The Middleman
| The Middleman | |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Viper Comics |
| Schedule | Monthly |
| Format | Several mini series |
| Publication date | 2005 – Present |
| Number of issues | 8 + graphic novel |
| Main character(s) | The Middleman Wendy Watson Ida Ben Stanley Lacey Thornfield Noser Sensei Ping |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Javier Grillo-Marxuach |
| Artist(s) | Les McClaine |
The Middleman is a comic book series written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach with art by Les McClaine and published by Viper Comics. The series was initially intended to be a television pilot. Grillo-Marxuach decided he wanted to write a series that represented all of the things he grew up loving (what he calls the "Javi-centric World View"). With a little coaching from Paul Dini, he realized his dream in the medium of comic books – for several reasons, not the least of which was how much it would cost to produce a "tentacled ass monster" for television. Despite this, a single season of a television adaptation was picked up for the 2008 season by ABC Family.
The first issue hit the shelves in July, 2005. The mini-series was collected as a single trade paperback volume, entitled The Trade Paperback Imperative. The second trade volume, entitled The Second Volume Inevitability, was released on July 2006 and includes the supplement Legends of the Middlemen, three short stories chronicling the adventures of past Middlemen. The third "mini-series" was released straight to trade in 2007 as The Third Volume Inescapability.
All three volumes were collected in 2008 into a single volume, The Middleman: The Collected Series Indispensability.
In 2009, a fourth volume, The Middleman: The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse, was published. Unlike the previous comics, this volume was based on an unpublished script for the ABC Family TV series and serves as the show's finale.
The Middleman's slogan is "fighting evil so you don't have to" and the character has been doing it for an unknown length of time. The Middleman is not just the incarnation in the current mini series; it is a job, a title, a persona that is handed down from Middleman to Middleman. There are no written records of the Middlemen throughout history; only Ida holds the answers to the present day Middleman's predecessors. Each Middleman receives information via Ida from the "Organization Too Secret To Know" (O2STK). They carry out their orders in typical hero fashion and always save the day.
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Wikipedia