Code Name: Assassin

The truth about me as an artist is, all I ever wanted to do was draw pictures of superheroes and make comic books. I can be Artistic and Profound and even place Fine Art in galleries, but inside I am still making up stuff about people and animals with superpowers and creating costumes for them. I've done it since I was able to hold a pencil. I have painted a lot of quality art but when it really comes down to it, just let me depict someone in tights with a cape and a mask and some glowing special effects.

This guy is an obscure, morally ambiguous superpowered person from a DC comic book called "Code Name: Assassin." He made only one appearance in his own title, in 1976. In that volume, which I own and is now of vintage age, a failing graduate student named Jonathan Drew, had gained powerful psychic/telekinetic abilities from (of course) a laboratory accident. When gangsters killed people close to him, including his sister, he swore revenge and became a costumed vigilante code-named the "Assassin," using psychic blasts, gadgets, and weapons to destroy them. In the book he wastes a number of gangsters in various ways, though he tries to keep actual deaths to a minimum by using tranquilizer darts instead of bullets. According to comic book encyclopedias, he later returns briefly as a super-villain. I guess that might be a logical development, given the intensity of his desire for revenge.

This is my latest attempt at doing a standard digitally rendered character/costume portrait. The costume in the comic book looks dark blue and orange, but in those days they couldn't render a black costume which I think was the original intention. After all, an assassin should wear black. The orange trim seems particularly Seventies-ish but I like orange and black together. The cuffed boots might be a bit cumbersome in a fight but probably contain lots of miniaturized weapons and gadgets, as do the belt and gauntlets. The pale orange glow around his head and hand denote psychic power at the ready.

"Code Name: Assassin" is Photoshop, 7" x 10", (3000 x 2100 pixels), December 2010.