The Masked Man meets his long estranged sister for the first time in years — as she’s busy trying to rob fake antique coins filled with cocaine from the criminal gang that robbed them first! Cover and everything else by B. C. Boyer.
The only issue of The Masked Man I ever found. It’s a credit to B. C. Boyer’s storytelling skills that it still made sense despite it being part of a continuous storyline. It sure helps if you can put a proper summary on the first page, something modern comics seems to abhor. The Masked Man, proper name Dick Carstairs, always was a dreamer, wanting to be a champion of justice and now he is. His sister, Roxannne Carstairs was always more realistic and is now a criminal. Why and how they grew up the way they did is shown in this issue and goes all the way back to when they were children.
The Masked Man started off as one of the features in the black and white series Eclipse, the Magazine, published by Eclipse Comics (huh) before continuing in Eclipse Monthly and finally its own series in 1984. This ran until 1988 for a total of twelve issues. The Masked Man was only an ordinary bloke, who one day stopped a robbery and grabbed a mask from a convenient costume store to hide his identity. His adventures are therefore fairly low key, sub-Batman level. I don’t think he ever fought any real supervillains. What set it apart is perhaps its more human view of superheroics, though this seemingly wasn’t enough to make it a success. Publishing only twelve issues in four years cannot have helped either.
The Masked Man is B. C. Boyer’s most significant work, but he would return in the mid-nineties with Hilly Rose from Astro Comics, edited by his old Eclipse editor cat yronwode (who spells her name all lowercase). Apart from that the Grand Comics Database only lists a few scattered credits here and there, with his last work being from 2011. I like his artwork, it has a very Matt Wagner-esque feel to it. The same sort of plasticity to his figures, a similar sort of faces.
As far as I am aware neither The Masked Man nor Hilly Rose has gotten a collection, so the only way to read either is to hunt the back issue bins.
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