The looney adventures of Peacemaker, or Bullet Train 1987

31. Vigilante #42 by Paul Kupperberg and Tod Smith

While Mike W. Barr seemed to take Outsiders backward in his last months on the book, Paul Kupperberg is clearly already planning for the future here. Ultimately, three titles would spin out of his work on the title. I have no clue how much planning was going into wrapping this series up in favor of those titles. It’s possible that Checkmate! might have simply been meant as a direct continuation of this series before the decision was made to leave Adrian Chase behind, but the seeds that would form two other series are gaining steam as this issue rolls along.

Art by Tod Smith. Character and art are owned by DC Comics and used for review purposes.

The issue opens with Valentina Vostok and Harry Stein, the two individuals building the nascent government outfit that will become Checkmate. They are immediately attacked on a Washington, D.C. street by Peacemaker. Christopher Smith is completely off his rocker here. He’s been convinced by the voices in his head that Valentina is a Russian agent and Stein is an Islamic terrorist after plastic surgery. Now he’ll stop at nothing to end them.

Stein and Vostok escape their bulletproof foe, but the attack makes television. Adrian Chase sees it back in New York and hops the first train down to the District of Columbia.