough, Chase then inadvertently kills one of the cops…
In a lot of ways, that was really the beginning of the end for Chase.
WHAT WAS THE FINAL STRAW FOR ADRIAN CHASE, THE VIGILANTE?
As I noted in my recent piece about Vigilante teaming up with Batman, the last year or so of the series became more of a spy book, as the police lieutenant who made it so that Chase wouldn’t go to jail became involved in a spy organization and then enlisted Chase’s help on missions, even getting Batman to team-up with Vigilante.
In the last few issues of his series, though, Adrian Chase started just using lethal force like crazy, as seen here in Vigilante #48 (by Kupperberg, Steve Erwin and Jack Torrance)…
He was obviously waaaaaay too far gone now, and this came to a head in Vigilante #50 (by Kupperberg, Erwin and Torrance) where Chase is hunted down by the cops, including his old friend, Captain Arthur Hall, and Chase basically murders Hall, as well…
I say “basically” because Hall somehow survives, but Chase never learns that in the comic.
Chase gets back to his apartment and thinks about everyone who was close to him that has been killed during his time as the Vigilante and he decides that if he is all about killing those who kill people, then shouldn’t he kill himself?
And ultimately, that’s just what he does…
Again, it was a powerful comic book issue at the time (Kupperberg and Erwin had already planned to lean fully into the spy stuff with a new series, Checkmate, starring the supporting cast of Vigilante, so they were the ones who asked for the series to end at this specific point. Of course, had the series been selling great, it would have kept going, I’m sure), but looking at it, the Vigilante had to die because he killed a cop…but the writer who decided he had to die because he had killed a cop was the same writer who had him kill a cop.
Since we’ve had, like, thirty-seven Vigilantes since (okay, maybe just two or three), there was obviously still a market for Vigilante comics, so it seems like a slight waste to take Adrian Chase off of the table. The series could have just have easily ended with Chase arrested for the cop killing.
But whatever, at the same time, I obviously acknowledge that it WAS a striking issue, so maybe that was worth it in the end.
Okay, folks, I’m sure you have lots of suggestions for this feature, so feel free to send them to me at [email protected]!
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