The Weird #1

History

The miniseries was written by Jim Starlin — whose résumé of cosmic and existential storytelling already included the creation of Thanos and The Death of Captain Marvel at Marvel — and drawn by Bernie Wrightson, with inks by Dan Green and colors by Michele Wrightson; Karen Berger served as editor and Todd Klein as letterer. Starlin and Wrightson were simultaneously producing Batman: The Cult for DC in 1988, making The Weird a companion piece from that creative partnership rather than an isolated experiment. The series ran from April to July 1988, set explicitly in the Post-Crisis DC universe and timed to intersect with the early days of Justice League International. The entire four-issue run was eventually collected in the 2008 Mystery in Space Volume 2 trade paperback, which was the first time the miniseries received a formal collected-edition release.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First and only solo appearance (at that time) of the Weird, a Zarolatt — an energy-based sentient being from a parallel dimension — created by Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson; cover date April 1988.
• The Weird's physical form is established here: he possesses the corpse of a recently murdered man named Walter Langley, absorbing both a corporeal shape and traces of Langley's memories, giving the character a dual identity central to the series' emotional drama.
• The opening chapter, titled 'Conception,' is scripted by Jim Starlin and penciled by Bernie Wrightson with inks by Dan Green — the same core team responsible for Batman: The Cult, published concurrently in 1988.
• Editor Karen Berger (later the architect of DC/Vertigo) oversaw the series; letterer Todd Klein and colorist Michele Wrightson (Bernie's wife) rounded out the production team.
• The story is set explicitly before Justice League #7 per an in-story caption, tying it into the continuity of the then-current Justice League International roster; Superman, Martian Manhunter, Captain Atom, Guy Gardner, Blue Beetle, Black Canary, and Doctor Fate all appear in the miniseries.
• The Weird's molecular instability — his body is effectively a living atomic bomb capable of destroying the Earth — functions as the central dramatic tension of issue #1, discovered by Superman via x-ray vision.
• The character returned in print nearly two decades later in Jim Starlin's 2006 Mystery in Space series, followed by appearances in Rann-Thanagar Holy War (2008) and Strange Adventures (2009), all written by Starlin.
• The complete four-issue miniseries was collected for the first time in the Mystery in Space Volume 2 trade paperback, published by DC in 2008 (ISBN 1-4012-1692-7).

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