My Rating
“The Nurses”
Sergeant Jim Duffy and Zoe Davis arrive at the home of Jim Duffy Sr. to search through a lifetime of documents concerning missing children. The retired FBI agent has spent decades collecting reports, photographs, police records, and newspaper clippings involving unexplained abductions stretching back more than seventy years.
But the mystery goes back much further than that.
Duffy Sr. discovered evidence connecting similar disappearances as far back as the eighteenth century. His biggest break came during a Duffy family trip to a museum exhibit in Barcelona, Spain. Hidden among the historical records was a detail that should have been impossible to ignore.
A crescent-shaped birthmark.
The same marking appears again and again throughout the abduction cases.
Zoe soon learns about another recurring figure—a man named Simon Talman. Modern psychology would classify Talman as a classic serial killer, but there is one enormous problem with that explanation. Descriptions matching the same man appear in police reports dating as far back as 1852.
How can one man stalk victims for more than a century without aging?
Then there are the Gatherers.
The mysterious name appears in documents even older than those concerning Talman, with references reaching back to at least 1799. Missing children, strange birthmarks, an apparently ageless killer, and creatures manipulating bloodlines across generations.
Baron Winters has some explaining to do.
Three Hours Later
Inside Wintersgate Manor, Senator Brian W. Greene receives a rather unusual introduction to Baron Winters.
One moment, Greene is walking through the front door of his campaign office. The next, he finds himself standing inside the shadowy library of a Victorian mansion.
“Where the hell am I?”
Good question.
Unknown to the senator, Baron Winters has been watching him for quite some time. The Gatherers’ conspiracy isn’t limited to missing children or strange genetic experiments. Their influence has apparently reached into American politics, where they have been manipulating events for generations.
And now Winters wants Senator Greene to join the Night Force.
Before the Baron can finish his formal invitation, a brilliant green light suddenly surrounds Greene. The senator screams as his body begins fading from existence.
Then he is gone.
Baron Winters is furious.
How in the hell do the Gatherers keep breaching Wintersgate Manor?
This isn’t merely another attack. Wintersgate is supposed to be the Baron’s sanctuary—a place existing outside the normal rules of time and space. If his enemies can reach directly into his home and steal someone from under his nose, then Baron Winters has a much bigger problem than he realized.
The Baron storms toward his study.
It’s time to call in a favor.
Who—or what—is the man calling himself Simon Talman? How can reports describing him stretch back to 1852? What is the significance of the crescent-shaped birthmark? Why has Senator Brian W. Greene been suffering from so many migraine headaches? How deeply have the Gatherers infiltrated human society?
And most importantly, how are they getting past Baron Winters’ magical defenses?
Collect the series to find out!
Reviewer Notes
Damn. I thought American politics were messed up before I read this issue.
Right-wing versus left-wing. Angels versus demons. Apparently, when the Gatherers get involved, everybody becomes another piece on the board. Whoever these creatures really are, Wolfman is building them into something much larger than your average supernatural villain. Their conspiracy stretches backward through generations, and the possibility that they have been manipulating events for centuries makes the mystery considerably more interesting.
A lot is revealed in issue #3, but Wolfman wisely gives us even more questions. This is the kind of Night Force storytelling I enjoy most. We have clues scattered across different decades and centuries, an apparently ageless serial killer, missing children, mysterious birthmarks, secret bloodlines, and Baron Winters sitting in the middle of everything pretending he knows more than everyone else.
The problem for Winters is that he may not know nearly as much as he thinks.
I especially like the revelation that the Gatherers can apparently breach Wintersgate Manor. Across three volumes, the mansion has always seemed like the one place where Baron Winters maintains complete control. People enter and leave according to his rules. Now someone else is reaching inside and snatching people away. Watching the normally smug Baron realize that an enemy can invade his own playground adds another layer to the story.
The ending is also quite disturbing. This is definitely not one of those DC books I would hand to the little readers. Wolfman and artist Tom Mandrake are reminding us that Night Force is a horror comic first, and they’re apparently willing to get nasty when the story calls for it. Mandrake’s darker artwork continues to fit this material extremely well; he handled the art throughout this third volume.
I’m giving Night Force Vol. 3 #3 four out of five stars. Three issues into this seven-issue run, I’m enjoying Volume 3 considerably more than I expected.
Marv Wolfman might have done things right this time.
Keeping my retroactive fingers crossed.