Greyshirt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since October 2006. (help, talk) |
| Greyshirt | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Greyshirt is a comic book character in Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories, published by Wildstorm (a subsidiary of DC Comics), under the America's Best Comics imprint. The character was co-created by Moore and Rick Veitch. The character is a pastiche of Will Eisner's The Spirit. The name draws obvious inspiration from the British pulp hero, Blackshirt.
Contents |
[edit] Publication History
Greyshirt originally appeared in Tomorrow Stories (1999), each issue consisting of a collection of short stories featuring a recurring cast of characters. These characters, like Greyshirt, were often inspired by pulp magazine and comic book archetypes, such as the boy genius and the masked detective. As such, Greyshirt's stories often showcased Alan Moore's take on the detective stories of such characters as The Spirit.
Greyshirt later appeared in Greyshirt: Indigo Sunset, a comic-book limited series and spin-off from Tomorrow Stories that was written and drawn by Veitch. The series explored the origins of the character, as well as showcasing contributions from Russ Heath, Al Williamson, David Lloyd, John Severin, Dave Gibbons, Frank Cho and Hilary Barta. The limited series ran for six issues and has since been collected into a trade paperback.
Each issue was broken into four parts. On the inverse side of the cover, there would be a black-and-white "One-Pager." The comic then continued with "Young Greyshirt," which explored the character's life before Tomorrow Stories, and "Greyshirt," which featured short stories similar to those seen in Tomorrow Stories. The issue would conclude with "Indigo City Sunset," consisting of Indigo City's newspaper, featuring articles, comic strips, letters to the editor, ads and so on.
[edit] Character history
[edit] Early life
Born in 1963 Franky Lafayette, the son of "Lips" Lafayette, was a young criminal in the "bottoms up" section of Indigo City. In 1969 Franky and Johnny Apollo at six year old, the boys stolen a gun, who Franky saved Johnny Apollo of the "The Lure".
The 1978 young high school delinquents, selling tijuana bibles and stolen fireworks. He and his best friend, Johnny Apollo, worked for a gangster named Carmine Carbone (who, unbeknownst to Franky, is his father). At one time Franke and Plato Plutarch, a high school hounor student, worked to save Candice "Candi" (Jail Bait) Lovelace and going head to head with "Spats Katz" (a rival of Carmine), at this time, Plato called in a couple favors and give Franky a chainmail Greyshirt. As full-fledged gangsters, the team-up inspired a long running comic book series named "Hoodlum Hit".
However in 1989 thing started going down Franky Lafayette's mother was pregnant again with Catherine who was later giving her up for adoption and Carmine Carbone was sent to prison for 20 years. Singer and whore with a heart of gold Ella Bly who knows Franky before he became Greyshirt, and who Chucky give a "steam-iron facial", and after in life wrote a song called The Ballad of Franky & Johnny. Their partnership ended when Johnny turned on Franky and later engineered an explosion apparently killed them both. However, Johnny was 'saved' by 'The Lure' and Franky was saved by Rockefeller Patel, "The Buddha of Indigo City" a deeply spiritual Nepalese monk with a keen sense of service and sacrifice, who lived under the old Indigo City Central Gas Station and the tunnels under the city.
[edit] Greyshirt
After recovering for two weeks, Franky decides to adopt the identity of Greyshirt, a masked private investigator. He dons a formal suit with a red handkerchief, to hide his broken nose, and a chainmail shirt that protects him from blows, knife attacks, and even partially from bullets and bombs.
Greyshirt solves kidnappings, saves the city from "Baby Einstein", and fights old enemies gangsters like "Chucky Frisco" and "Vinnie Assapunto". He also encounters "Spats Katz", now a wheelchair-bound old man who was killed by an old caretaker, and the mysterious monster named "The Lure" who lives in the jewel mines under Indigo City and stole Johnny Apollo's soul.
Greyshirt also has an extensive love life, having been involved with at least four women during his years as Greyshirt, including:
- Roseanna Crescendo, a shopgirl whose father Dr. Victor Crescendo, a physicist and musician the violin was his second case.
- Explorer Pandora Siam.
- Lapis Lazuli a psychotic murderer and science villain. After Greyshirt arranged her arrest, she was sentenced to death by gas chamber. Greyshirt waited for her with red roses on the night she came back to life.
- However, it was Cobweb, a woman he fell in love as a teenager while reading old Tijuana bible, who became his most significant romantic partner.
