Have you ever wondered, “How do they come up with this stuff?” when looking at some of the colorful characters that adorn the pages of a comic book? Of course, some are based on real persons who played significant roles in world history.
Bob Kane and Bill Finger famously named and modeled Batman after two famous “rebel” leaders: Robert the Bruce, the King of Scotland who led his country to independence from English dominion, and Mad Anthony Wayne, the American Revolutionary War general renowned for annihilating enemy forces far larger than his.
Others were inspired by well-known pop culture figures or cinematic creations, such as John Constantine’s early designs, which were based on The Police vocalist Sting, and Bob Kane’s character from The Man Who Laughs, which inspired him to create The Joker. But probably the most perplexing source of inspiration for a comic book character has to be a skateboarding magazine, and we must reluctantly admit that we adore this man.
Night Thrasher, played by Tom DeFalco, appeared in Mighty Thor Vol. 1 #411 and is half Bruce Wayne, half Tony Hawk, and 100 percent confirmed badass who does not get talked about much. This is Night Thrasher’s Origins, Explored, a look at this confident and swaggering urban vigilante.
The Mighty Thor’s Brand New Back-up: Night Thrasher’s First Appearance Explored
So, this is kind of weird, right? A skateboarding vigilante making his debut in an issue of Mighty Thor sounds about as right-place-right-time as Ronda Rousey locking Tom Hardy in an armbar on a basketball court. But the way Marvel pulled it off was so cheesy & cinematic that you couldn’t help but root for this kid! Subsumed within his Eric Masterson identity before he became Thunderstrike, Thor was chilling with Hercules at Eric’s house, drinking beers and lamenting the loss of Avenger’s Mansion when Loki put his latest scheme into play.
The God of Mischief magically teleports Juggernaut from the high-security Cross more Prison to Queens, where he starts doing his whole unstoppable shtick, even though he doesn’t get what he’s doing there. One quick tap of his stick and Thor Odinson arrives to do battle with the Lumbering Red Beast, but because of the bout of seizures he’s been experiencing lately, he’s fighting at way below full capacity. Their encounter starts off pretty evenly matched, with Thor and Juggernaut exchanging hefty blows and the God of Thunder decrying his opponent’s destruction of personal property as worthy of an Asgardian beat down; go figure!
But soon enough, strength starts slipping from his body and as he’s getting thrashed around like a ragdoll, his plight is witnessed by a young Richard Rider who calls in his team because it’s time for them to act. In a spread that plays out much like a movie montage, we see single panel reactions from each member of Rider’s team. But every team has that one breakout star, and this team’s breakout star is Night Thrasher; who gets a full-page all-star introduction, courtesy of his adoptive guardians Andrew Chord & Tai.
He vaults off his training apparatus and leaps directly into action, stopping the Juggernaut dead in his tracks alongside his team of New Warriors! Night Thrasher and his team were able to eventually subdue Juggernaut and went on to become of the most-underrated superhero teams in Marvel history. But how did this kid end up living the vigilante life? Let’s find out.
From Orphan to Vigilante: The Tale of Dwayne Taylor
To talk about Dwayne Taylor’s rise from orphaned kid to one of the most-unsung black superheroes in Marvel’s history, we have to take things way back to before he was even born and talk about his dad first. Everything about Daryl Taylor’s life seemed to embody the American Dream. As a young man, he served in the US Army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant and serving in the Siancong War. He was married to his high school sweetheart at the age of 18.
When he came back from the war, he became highly involved in the Civil Rights Movement alongside his wife Melody. He became a lawyer and started working with the office of Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall, the First African-American Judge to earn a seat in that prestigious office. Melody’s outspokenness against the McCarthy Commission had earned her nationwide fame as a fighter for minorities’ rights and a representative of women all across America.
The couple managed to use Daryl’s family inheritance to establish a billion-dollar empire called Taylor Foundation and had a beautiful baby boy together whom they named Dwayne. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t live to see him grow into manhood because one fateful day, the wealthy couple would be gunned down in cold blood and the only witness to the event would be a young Dwayne Taylor.
The sheer trauma that this event evoked from him, coupled with the crushing loss of his parents drove him towards the path of imparting his own brand of brutal justice upon the criminals of Queens. He was adopted by his father’s best friend and unit commander Andrew Chord as well as a mysterious Asian woman called Tai, who helped hone Dwayne into a living weapon. Over the course of his entire childhood, Taylor became proficient in multiple forms of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat techniques while training his body to achieve peak physical conditioning.
Chord & Tai helped run Taylor Foundation for young master Dwayne, as he prepared to embark on his path of justice & vengeance. Taking on the name Night Thrasher, he started off his crime-fighting career without a costume and be-friended 2 other teenage vigilantes like himself; Silhouette & Midnight’s Fire.
The trio began cleaning up their neighborhood one block at a time and Night Thrasher & Silhouette even begin a relationship over time. But nothing lasts forever, and one fateful day, Midnight’s Fire & Night Thrasher goes from being blood-brother to blood-thirsty enemies after getting into an argument over how to deal with a drug bust; Silhouette ends up taking a bullet to the spine in the process and becomes paralyzed from the waist down.
Both men blame each other, and Midnight’s Fire leaves a gnarly gash on Dwayne’s face as a parting gift, causing him to create the Night Thrasher Mark 1 armor and begin his one-man war on crime in earnest, targeting all felonies committed by both humans and metahumans.
Betrayal, Prophecy, Civil War & Death: Major Story Arcs featuring Night Thrasher
After spending a few months fighting crime by himself, Night Thrasher started reminiscing about the days he spent with Fire & Sil, and so he began assembling a new team to fill that void. Dwayne personally recruited every member of the New Warriors. We’ve spoken about their debut appearance already. Let’s talk about their implosion; rather the fact that Night Thrasher’s obscure family history would’ve led to the end of the world and if he didn’t leave New Warriors, he wouldn’t be able to save it.
See, back when Daryl Taylor was serving in the Siancong War, the Half Fulls came across an ancient and mystical temple in Cambodia. Dubbed The Temple of the Dragon’s Breath, it was home to a secretive cult whose existence wasn’t even privy to The Mandarin at the time.
The leader of that cult offered the 6 members of Daryl’s unit the chance to marry 6 “brides” in a mystical ceremony that would see their children become conquerors of the known world in the future. While 5 of them accepted the deal and formed a pact with the occult leader, Daryl rejected it and left that temple with his honor intact; though things wouldn’t stay that way forever.
This would turn out to be his greatest mistake, however, as it was this rejection that sealed his family’s fate. During his time with the New Warriors, Night Thrasher figures out the truth about why he can always remember the night of his parent’s death but not the face of the killer; it’s because that killer was with him all along, helping raise and hone him into a lethal weapon.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Chord is the man who killed the Taylors that fateful night. And he did it on the order of the leader of the Cult of the Dragon’s Breath, who is revealed to be none other than Tai! As it turns out, the cult has always had a prophecy; there would come a time when Westerners would arrive at their sacred temple and mate with 6 of their chosen ones, thus bearing the offspring who would come to rule the world. But Tai was a greedy dragon and wanted all the sheep for herself.
So she orchestrated the creation of the Pact so she could one day kill the Children of the Pact and usurp their powers and fulfill her own destiny as the mighty despot of all creation. To this end, she made Night Thrasher the conduit of her plan and altered his memories to make him forget all about the circumstances surrounding his parents’ death and make him strong enough to survive the ritual. The one thing she doesn’t anticipate is his preparedness.
Night Thrasher is nothing if prepared. His contingency plans have contingency plans and so, in a stroke of genius, he “defects” to the Folding Circle and infiltrates the location of the Well of All Things, neutralizing Circle leader Diego’s avarice-riddled plans for the power source while killing off Tai alongside his Warriors. This “betrayal” earned him the eternal enmity of the Folding Circle which was comprised of all the Children of the Pact; especially Midnight’s Fire.
For a while, he continued on his adventures with the New Warriors, but quickly became distanced from them given their ethical stance on crime-fighting and his increasingly-deteriorating views on the well-being of criminals. During this time, he befriended Rage, another African-American vigilante just like him. Dwayne identified with Rage, brought him into the New Warriors, and eventually even became his adoptive father.
But after spending what felt like a lifetime fighting crime in a suit and armor, Dwayne decided that he could make the world a better place by focusing on doing good things through the Taylor Foundation. Dwayne focused all his resources on conjuring a cure for cancer, but it cost his company to go belly-up and got him killed in the process. You see, when Taylor Foundation went bust, Dwayne decided to get the band back together and make some money while he’s at it. He hired a production crew and started a new reality TV show that was centered on the New Warriors’ adventures.
Surprisingly enough, they had a fairy tale run for a while, drawing big numbers and bigger bucks into the Warriors’ funding pool. But all that ended when they went after Nitro. The impulsive metahuman decided that getting captured wasn’t worth his life, and initiated a self-destruct sequence that immediately killed everyone in his vicinity, including himself.
It was this event that led to the creation of the Superhuman Registration Act and the instigation of the Civil War storyline; yes, Night Thrasher’s death kick-started Marvel’s biggest crossover storyline to date. Well, not exactly, because turns out, Dwayne Taylor didn’t die, he was just transported to an alternate timeline.
Called Battlerealm, it was overseen by The Collector, and Dwayne was brought here for an enormous Colosseum-style deathmatch all for the amusement of the twisted connoisseur. But he’s able to hitchhike his way back to his universe with the Ultimates when they invade Collector’s lair. Most recently, he was spotted fighting alongside former rival turned to peer The Punisher in an attempt to take down Baron Zemo and stop his takeover of New York.
Is he literally Marvel’s Batman?
Well, let’s tally the similarities. They both witnessed their parents die at a formative age. They both developed a strong sense of justice after having witnessed said death. They then proceeded to train themselves into achieving the pinnacle of humanity’s physical capabilities and used their family fortunes to wage a never-ending war against crime.
Heck, you could swap out Bruce Wayne for Dwayne Taylor at certain points in time and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference; when Night Thrasher goes to recruit Nova into the New Warriors, he is living life as an exile and has seemingly lost all his powers.
After confirming Rider’s identity, Thrasher simply drops him from a very tall building as an “experiment”; he had hypothesized that Nova’s powers would return with a sufficiently stimulating adrenaline boost, and turns out, he was right. His back story and especially his demeanor in situations like this are liable to make you think that Night Thrasher is literally just Marvel’s Batman, but that isn’t the case.
For starters, Dwayne Taylor isn’t white, and his parents weren’t industrialists. And yes, he might have developed a code of justice similar to Batman’s, but unlike Bruce, he couldn’t even remember his parents’ faces anymore, let alone their killers.
Night Thrasher is also markedly younger than Batman which is exemplified by the fact he uses a literal skateboard as his vehicle of choice and carries around billy clubs that make him look more like a Daredevil fanboy than a Batman knock-off. But the key difference between the two characters lies in their guardian figures and their fundamental modus operandi. Batman doesn’t play well with people.
The Bat Family & even the Justice League is a representation of his expanding humanity and the fact that Bruce is allowing his hurts to heal by letting people in. On the other hand, Night Thrasher started his career as a trio, so he knows the value of a team and has actively sought to work with one whenever he goes off on an adventure.
And the second thing that separates Night Thrasher from Batman is the fact that Alfred would never even think of betraying the Wayne family, let alone actively participating in Thomas & Martha’s murders directly. Andrew Chord & Tai could never live up to the reputation of the World’s Greatest Butler; they’re more like Ra’s al Ghul in a sense, but even there they fail to replicate that aura of mystique and unending malevolence that Ra’s has.
On the surface, it looks like Night Thrasher is just a version of Batman who is really into skateboarding and has a cool ninja-style suit. But once you take a deeper look into his story, you’ll realize that they have key differences in their respective superhero journeys that set them completely apart from each other.
What Makes Night Thrasher So Dangerous?
Yes, he doesn’t have any superpowers to boast about, but don’t let that trick you into thinking you can use that to get inside Night Thrasher’s head; literal telepaths have tried and failed, and you my friend, are no mutant. Dwayne Taylor has spent his entire life training to defeat crime, and he’s had to do a LOT of training to be able to keep up with them, conditioning both his body & mind.
He’s a physical specimen, at the peak of human strength & functionality. When we first see Night Thrasher, he is hanging off of Gymnastic Rings hung way above the ground like it was no big deal, displaying his athleticism and flexibility in one fell swoop. His reflexes were along honed to a razor-sharp edge. Taylor also learned multiple forms of martial arts while traveling across the globe, giving him a unique offensive style that was capable of stalemating The Punisher; one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the Marvel Universe.
Dwayne is also a tech wizard, capable of hacking into ultra-secure databases with ease and inventing some rather ingenious gadgets & devices which he uses in his fight against crime to great effect. His skateboard is an ultra-durable method of transportation/weapon/shield; it’s made out of fiberglass after all and has extremely sharp blades attached to the ends, making every Ollie he executes a potential cause for homicide.
Dwayne has loaded his arsenal to the brim with weapons that can help him deal with a scenario with the kind of intensity it demands: he can use his spur jacks to blow out tires, ball bearing to trip foes, or just blow up an entire building using his napalm gel. Not only that, but Dwayne has also created at least 3 versions of the Night Thrasher armor, each of which came with heavy-duty protection for Taylor as well as hidden weapons & secret compartments that could turn the tide in his favor at any given moment.
Night Thrasher’s suit was invulnerable to conventional damage from bullets, blades & fire. It allowed him to camouflage himself and blend with his environment and was equipped with a computer system that kept him apprised of the situation at all times. It came with grappling-hook-launching-gauntlets and a chute that could save him from an Assassin’s Creed-style Leap of Faith; his suit had custom-built jet boots, for crying out loud! Everything about Night Thrasher’s suit was tailor-made for combat, and that’s what made it so dangerous to encounter him.
You never know what he’s going to throw at you; and even if you do, you probably won’t be conscious long enough to do anything about it. Night Thrasher’s modus operandi is made clear by his superhero moniker; by day, Dwayne Taylor is the upstanding CEO of Taylor Foundation who is committed to furthering his family legacy. It’s when the sun goes down that criminals all over Queens begin cowering in fear of the Night Thrasher; and if we were one of them, we know we’d be terrified, too.
Why Night Thrasher Deserves More Recognition
Marvel Comics often gets flak from the larger comic book community for “copying DC” for its success: Darkseid & Thanos, Deathstroke & Deadpool, Batman & Iron Man, are just some of the characters that DC fans have often accused Marvel of “duplicating” to bolster their own roster of superheroes. But the one thing Marvel has over DC is diverse representation, and by that metric, Night Thrasher is one of the most significant characters in comic book history due to his ethnicity alone.
Marvel has constantly highlighted its diverse cast of characters in a way that organically incorporates their stories into the continuity whilst also treating that community with the respect it so rightfully deserves. Doesn’t it make you happy knowing that, for once, there’s a billionaire person of color in the Marvel Universe that isn’t Black Panther or a Wakandan? And however cheesy you might find the whole skateboarding shtick, we actually think it makes him unique.
It leans into his youthful & rebellious spirit, there’s no denying that, but it also shows this gritty, street-savvy side of him that we can’t help but relate to. Night Thrasher is like an amalgam of all your favorite “human” superheroes in the best way possible, because as opposed to sullying his “predecessors”, his actions elevated everything they’ve done to pave the way for a generation of younger superheroes within continuity; and younger readers outside of it.
They’ve shown that regardless of who you are, where you were born, or how your life turns out to be, justice and the pursuit of it should always be relentless; because once you start slacking, there is no guarantee that you will receive your just dues. And that, my friends, is something no one should be content with.