El DIABLO #1 DC Comics, 1988

I have a weakness for doomed comic book series’ that are constructed around a new interpretation of dormant intellectual property. You know what I’m talking about – comics like Manhunter, Blue Beetle, The Question, and this series - El Diablo.

Rarely has there ever been a comic that was so clearly going to be cancelled. El Diablo was the story of Rafe Sandoval, a rookie city councilman in Dos Rios, Texas, who tries to improve his community by day as a councilman and by night as the masked urban legend El Diablo. Our hero has no superpowers except for a mean right hook and a pure heart, and instead of supervillains, El Diablo takes on arsonists, drug dealers and immigrant smugglers in his quest to make his city a better place to live. El Diablo was a low-key, character-driven book that starred a hero who was actually a pretty swell guy. If there is one hero who would not look out of place drinking a beer and chatting with Grandpa at a backyard barbeque, it’s El Diablo.

So of course, the series was doomed. Kids don’t want to read that shit. Dave maybe, but not kids.

Written by ubiquitous eighties scribe Gerard Jones with art by Mike Parobeck, El Diablo was perhaps published before its time. I’m not certain who the intended audience was for this book, which spent a lot of page space devoted to interplay between the citizens of Dos Rios and comparatively little to explosions, beheadings, ninjas, and tits. El Diablo spent as much time with Councilman Sandoval, an ethical man snared in southern big-boss politics, as it did on his alter-ego’s nocturnal adventures. The series was like a playful mix of a Robert Penn Warren novel and Zorro.

Have I mentioned the lack of tits?

Well, the kids may not have eaten El Diablo up, but I loved it. Jones’ peppy story and bantering dialogue found a perfect match in Mike Parobeck’s art. The late Mr. Parobeck did his usual kick-ass job on the series, delivering his patented clean-line art and excellent composition. I can’t imagine anybody but Mike Parobeck drawing El Diablo.

Check out the first appearance of El Diablo, below:

If you ran a statistical analysis of all first-issue comic books starring a single character published in the last 20 years, you would find that in 75% of those books, the first appearance of the hero entails stopping a mugging or beating the crap out of some bad guy. Not El Diablo. The first time we see him, he’s chillin’ in a booth in a darkened taqueria. That alone should tell you a) why this book was so cool, and b) why it got cancelled.

The simple fact of the matter is that El Diablo just did not kick enough ass. He’s a costumed hero, and as such will inevitably be compared to other costumed heroes. If there’s one common trait among costumed heroes, it is that they all violently solve their problems. El Diablo? Not so much. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s not above using the Five Knuckles of Justice, but you get the impression that El Diablo would rather talk things out.

And that, my friends, makes him a pussy.

Sorry, but it’s true. Kids don’t want to read about guys like El Diablo.* I mean, look. The guy has a hard time with a shaky, gun-toting crackhead:

That’s just part of an excellently drawn scene where El Diablo tries to disarm this whacked-out teenager who has just blown a gringo away. I love El Diablo’s facial expression when he realizes the gun is empty. Man, Parobeck ruled, didn't he?

Anyway, it’s a great scene, but again I have to return to my theme: kids don’t want to see a masked vigilante who is trying his best to stop a drug-crazed punk without hurting him, they want to see drug-crazed punk’s brains go supernova and then cyborg ninjas come out of nowhere and there are explosions and breasts.

I loved El Diablo, but I’m too cynical to think that a book like it could last very long in a marketplace crowded with Deathkiller 3000 and Jugular Hex: Sexborg Assassin Supreme.** I’m not sure that there has ever been a demand for a book about a Mexican-American superhero/politician/community activist. If said superhero/politician/community activist was a woman and wore a little fishnet outfit? Maybe. Can she turn her fingernails into laser knives?

Now we’re talking.

*Who are these "kids" I keep referring to? Not even I know.

**For all my holier-than-thou talk, I would totally buy a comic called Jugular Hex: Sexborg Assassin Supreme.