“I’d done the definitive Batman, and I’d co-created Shadowman, but when Malibu asked me to co-create the Ultraverse and help populate it, I decided to go for the ultimate expression of the dark loner theme – the man who comes around at night – The Night Man. He existed in a “San Francisco of the mind” – SF the way it would be if the cool things from all its past, like Playland-at-the-Beach, still existed today. It’s the SF that held the Maltese Falcon, and the one with the Transamerica Pyramid.” ~Steve Englehart
One of the coolest and most unique aspects of The Night Man, particularly when you look back from the reboot era we are in now, is that The Night Man was contently evolving as a character. I suppose that has more to do with Malibu’s Ultraverse being new and then never really getting the chance to be old before it was purchased by Marvel and then consumed by the 90s crash of the comic industry but regardless of the reason: it made the character unique.
The Night Man was just a regular guy who’d “put his time in at the gym/dojo” like everyone else was doing at the time. Then after he being caught in an automobile accident he could hear people’s thoughts and was struck with a nasty case of unshakable insomnia. This prompted him to don a costume and a secret identity as he pursued those with more evil thoughts – particularly since he couldn’t go to the cops and ask someone to be arrested for there thoughts.
This meant that Johny Domino became a seamstress as he created and continually adapted his costume. He became an electrician and computer engineer as he established new forms of communication and computer link ups that were new at the time. He became a contractor and mechanic as he built a hiding place in his home and in his car for the costume. Johny “Night Man” Domino was always learning new methods to track men and hunt them down as well as he took to the streets night after night as The Night Man.
When he was faced with battling magic and magical beings such as werewolves The Night Man evolved once again into another kind of being all together – one harnessing the essence of black magic that required quite a few sacrifices in order to harness the power he sought out in order to continue being The Night Man. One such sacrifice was the need to consume nutrients from food but rather from human organs. This same quest led to The Night Man traveling to another dimension (The Marvel Universe) and two distinct Johny Domino’s existing at the same time – one in each universe.
Assuming that the Ultraverse hadn’t been jammed into a desk drawer never to be pulled out again and had always continued running or had been revived what where would the characters be at? What would they be doing? What would The Night Man be doing?