My Rating
“The Eleventh Man – Part 03 of 03”
Zadok Grimm, a fourteenth-century shaman, races up the stairwell of a twenty-first-century high-rise with his familiar, Whisp, close behind. Floor after floor disappears beneath them as the two desperately climb toward the rooftop.
They may already be too late.
Above them, multimillionaire tech genius Norman White has completely lost control. The emotionally detached CEO has kidnapped a young boy and dragged him onto the roof, forcing the terrified child to witness something no one should ever see.
Death.
Norman has spent most of his life suppressing every human emotion. Pain, happiness, fear, love—he wants nothing to do with any of them. Now he desperately wants to feel something. Anything.
The young boy sobs uncontrollably as Norman opens fire on the pedestrians below. Panic erupts along the streets as innocent people scramble for safety. For Norman, however, the horror unfolding beneath him has become one final experiment.
Will killing make him feel alive?
Zadok and Whisp finally reach the doorway leading onto the roof. There can be no hesitation. Whatever Norman White once was, he has now become the Twelfth Man.
And the Twelfth Man must be stopped.
Even if doing so means sacrificing Baron Winters.
Elsewhere
Back at Wintersgate Manor, another mystery begins to unfold.
A strange woman has entered the Baron’s home completely unchallenged. Winters and Merlin immediately recognize her as the mysterious woman who accompanied the federal agents several days earlier. She was somehow able to penetrate the mystical defenses surrounding Wintersgate Manor once before.
This time, she comes alone.
More importantly, she finally reveals her identity.
Baron Winters needs answers, and this mysterious visitor may possess knowledge concerning something even more dangerous than the entity they have been fighting.
The Thirteenth Man.
Who is the mysterious woman inside Wintersgate Manor? What exactly are the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Men? Can Zadok Grimm stop Norman White before more innocent people die? And what price will Baron Winters ultimately pay for becoming involved?
Collect the series to find out!
Reviewer Notes
There really isn’t much to write home about with the final chapter of “The Eleventh Man.” Marv Wolfman brings the storyline to a conclusion, but after three issues of buildup, I expected something more substantial from the finale. Norman White’s descent gives the story a disturbing climax, while the introduction of the Thirteenth Man keeps the larger mystery moving forward. Unfortunately, I never felt completely invested in the storyline.
Something I found more interesting actually appears in the letters section. Responding to a reader’s question about the approaching end of Night Force, Wolfman discusses some of the difficulties facing the series. He points toward increasing paper costs and disappointing sales, while also discussing how difficult the market had become for this type of DC title during 1997. Reading those comments while approaching the end of the series gives these final issues an entirely different feeling.
I still believe DC could have done more to connect Night Force directly with its mainstream universe. We already had characters such as Fate and Sentinel operating in DC’s supernatural corner, and the “Convergence” crossover proved that Baron Winters didn’t have to exist inside a vacuum. Why not push those connections further? A few direct crossovers with established DC characters might have introduced Night Force to readers who otherwise never would have picked it up.
Instead, the series often feels like its own isolated supernatural island. There are occasional references to the larger DC Universe, but rarely enough interaction to make Night Force feel like an important piece of it. That is unfortunate because Baron Winters and Wintersgate Manor provide a wonderful foundation for supernatural stories.
“The Eleventh Man” wasn’t terrible. It simply never became as memorable as its premise suggested it could be. With the end of this second volume quickly approaching, I’m left wondering what might have been.