Brand Echh: CHARLEMAGNE #1

One of the last series launched by Jim Shooter’s ill-fated venture DEFIANT, CHARLEMAGNE was a title that a obvious amount of effort and expectation had clearly been spent on. The initial issue is oversized, and the launch was preceded by the publication of a CHARLEMAGNE #0 lead-in story, which was attached to an issue of the short-lived WIZARD-style industry magazine HERO ILLUSTRATED. But DEFIANT’s fortunes in general were on the rocks, and so CHARLEMAGNE only ran for five issue, disappearing with most of its central mysteries still left unrevealed.

CHARLEMAGNE is the story of Charles Smith, a child of the 1960s who becomes a superhuman by sheer force of will. This initial issue was group plotted by a bunch of people–not just Jim Shooter and artist and co-creator Adam Pollina as you might expect, but also the issue’s scripter D. G. Chichester as well as Philip Nutman and Deborah Purcell. It seems like this was an early experiment on the part of Shooter for an approach he would carry forward into his next company, BROADWAY, in which almost every issue was group plotted. I’m not certain what drove this initiative–possibly it was a way for Shooter to keep his hand in all of the assorted DEFIANT (and later BROADWAY) stories without having to do the actual work of composing written plots and scripts. And it definitely mimicked the approach of a Hollywood writer’s room, so possibly that’s what Jim was thinking.

Even as a boy, young Charles is a kid with an indomitable will, and there are hints that there’s something more to him than initially meets the eye. But events really get going after his older brother Peter is drafted and sent to fight in the Vietnam War. Peter is reported missing in action and assumed KIA, but Charles refuses to believe this. Determined to locate his missing brother after the military closes the book on his case, Charles runs away from home and stows away aboard a steamer heading to Viet Nam. Despite the fact that he doesn’t know the language nor anybody in-country, Charles is determined to find his brother, and his unshakable will drives him ever onward despite the risks.

But in addition to his superhuman determination, Charles also appears to have ridiculous amounts of luck–so much so that they seem to be a byproduct of his will rather than something that occurs naturally. In Vietnam, Charles meets Jerry Westerberg, a freelance reporter who is able to bring him into contact with Doctor Tran Nguyen, an influence peddler who works both sides of the street. It’s Doc Nguyen who begins calling Charles Charlemagne once he sees firsthand Charles’ dogged determination to track down his missing brother. For two years, Charles crisscrosses Vietnam, following every lead, speaking with anybody who may have seen his brother or know his whereabouts. Eventually, the trail leads Charles to a small village near the Cambodian border where his brother was reportedly seen.

Unfortunately, the town, Hung Dao, is believed to be a V.C. stronghold by the American military, and they move in to annihilate it. Charles sees his brother in the distance and calls to him, just as rockets and machine gun fire begin to strafe the village. Before the brothers can reunite, Peter is caught in an explosion, and when Charles races towards him, he in turn is strafed by machine gun fire that pulverizes his legs. But with undeterred willpower, Charles crawls forward, despite his mangled half-body, and reaches his brother’s now-lifeless form. Grasping Peter’s dogtags, Charles bellows to the heavens that such a thing as this will never happen again. Then he passes out. When troops find his injured but still living body, he’s airlifted to a surgical hospital, where his mangled legs are amputated. (As you can tell, this is a light-hearted story.)

Charles spends the next eighteen years in an unresponsive coma. In his mind, we see his spirit leave his body and head for an ethereal light, before his force-of-will causes him to halt. He tells whatever divine spirit might be behind this light that he’s decided that he needs to stay here, to balance the score and see to it that everyone gets a fair chance at achieving their dreams. It’s at this point that Charles awakens, and his doctors are astounded by his condition. Not only have his amputated legs grown back, but he’s suddenly huge and ripped, a perfect physical specimen. There’s no rational explanation for what’s happened to him, but within a few months, Charles is ready to return home across the ocean back to the United States and his family.

But the boat Charles is taking across the sea is attacked by ruthless pirates. Seeing the people he’s been traveling with trapped and victimized, Charles cries out once more, “Never again!”, and leaps into action. He’s not simply buff, he’s got superhuman strength, can leap enormous distances and is invulnerable to conventional weapons. As such, he clobbers the pirates, transfers his fellow passengers to their ship after their own has been holed, and finishes his journey back to his old home. In the final pages of this first issue, Charles reunited with his parents after two decades. But he can’t stay for long. He realizes that he’s lucked into something extraordinary in his travels, and he’s determined to put his new talents to good use. So the issue wraps up with him heading out into the wider world once again.

D. G. Chichester and Adam Pollina remained the creative team for the remainder of the run, though Shooter, Anthony Castrillo and Tim Eldred stepped in to help out from time to time across the remaining issues. In these subsequent stories, we begin to get the idea that Charlemagne’s powers are less simply physical prowess and more a will-to-power–put simply, he can do pretty much anything that he believes himself capable of, which begins to expand on his repertoire of abilities over time. Like the other DEFIANT characters, Charlemagne’s talents are explained loosely through quantum physics–essentially, he can willfully manipulate his own quantum state. His brother’s dogtags, which he’s taken to wearing himself, function as a sort of focal talisman for his will-to-power. For all that, the series was relatively mundane and not all that interesting. A connection was drawn between Charles and War Dancer as rival powers, but that thread never got to come to fruition in the brief run. So these issues are fine, but a bit on the bland side, despite some interesting artwork from the young Adam Pollina. (DEFIANT’s overdone painted color didn’t really do the artwork any favors–it was universally a better idea in concept than in execution.)