Azrael (comic series)

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Azrael was the title of a comic series that was published between 1995 and 2003 by the US publisher DC Comics . The series brought it to a total of 100 issues, plus a few specials, and is located in the middle of the genres of adventure comics and mystery comics.

The foundation for the series was laid in 1992 with the self-contained miniseries Sword of Azrael , to which the ongoing series, which started in 1995, was almost seamless. This was written by Dennis O'Neil and drawn by Joe Quesada . While Queseda dropped out of the series after "Sword of Azrael", O'Neil stayed with the series until she graduated with Azrael # 100. Queseda's job as a draftsman was eventually taken on by artists such as Bary Kitson and Roger Robinson in the ongoing Azrael series.

action

The series is about the experiences of the young computer science student Jean Paul Valley in his double identity as the avenging angel Azrael. Azrael, however - although he takes up the name of the avenging angel of Islamic mysticism and occasionally refers to himself as an angel - is not actually an angel, but rather a kind of modern sword knight , the attributes of the heyday of chivalry (sword and armor, thoughts of the crusade) with the Unites the achievements of modern technology.

At the beginning of Sword of Azrael , Azrael is presented as the loyal "executor" of the Order of Saint Dumas, a medieval knightly order that has survived in secret to the present day, and who pursued rather sinister machinations in the 20th century. Azrael's job as executor is essentially to eliminate the enemies of the order and to carry out other orders of the order's leadership. At the beginning of the first Azrael adventure, Ludovic Valley , Jean Paul's father, is still stuck under the helmet of the avenging angel who fatally wounded in an argument with the renegade friar Charlton LeHah, while his son dying the Azrael role and equipment (a Armor lined with bulletproof Kevlar , a face-hiding helmet with a monk's hood and a "flaming sword of revenge").

With the help of the troll-like Nomoz, Jean Paul finally finds himself in his role as Azrael and retaliates against LeHah. In the further course of the series, Azrael gradually comes to the track of the questionable machinations of the order and only turns away from it to finally take action against it. Together with Nomoz, the former sister Lilhy and the alcoholic lawyer Brian Bryan, he finally succeeds in the first thirty issues of the series in smashing the order of Dumas step by step and defeating its leader, the fanatical brother Rollo.

The second third of the series deals with various adventures in the style of an agent series: On behalf of the philanthropic billionaire Bruce Wayne , Azrael hunts down criminals like the terrorist Bane or the corrupt musician Nicholas Scratch and also acts as a “protector of the poor and innocents ”who cross his path: he helps a little boy to find his missing father and protects the inhabitants of a slum from the murderous cannibal Calibax. In addition, he experiences adventures with the hit man Tommy Monhagan and meets the Arab do-gooder Ra's al Ghul .

The last third of the series is ultimately very esoteric: In search of his real self, Azrael travels to different parts of the world, has meditative experiences and tries, with the help of the doctor Leslie Thompkins and the silent mechanic Harold Allnut, to cope with the trauma of his past. In issue # 100, Azrael appears to die fighting with the returned LeHah and Nicholas Scratch, who shoot him. However, since the dying Azrael falls into a ravine and his body is missing at the end of the story, the possibility of a "resuscitation" and thus the possibility of a continuation of the series remains.

Jean Paul as Azrael returns to the new DC universe after Flashpoint in the series Batman & Robin Eternal.

It has a similar origin story, only it has been slightly changed.

Minor characters

Lilhy

Sister Lilhy is a former nun of the Order of Saint Dumas. Lilhy, made her debut in Azrael # 1, February 1995 (Writer: Denny O'Neil, Illustrator: Kitson), in which she is introduced as a renegade religious sister of Sanct Dumas who eventually rebels against the Order and helps Azrael break it up. In the # 30s and # 40s of the series, she continues to support Azrael and help him through some adventures. Finally, Lilhy turns against Azrael later in the series: She lays claim to the remaining riches of the order and tries to re-establish it under her own leadership. After Jean Paul Valley refuses to accept her as a companion, she recruits a new Azrael, whom she sends into battle against him. In the last issues of the series, Lilhy enters into an alliance with Azrael's archenemy LeHah, which she equips with the special ammunition with which he apparently succeeds in killing Azrael at the end of the issue.

Nomoz

Nomoz (Greek nomos : "right") is a dwarf man who resembles a troll. Nomoz originally served the Order of Saint Dumas as a trainer of the avenging angels, i. H. Assassins who are supposed to fight the enemies of the order. He made his debut in Sword of Azrael # 1 from 1992 (writer: O'Neil, illustrator: Queseda). After the death of Jean Paul Valley's father, Nomoz let the young man in on the secrets of the system, a latent hypnotic programming that he had had since his birth. When the system was activated, Valley eventually had the skills that enabled him to become Azrael. After Azrael broke away from Saint Dumas, Nomoz joined him in the fight against the Order and its leaders. Together with Lilhy and Brian Bryan, they smashed the Order of Saint Dumas and also supported him in some of his later adventures, such as the hunt for the terrorist Bane or the break-in in an asylum (temporary loss of voice).

opponent

Abattoir

Abattoir (English "slaughterhouse"), actually Arnold Etchison, is a mentally ill serial killer who is obsessed with the idea that eating the bone marrow of his relatives gives him immortality . For this reason, he systematically hunts down and murders all members of his family. The character first appeared in Detective Comics # 625 from January 1991 (Author: Marv Wolfman , Illustrator: Norm Breyfogle ).

On his first appearance, Arnold Etchison is introduced as the offspring of a wealthy Gotham City family . It is learned that at a young age he came to believe that his family was fundamentally angry and that it must therefore be wiped out. At the same time, he is obsessed with the idea of ​​being able to absorb their life force by consuming the bone marrow of the killed. When his uncle Henry Etchison, whom he considers the most depraved member of his family, runs for the office of mayor of Gotham City, Arnold Etchison loses control of his previously suppressed delusions and begins to systematically murder members of his family: Because of the The investigating police officers nicknamed him Abattoir, the "slaughterhouse", for the brutality that he shows. Only through the intervention of Batman can Abattoir's series of murders end, which previously killed a total of twenty-six people. Etchison is then admitted to Arkham Asylum , Gotham City's mental hospital ( Detective Comics # 626, 1991).

After a terrorist attack on Arkham Asylum, Abattoir manages to escape ( Batman # 491). With only three of Etchison's relatives left alive at that time, including his incarcerated uncle Henry Etchison and a cousin out of his reach, Arnold turns to the only victim that is tangible: his cousin Graham Etchison, an educator and Youth worker ( Batman # 505, 1994). After a first attack on Graham Etchison fails through the intervention of Azrael, who is on the way as a replacement Batman (AzBat) at the time, Abattoir has his cousin kidnapped and handed over to him by the villains Clayface III and Clayface IV Forced kidnapping of their son Cassius. During the exchange between Cassius and Graham Etchison, AzBat intervenes: He succeeds in defeating and arresting both clay faces. Meanwhile, however, Abattoir manages to escape with his victim ( Shadow of the Bat # 26-27, 1994). Azrael is finally able to locate Abattoir: while on the chase, he escapes to an iron foundry, where he is killed by falling into a melting pot . Since he previously hid Graham Etchison in an unknown location in order to have him slowly tortured to death by a torture machine, he can only be found dead ( Batman # 508 and Shadow of the Bat # 28, 1994). Bruce Wayne, who also blames Jean Paul Valley for Etchison's death due to his failure to capture Abattoir alive, takes this event as an opportunity to reclaim the Batman identity of Valley / Azrael because the latter failed to live up to his vow to save human lives at all costs is.

Valley soon reverts to its identity as Azrael. Abattoir later returns twice: once as a ghost haunted and tormented a distant cousin who is currently pregnant in the hope of being able to take possession of her baby's body in order to be able to return to the world of the living ( Batman Annual # 17, 1997). And later a second time as one of several dead Batman villains who are resurrected as zombies to briefly haunt Gotham City again. On this occasion, Abattoir tries to murder Gotham's police chief James Gordon and his daughter Barbara ( Batman: Darkes Night # 1, 2009).

Brother Rollo

Brother Rollo is the leader of the Order of Saint Dumas. Azrael first met him in Azrael # 2 from March 1995. In the first two years of the Azrael comics, Rollo, an insane sectarian who mostly acts behind the scenes, was Azrael's main adversary. Rollo eventually dies in Azrael # 26 when Azrael destroys the Order's headquarters, a castle made of blocks of ice in an underground cave.

Calibax

Calibax is an insane killer and cannibal first featured in Azrael # 27, March 1997 (Author: D. O'Neil; Illustrator: B. Kitson).

Azrael first meets Calibax, a gigantic man of enormous stature and immense physical strength, when he breaks into the Arkham Mental Hospital to visit the Gray Abbot , who is being treated there at the time. As the course of this story turns out, like Azrael, Calibax is a pupil of the Order of Saint Dumas, whom the Order consciously bred into a living weapon from childhood: for this purpose he was systematically disturbed as a child and trained as a psychopath. As an adult, Calibax, whose real name is Charles, is a cruel and violent man who ambushes other people for no reason, murders them and eats their corpses. Calibax's most noticeable external features are his grimace- like, gorilla- like face and a tattoo on his face that depicts imaginatively sinuous patterns. After their first meeting in Arkham (# 27 and # 28), Azrael and Calibax meet twice again: once when Calibax escapes from Arkham as a result of an earthquake, whereupon Azrael chases him into the Caribbean and brings him down (# 44-46); and for the second time when Azrael takes down Calibax - who has fled again - after he settled as a cannibal hermit in a ruin in the slums of Gotham (# 53-56).

Charlton LeHah

Charlton LeHah is a Swiss businessman and arms smuggler who is up to mischief in Gotham City. LeHah is one of the two archenemies of Batman's ally Azrael along with Nicholas Scratch . It was first introduced in the 1992 issue of Sword of Azrael # 1 (author: Dennis O'Neil , illustrator: Joe Queseda).

LeHah is an average tall, very overweight man with white hair. His special feature is a scar that runs vertically through the left half of his face, which he got in a fight with Azrael, in which he also lost his left eye. As a result of alchemical self-experiments is colored his left side of the face in later stories chalk white.

Charlton LeHah was a Swiss businessman who, as a follower of the secret order of Saint Dumas, was entrusted with the administration of the financial affairs of the order. In this function, LeHah financed, among other things, the failed revolution against the military junta on the Caribbean island of Santa Prisca. During this time LeHah met, among others, the American doctor Doctor Thomas Wayne, the British mercenary Sir Edmund Dorance and a local revolutionary with whom he had a brief affair. Because of his association with this woman, LeHah was for a time mistaken for the father of her son, the terrorist Bane . In later stories, however, Dorrance turned out to be Bane's father.

In Sword of Azrael # 1, LeHah decides to go into business for himself and to found his own gun slide ring with an operations center in Gotham City. For this he used funds from Saint Dumas. When the Order sends the hit man Ludowig Valley in the disguise of the "avenging angel" Azrael to kill LeHah, LeHah manages to forestall his attacker. He attacks Azrael with special ammunition, which penetrates his bulletproof costume and injures him badly, with the latter giving him his characteristic scar with a sword blow in the face. When Azrael / Valley falls into a carnival parade on his escape from LeHah's penthouse apartment, which triggers a mass panic in which several people are killed, Batman begins to track the "fallen angel". Later, Valley's son Jean Paul - to whom he had given the Azrael costume before his death - and Batman team up to put an end to LeHah. They put LeHah in a factory in Texas, where he appears to have died in an explosion.

In a later story, however, the person believed dead returns: in the meantime, according to his own statement, he has turned to the demon Biis, the mythical antagonist of Saint Dumas. As a result, LeHah had several further disputes with Azrael. In the last issue of the series, he finally dies ( Azrael # 100).

Gray Abbot

The Gray Abbot is a member of the Order of Saint Dumas whom Azrael first met at the order's headquarters under the North African desert. There the religious fanatic oversees the breeding of the order's future warriors, who are artificially grown in incubators. After Azrael, the Order's sanctuary, is destroyed, the Abbot is arrested and sent to the Arkham Mental Hospital in Gotham City.

Alvin Klothes

Alvin Klothes is a mentally ill retired medical student who Azrael faces in Azrael # 54 and # 55. Klothes murders old people, the homeless and the handicapped in these magazines in order to free them from the “suffering of their existence”. The method of killing is very imaginative: at the end of a little dance, which he ritually ritually performs, before he proceeds to murder, he slits their throats with the help of blades that he has mounted under his shoes. Klothes, also known as the "Death Dancer" because of his peculiar modus operandi , kills his victims in the belief that he is doing them a favor. While trying to murder Azrael's wheelchair-bound friend Barbara Gordon, Klothes is overpowered and arrested by him.

Nicholas Scratch

Nicholas "Nick" Scratch is a criminal rock musician who Azrael and his mentor Batman encounter several times. Scratch, modeled after the singer Marilyn Manson , appears for the first time in Azrael # 47 from 1998 (author: D. O'Neil, illustrator: R. Robinson) and develops into Azrael's second main opponent next to LeHah.

In his debut story, Scratch is presented as an astronomer who outwardly corresponds to the stereotype of a nerd : he's fat, wears glasses, is poorly dressed and clumsy with other people. When he was struck by an alien beam of light while working on a space telescope, a transformation began: Optically, Scratch developed step by step into a handsome, tall, sporty man with an attractive face. In addition, he develops a monstrous charisma overnight: From then on he is witty, witty and able to induce other people through a hypnotic speaking talent to do exactly what corresponds to his will.

Scratch uses his transformation to embark on a career as a punk rock musician: He founds a band and quickly becomes a star of the - not least due to its visual conspicuousness (with a shrill disguise, striking tattoos (also on the face) and a wild hairstyle) Music scene and a media favorite. Behind the façade of the respectable “artist”, however, Scratch is building a criminal organization, with the support of the so-called Scratch Men . These are a group of accomplices that Scratch created artificially in his laboratory through questionable experiments: Instead of human faces, the Scratch men have rigid devil masks that are organically grown in their skulls as physiognomy.

During the Road to No Man's Land storyline, Scratch uses his public influence to convince Congress of the need to remove Gotham City from the US Territory and declare it a no man's land. To emphasize this demand, he secretly pays various mercenaries such as Gearhead, Tumult and the Dynamiter to keep the devastated city in suspense through a series of terrorist attacks: This is to underline the impossibility of restoring order in Gotham City and the decision Congress should be encouraged to dismiss the city. Scratch's efforts eventually bear fruit and Gotham is actually declared a no man's land . His attempt to take control of the abandoned city is prevented by Azrael and Batgirl , who defeat and take him prisoner. Scratch later returns and has a final battle with Azrael, in which both seem to be killed ( Azrael # 100).

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