SUTURE
Real Name: Unrevealed
Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Earth-Nocturne) Human, mutate
Occupation: Revenant, former crimelord
Affiliations: Leader of his own underlings, including Stilleto Sam, Bruv and Lark; ally of Yi Yang
Enemies: Night Raven, Nocturne
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: Dr. Hurt
Base of Operations: as Dr. Hurt, Britain circa 1920-1951; as Suture, London, England; Earth-Nocturne
First Appearance: Nocturne#1 (June, 1995)
Powers: As Dr. Hurt, seemingly possesed no superhuman abilities. As Suture, he posssed superhuman strength, and apparently some above normal resistance to injury and fatigue. He did seem to have only limited, if any, superhuman recuperative powers, however, as his destruction as Suture took place after he was impaled on a fence.
History: Doctor Hurt was a criminal mastermind in Britain during approximately the 1920’s to the 1950’s. He opposed the crimefighter Night Raven, and at least some of these battles with Night Raven were later fictionalized as part of a radio show. The general public, however, did not believe that Night Raven or his enemies actually existed, but rather presumed the radio show to have no basis in reality.
(Noturne#1 (fb))- Dr. Hurt, acting as an agent of Yi Yang, an Asiatic crimelord, demanded that Night Raven turn over a special device called the Looking Glass that could predict the future. The two confronted each other in a seedy pool hall at some point after the summer of 1951 (see comments). Hurt ordered his men to subdue Night Raven, but he defeated them. Hurt, however, produced a dart gun with poisoned pellets, and threatened Night Raven.
This incident later was fictionalized as a part of the Night Raven radio show. The next episode announced was titled "Right Hand of Darkness". Thus presumably Night Raven managed to elude Dr. Hurt at this time.
BTS- However, later, one cold night in November 1951, Night Raven was killed by Dr. Hurt with poisoned bullets.
Dr. Hurt, under undepicted circumstances, later died. However, Yi Yang returned him to animated existance as Suture, a green skeletal flaming-eyed revenant. He presumably performed many missions for her as Suture before his first encounter with Nocturne (see below), as the newsmedia community had already known of him before his first battle with Nocturne and even managed to get footage of Suture. He killed about 10-20 people during this time.
(Nocturne#1)- In contemporary times, George Jenkins, who played "Scoop Daly" in the Night Raven radio show as well as co-writing the scripts (of course, using information from the real Night Raven), was abducted by Suture’s minions. Documentary maker Gray Poldark, using information he had gained from an earlier meeting with Jenkins, found Night Raven’s old hideout, and put on a special helmet he found there. He had a vision of himself in a special costume he had found in Night Raven’s lair battling Suture at St. Saviour’s Cathedral.
(Nocturne#2)- Poldark removed the helmet and went to St. Saviour’s Cathedral. Jenkins was watched as a prisoner there by Suture’s men, but Poldark, using the nom de guerre of Nocturne, defeated them. Jenkins revealed that he had been grilled as to the location of the Looking Glass. Nocturne tried to leave with Jenkins, but Suture returned.
(Nocturne#3)- Suture and Nocturne battled each other, with Suture revealing that in life he had existed as Dr. Hurt. Suture eventually was impaled on a fence. Though rushed to Christchurch hospital, Suture arrived D.O.A. Yi Yang learned of this second demise, but stated she would not revive him again.
Comments: Created by Dan Abnett and Joe Fonteriz.
The Nocturne series, despite the nice artwork by Fonteriz, presents something of a problem, as it does not seem to take place on Earth-616. Although some things in the series touch base with Earth-616 continuity-- in issue#4, for example, Yi Yang revealed she had the mark of Night Raven on her forehead, as occurred in the Earth-616 Night Raven stories-- too much of the series remains at odds with the history of the Earth-616 Night Raven. Besides this, on Earth-616, Scoop Daly did indeed exist.
Of course, some may argue that the previous
Night Raven stories presented merely romanticized accounts from
the radio show, movies, and novels (see below) about Night Raven,
but that the Nocturne mini-series gave his true Earth-616
history. After all, have not many of Marvel’s western heroes
such as the Two-Gun Kid had many of their previous adventures
revealed as dime novel exaggerations? Have not many of
Marvel’s Golden Age stories ended up in a similar situation?
However, Night Raven’s appearance in Death Duty-- in which
he encountered the Black Widow, a proven Earth-616 character,
rules this out.
--I speculated that due to the real time
publication of the Nocturne series, that perhaps the series would
represent Night Raven Reborn, and would have taken place on
Earth-Heroes Reborn, later Earth-Doom, and Counter Earth II.
However, there's no evidence to support this, and it would mean
that the past history shown in the series is contrived. I liked
the series, but I agree, it just cannot have taken place on
Earth-616--Snood
Also, an apparent vampiress named Mischief appears in this series. She definetly knew Night Raven-- and had even apparently served as his lover-- at some point before his death in 1951. Had she existed on Earth-616, she would have been destroyed by the Montesi Formula when Doctor Strange cast it in Doctor Strange II#62.
As regards the Looking Glass, Nocturne#4 revealed it as "an artifact as old as time. In it, the future was laid bare. Whoever possesed it was master of the truth to be". The maker of the Looking Glass remains unknown, but it first emerged in modern times when it was discovered in a junk shop in Alexandria. Night Raven acquired the Looking Glass in the summer of 1951 when he defeated Yi Yang’s couriers at a private club in Belgravia. They had brought it from Antwerp for a rendezvous with her. However, Night Raven escaped with the Looking Glass just minutes before Yi Yang arrived at the club.
However, at some later point in 1951, Night Raven saw his own death in the Looking Glass. Worse, he saw that as punishment for his earlier having branded her forehead with his mark, Yi Yang would revive him as a monstrous entity called Hatemare. Apparently not receiving enough information from the vision to enable him to take any steps to prevent his death, Night Raven set to work setting up things so that he would have a successor to destroy himself as Hatemare. To that end, he acquired the advanced technology that went into the Nocturne suit, as well as shattering the Looking Glass and forming the shards into the lenses of the suit’s helmet so that the wearer could use the power of the Glass to see the past, present, and future.
Night Raven was apparently crippled in-between his encounter with Doctor Hurt in the flashback in Nocturne#1 and his death in November 1951. When Gray Poldark used the Nocturne helmet to look into the past in Nocturne#2, he saw Night Raven in his lair in a wheelchair in November 1951 just 43 minutes before he was killed by Doctor Hurt. For this reason, I presume that the incident from Nocturne#1 which showed Night Raven confronting Doctor Hurt and his men took place some time before November 1951. Of course, since one of the Night Raven radio shows was based on the incident, obviously Night Raven must have survived such an incident had he been able to tell Jenkins about it!
I have the complete Nocturne mini-series, so I may do some more bios from it in the future.
Some other interesting tidbits about the history of the Night Raven of this world: Roland MacMasters played Night Raven in two unsuccessful 1960’s films, and author Iolante Spekes wrote twenty nine Night Raven novels from 1946 to 1959. Based on a movie poster seen in Gray Poldark’s room in Nocturne#1, Kenton Je-(last name illegible) played Doctor Hurt in a FHD studio picture.
by Per Degaton
Clarifications:
The Night Raven who fought Dr. Hurt should not be confused with:
Night Raven, of Earth-616, @
Hulk Comic#1
Nocturne should not be confused with:
Nocturne, Angela Cairn, Spider-Man ally, @
Spectacular Spider-Man Annual#13
Nocturne of the Exiles, Talia Joseph
"TJ" Wagner, daughter of an alternate dimensional
counterpart of nightcrawler, @ Blink#1, Exiles#1
Last updated: 08/01/02
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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